The “Ted Lasso” Effect at 10,000 feet: 4 things I learned about resonance in leadership
I recently wrote about how people working/living closely can form a synchrony of their thoughts. That post is HERE. Let’s do a deeper dive into how it might be applied to leadership.
Mind melds are not science fiction but fact! Powerful leaders use it well.
We love the stories of John Wooden, Melinda French Gates, Martin Luther King, and Malala Yousafzai to mention a few. Their lives are studied and movies are made trying to understand the secrets behind these powerful influencers. There is always a resonance between the leader and those who follow them. Modern research has found a new way to study resonance in social groups.
The synchrony of brain waves during social interaction was initially studied in social animal groups like bats and mice, at the University of California, Berkeley, UCLA, and Harvard.
The findings were fascinating.
Of particular interest was the fact that neural synchrony was higher between leaders and followers in the bat and mice communities who were farther apart in the social hierarchy, than between mice closer in rank (Hong and Kingsbury).
I had a recent opportunity to observe a yellow bellied marmot community for almost 24 hours at the summit of the Beartooth highway in Montana. The marmot is a highly social species that have sentinels perched on their back feet that take watch and call warnings while the others forage and scamper away from entrances to their burrows.
Select marmots perched in an organized fashion like neurons in the network of the mind, firing messages to each other in rapid fire. I wished I could decipher their language, but it was fascinating to watch the call and response.
The vigilance of the sentinels was highly focused. Scanning the horizon for threats, they would chirp an “all clear” so most of the marmots could put their heads down and forage without distraction. Other species seemed to take advantage of this safety zone as well, and I would see gray pika pop up here and there in their own hunt in a safe harvesting zone. I sat still in a camp chair in the glacial landscape and they seemed to accept me as another safe oddity in their world.
Occasionally a group of tourists would discharge from a bus to walk the trail through their burrow network to the sweeping view from the summit, eliciting a flurry of activity. Scrambling low across the rocky field lush with moss and arctic blooms they dove into their passageways, melting underground as the sentinel chirped warnings before diving below just out of reach of the oncoming human herd. It was highly organized and impressive. It was almost as synchronous as the phenomenon of murmuration where starlings fly in a pattern, changing direction as if they were a single organism.
Their interaction was so seamless they seemed to act as one mind, directed by the “executive” commands.
Watching this, I thought of how this relates to the power of synchrony in successful businesses and social movements. If this level of efficiency was established I had no doubt that success would be inevitable.
While not an official study, I observed several things that seemed to make this resonance possible.
The simplicity of clear roles (actualizing your position on the team)
Focused attention to the tasks at hand (game plan)
High levels of social intelligence in the group (other awareness and action)
Rapid, efficient response to change (adaptability)
Even when the leader may not be an expert in a new venture, synchrony always wins. If you are up on recent popular television shows you may recognize it as the “Ted Lasso” effect of bringing a disconnected team together to championship levels. It is not as crucial that the leader is an expert in futbol (insert industry here), but rather that he understands the individuals in the team and can coordinate synchrony between them.
Discord in a team creates inevitable failure. While there is much to learn about brain wave synchrony, it is a phenomenon that exists and can be fostered. It is something we have all felt at some point, and that resonance is powerful.
Whether it is an individual that creates a civil movement, a politician that inspires hope in tough times, or an underdog team rising to victory, there is always a resonance between that leader and followers.
How can you use your voice to create synchrony of thought that leads to powerful change?
How can you foster resonance in your world?