By Scofray Nana Yaw YEBOAH, PCC FInstCM
I shared my professional coaching perspective in a post by the International Coaching Federation on the differences between coaching, mentoring, and consulting across its social media platforms, aiming to enhance advocacy and education about what coaching truly is and is not for our global audience.
I shared, “Seek mentorship if you wish to draw on someone’s extensive experience, particularly in a related area of interest, to navigate a challenge. Engage a consultant when you are looking for someone to accomplish a task through his or her analysis and solution provision expertise.
If you want to embody and stimulate growth and development and create life-altering experiences of mindset, behaviour, and attitude (MBA) that influence your personality (DNA), professionalism, and corporate identity, then invest in coaching.”
The final paragraph resonated with me once more when I considered it in the context of leadership. Its evolution is striving to keep up with advancements in artificial intelligence.
This indicates that effective leadership is no longer merely about traits, personality, style, philosophy, etc. It is not just about casting a vision, exhibiting charismatic qualities, or making optimal performance and productivity decisions.
Leadership is about emergence and authenticity, which coaching through the head, heart, and gut with mBraining transforms into a revolutionary and evolving practice. Leadership, now more than in any previous era of the industrial revolution, must arise from nurturing, harnessing, and exploring the full spectrum of human intelligence.
One proven method, supported by evidence from neuroscience, is coaching. The ICF defines coaching as partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximise their personal and professional potential.
Coaching often unlocks, discovers, and rediscovers untapped sources of creativity, imagination, value, purpose, action, confidence, courage, momentum, and so forth, enhancing productivity, performance, team results, and leadership.
I often use the phrase “we are human beings, not human doings,and ”emphasising that we are more than mere thinking“ things.” Neuroscience and esoteric practices have shown that humans possess more than one brain or complex neural networks or forms of intelligence.
These can be activated and synchronised in coherence to expand and deepen the full spectrum of human intelligence, eliciting the best from within. Neuroscience is not limited to the cephalic (head) brain and the central nervous system. There are other branches; for mbraining, we consider neuro-cardiology, neuro gastroenterology, etc.
The SPANE Scale of emotions positions “authenticity” as a vital emotion, which is unsurprising as any leader who invests in coaching engages the primary functions of the head, heart, and gut to facilitate authentic emergent wisdom.
According to the works of Grant Soosalu and Marvin Oka in their book “mBraining: Using Your Multiple Brains to Do Cool Stuff,” the head brain, among many other functions, performs three core tasks: cognitive perception, thinking, and meaning making.
The heart brain is responsible for relational affect, values, and emoting, while the gut brain focuses on core identity, self-preservation, and mobilisation. When these three brains are at their highest expression and come into congruence, they evoke creativity from the head, compassion from the heart, and courage from the gut.
mBraining coaches explore the “leadership syntax” assessment that gives leadership clients a sneak awareness of how they pattern their three brains and the axis of outcomes and results.
What happens during coaching sessions involves more than simply stating, “thought-provoking”; the eight core competencies of the International Coaching Federation underscore the importance of emotions and feelings in enhancing awareness, insight, and embodiment, among other aspects. This indeed represents the heart brain exercising a primary function.
Such neuroscience evidence is further corroborated by the years of research conducted by a global heart research organisation called the HeartMath Institute. They assert and affirm the heart as an intelligence with its dedicated nervous system and electromagnetic fields. This supports a leader in sustaining a coherence of the heart to influence the working space and teams.
The HeartMath Institute has developed an award-winning device called the emWave, which measures heart rate variability (HRV). Neuroscientist Dr. Rollin McCraty also emphasises that leaders who regulate heart coherence experience improved emotional stability, resilience, and influence, leading to stronger team performance and loyalty.
Coaches from mBraining modality and other fields support their clients, particularly leaders, using this device to assist in daily coherence. When she appeared on the Harvard Business Review podcast, Oprah Winfrey once shared how important leading with empathy is to foster trust and deeper human connection.
Coaching facilitates coherence between the heart brain, allowing clients to understand how their leadership, decision-making, and ideas align with their values, purposes, and connections. It helps leaders lead with compassion, creating an environment where team members care about what is dear and meaningful to them beyond just performance and results.
Global business magnates and technologists such as Steve Jobs of Apple, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, and Richard Branson of Virgin Group have publicly credited their gut intuition for the major strategic plans, decisions, and executions that shaped the fortunes of their businesses.
In mBraining coaching techniques, leaders are supported to align and integrate their gut intuition to broaden their capacity and capabilities to navigate the uncertain, fragile, and complex business ecosystem. This also augments the neuroscience-based benefits of coaching in evoking authentic leadership.
Many works of Professor Antonio R. Damasio, an astute and accomplished neuroscientist, have also explored the gut intuition prowess of human beings. In many of his books, he demonstrates that intuition fosters feelings and understanding, which significantly aids leaders in high-stakes decision-making during moments where facts and logic alone are not enough. Gut intuition or hunch has been deployed in high-profile investigative cases, and all the above makes the gut, with 500 million neurons and an independent nervous system, welcome news of what coaching has to offer leaders.
During coaching sessions, significantly more occurs for a client at the neurological and ecological levels than can be perceived by the eyes. Nonetheless, the body and its remarkable possibilities have a way of demonstrating and connecting, enabling both the coach and the client to engage with it.
Coaching through the three brains (head, heart, and gut) evokes leadership, as I have previously explained; it is no longer static in philosophy, traits, and styles. Like water, it is a fluid way of being that manifests in three states: liquid, solid (ice), and gas (vapour).
In partnership with our autonomic nervous systems, the 3-brains or neural networks or intelligences create and imprint indescribable experiences. In the book by Gabriel Natureza, “The Neurobiology of Connections,” he explains how the autonomic nervous system dynamically shifts between states of safety, engagement, and action, directly influencing a leader’s ability to respond effectively to challenges. In addition, this is how coaching influences and impacts leadership more deeply and broadly than leadership has been discussed.
The Gallup Global Leadership Reports indicate that followers look up to leaders in the corporate sector for hope, trust, compassion, and stability. Numerous studies and reports from global research organisations, such as McKinsey & Company, have found that organisations with emotionally intelligent and adaptable leaders outperform their competitors by 20% in financial returns.
The International Coaching Federation (ICF) reported in one of its surveys that 86% of companies investing in professional coaching observe a return on investment, with 70% of individuals experiencing improved work performance and 80% reporting enhanced self-confidence.
In their various reports, the Harvard Business Review (HBR) suggests that executives, leadership, team heads, departmental heads, etc, who receive executive/leadership coaching develop stronger leadership skills, higher emotional intelligence, and greater decision-making effectiveness, leading to increased organisational agility.
In summary, evoking authentic leadership through neuroscience or mBIT coaching (head, heart, and gut) represents an intervention with a high ROI, particularly as global businesses navigate unprecedented disruption. Embracing mBraining provides a scientifically grounded and profoundly human approach to leadership excellence.
In a corporate world that demands both strategic acumen and emotional intelligence, the future belongs to leaders who think with their heads, feel with their hearts, and decide with their guts.
The neuroscience of coaching leadership is straightforward; with their three brains, leaders unlock new levels of personal and organisational potential, creating a legacy of transformation and meaningful impact.
Scofray Nana Yaw Yeboah, PCC FInstCM
Transformational Executive Coach | mBIT Master Coach | mBIT Trainer| President- ICF Ghana Chapter | Lead Consultant for Zoweh Global Consult.
Contact: +233 243 085 932 Email: [email protected] web: www.coachscofray.com
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