More recent research has solidified the link between EI and leadership effectiveness. Relating Emotional Intelligence And The Health Of Your BrainĮmotional intelligence (EI) was identified decades ago as a dimension of intelligence. The pace of your life has a direct impact on your ability to be empathetic and to successfully work and communicate and interact with others. This is when the anxiety centers of your brain are overactive and change how you perceive things around you. If you have a ‘fast and furious’ type of lifestyle, always on the go at work and play, you may develop something known as negativity bias. One of the keys to brain health is to seek a balance for all the demands on your time, attention and brain power. One of the things we know from leadership research is that emotional intelligence is as or more important than IQ for an effective leader. Chronic stress levels lead to an increase in a chemical called cortisol, which can kill your brain cells.

But you don’t even need physical damage to have problems with empathy. Injuries to this area, even seemingly minor ones like whiplash, can cause neuronal shearing, where the long, slender (and fragile) axons in your neurons can be stretched and compressed. Johnson and I also discussed how the frontal lobe is one of the main areas that relate to empathy. Active scans examine emotional and stress trauma circuitry in your mind, which often manifest with anxiety and poor stress management.ĭr. Surface scans look at the outside cortex of your brain, and these are very sensitive indicators for overall brain health. Various imaging techniques are now available, many at your local doctor’s office, that can examine activity levels and blood flow. But how can we assess the health of our brain? You can’t exactly look in the mirror and see how your brain is doing.įortunately, neuroscience has given us tools to do what was once deemed impossible-we can obtain images of the brain to see how healthy it is or isn’t. The state of our brain has a massive impact on our moods, our emotional intelligence, our leadership abilities, and our interactions with other people. We discussed brain health and optimal performance for leaders. Robert Johnson, Medical Director for the Amen Clinics. While producing the Make Me A Leader documentary, I was fortunate to meet up with Dr. A healthy brain is a machine with lots of parts, and all these parts are required for leaders to be empathetic, compassionate, and innovative. While physical fitness is essential, mental health is equally as important. Physical health is often promoted and encouraged, from ads in social media to scientific articles that tout the many benefits.

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