Week 1: HBR Social Intelligence and the Biology of Leadership

This week, I read HBR "Social Intelligence and the Biology of Leadership" by Daniel Goleman and Richard Boyatzis.

The article was about social intelligence of a leader. Humans have organs called mirror neurons, spindle cells, and oscillators in their brain, and they are the biological evidence for leaders with social intelligence success. Mirror neurons are organs in the brain that mimic, or mirror, what others do and react as you actually did that action by the other person. So, if a leader always smile or show happy feelings, the mirror neurons in the team members will work, and the members feel as they are smiling and in a good mood. Spindle cells are cells that are used when judging something in a very short period of time. The reason this organ is important is that intuitions, or first impressions, can be said that they are quite reliable and vital. Oscillators are organs that lets humans make "harmony" with other people. It can be said that making an effective team in a good mood is not an impossible thing.

Reading this article, what I thought was that the importance of social intelligence is obvious, and this article was not something that brings me something brand new. However, in the discussion in the class, we discussed what is our weakness and strong point in leadership, which was the part I didn't read carefully because thinking about this will be very subjective and not useful. I realized being subjective is OK, the important point is to think about yourself. 

I thought that my strong point is attunement, especially listening to others. In complicated discussions, I always try to listen to what others are saying, and ask whether my interpretation is right or wrong if that was possible. On the other hand, my weakness is that I'm not good at talking with people in different positions, especially someone in a position higher than me. I often get nervous and try to say something before thinking enough. To overcome this, I think I have to relax more. To relax, one way for doing this may be just to get used to it.

This article didn't really bring me some new facts, but it was a good opportunity to think about my own social intelligence.