Trust in leaders comes naturally but stoking fear will sabotage it

Trust is the enabler of global business — without it, most market transactions would be impossible.

Picture: istock

Trust is the enabler of global business — without it, most market transactions would be impossible. It is also a hallmark of high-performing organisations. Employees in high-trust companies are more productive, satisfied with their jobs and healthier than those working in low-trust companies. Businesses that build trust among their customers are rewarded with greater loyalty and higher sales. And negotiators who build trust with each other are likelier to find value-creating deals.

Despite the primacy of trust in commerce, its neurobiological underpinnings were not well understood until recently. But during the past 20 years research has revealed why we trust strangers, which leadership behaviours lead to the breakdown of trust, and how insights from neuro­science can help colleagues build trust with each other — and help boost a company’s bottom line.

Human brains have two neurological idiosyncrasies that allow us to trust and collaborate with those outside our immediate social group. The first involves our hyper­trophied cortex, the brain’s outer surface, where insight, planning and abstract thought largely occur. Parts of the cortex let us do an amazing trick: transport ourselves into someone else’s mind.

Called theory of mind by psychologists, it’s essentially our ability to think: “If I were her, I would do this.” It lets us forecast others’ actions so we can co-ordinate our behaviour with theirs.

The second idiosyncrasy is empathy, our ability to share people’s emotions. Copious research shows that empathy is enhanced when the brain releases the neurochemical oxytocin. Humans have a high density of oxytocin ­receptors in the frontal cortex, which means our social nature is anatomically inscribed in our brains. As a result, we absorb ­social information and understand others’ motivations with unconscious ease.

Oxytocin has two other primary effects on humans. First, it reduces the anxiety we naturally have around other people. Second, it motivates us to co-operate with each other. That’s because oxytocin also modulates dopa­mine, the brain’s “do this more” reinforcement chemical. Dopa­mine makes it feel good to collaborate and connect with others, which means working together is something we evolved to enjoy.

To trust someone, especially someone unfamiliar to us, our brains build a model of what the person is likely to do and why. We use both theory of mind and empathy. And the other person intuitively does this about us, too.

At work this trust game has an extra factor, which is the example set by leaders. As social creatures, we naturally follow leaders and model our behaviour on theirs. The influence they have means they can easily sabotage trust in two key ways: by stoking fear and wielding dominance.

Fear is a great motivator in the short term but a poor one in the long term. If your boss occasionally pressures you on a deadline, it can push you to get the work done on time. However, if you know your boss will berate, threaten or punish you no matter what, fear ceases to affect your performance. This leads to learned helplessness: staff cannot control or predict the boss’s tirades so they avoid them whenever possible and stay invisible by doing the minimum.

Dominant behaviour, on the other hand, hurts the people who are targeted. When the boss struts around and mistreats underlings, not only are people demotivated now but the effects are lasting.

Neuroscience studies have shown that humans process social rejection in the brain’s pain matrix, and the signature of social pain lasts even longer than that of physical pain. Dominant behaviour also leads to stress, which, by inhibiting the brain’s production of oxytocin, reduces the desire to work with others and put in discretionary effort to further the org­anisation’s goals.

While it is easy to blame aggressive behaviour on a boss’s personality, science shows that when people are the centre of attention, their testosterone rises. Even a relatively calm situation — say, winning a chess match — increases testosterone, so imagine the hormonal surge when the boss closes a multi-million-dollar deal.

To study these kinds of effects, my lab administered synthetic testosterone to a group of people to turn them into alpha males.

We found that, when participants were alphas, they demand­ed more from and gave less to others than they did when on a placebo. They also greatly exaggerated their abilities and were quick to punish those who crossed them. High testosterone con­vinces the brain that others find you desirable and socially powerful. It also inhibits the release of oxytocin, reducing empathy and the wish to collaborate. Dominant behaviours are particularly acute in men, who have five to 10 times the testosterone of women, but they also arise in female leaders.

Paul Zak, a professor of economics, psychology and management at Claremont Graduate University, is chief executive of Immersion Neuroscience.