Are Leaders Born to Lead?

Were you born to be a leader? Or did you learn to become a leader? New research is suggesting that were are perhaps "wired" to be leaders. What do you think?  Read the In Brief below and comment on your leadership styles and techniques.




American Psychology Association - Monitor Magazine

In Brief
Snapshots of some of the latest peer-reviewed research within psychology and related fields.
June 2013, Vol 44, No. 6




Effective leaders' brains may be "wired" to lead, suggests a study from Wake Forest University. Researchers asked 103 West Point Military Academy officers to picture themselves as leaders of a combat unit and then describe the roles they saw themselves filling and the knowledge, skills and abilities they used in those roles. They also tested the participants' leadership and decision-making abilities in a hypothetical tactical military scenario. Then half of the participants underwent an electroencephalography scan so researchers could track activity in particular brain areas. The researchers found that officers who had a more complex sense of their leadership skills, described themselves as filling more leadership roles and showed greater neural complexity were more adaptive and effective leaders. In addition, brain networks in the frontal and pre-frontal lobes of the most complex and adaptable leaders — areas associated with self-regulation, decision-making and memory — were more complex and differentiated compared with those of leaders who were determined not to be very complex (Journal of Applied Psychology, online April 1).

What does living longer mean for our wellbeing?

IPPA Newsletter Volume 6 - Issue 1  - June 2013

An Interview with George Vaillant

As life expectancy increases throughout the world, the question of how we can remain healthy and flourish in our later years becomes more and more poignant. What are the factors that lead to healthy aging well into our golden years and beyond? One such study that set out to answer this question is the Grant Study of Adult Development. Begun in 1938, the Grant Study charted the emotional and physical health of 268 Harvard men and is one of the longest longitudinal studies of human development ever conducted.

Harvard psychiatrist George Vaillant spent nearly half of his life as the Director of the Grant Study closely following these men on their aging process and documenting their lives. The adult development pioneer has since authored eight books, three of which resulted directly from his research on the Grant Study. Vaillant’s first book, Adaptation to Life(1977), the now classic tome on adult development, looked closely at how the men were coping up to age fifty-five and identified various good and bad outcomes. Twenty-five years later he followed up with Aging Well (2002), reporting that, among other things, healthy physical and emotional aging from fifty-five to eighty is less dependent on genes and more on lifestyle choices, such as avoiding tobacco and alcohol abuse, keeping a healthy weight, engaging in light exercise, having an adaptive coping style, and having a loving marital relationship.

Now, his latest masterpiece, Triumphs of Experience: The Men of the Harvard Grant Study, published seventy-five years after the inception of the study, follows several dozen of the men who are still surviving into their nineties.  Many of them are thriving far beyond conventional retirement. What is their secret?

One of the key findings from his latest book, Vaillant says, is that "habits formed before age fifty, not heredity, were more important for growing old gracefully, well into our nineties." However, even more important for positive aging and how we cope with stress is having warm, nurturing relationships in our lives, he continues. According to the Harvard researcher, healing can happen when we deeply connect with others. "Relationships can help us recover from a damaging past such as the bleakest of childhoods even many decades later," says Vaillant. And strong relationships early on can have a protective factor down the road, he found. In addition to positive habits and supportive relationships, positive emotions are yet another critical factor for healthy aging, Vaillant says. (He emphasizes the importance of Barbara Fredrickson’s work on positive emotions, specifically her "Broaden and Build" theory.)

When I interviewed Vaillant four years ago, he spoke about the transformational power of love and how "having had a stable marriage at fifty predicted mental and physical health at 80 better than did either exercise or weight." Now, in my current interview, he further underscores the necessity of love and other positive emotions like hope and forgiveness and their correlation to health. These research findings, along with many others based on Vaillant’s unprecedented study on aging, can be found in Triumphs of Experience. Here are some highlights from my interview with Dr. Vaillant:

Suzie: You’ve dedicated more than half of your life to studying adult development. What is one of your most important or favorite findings?

George: That adult development is a lifelong process. We continue to evolve in our later years and often we become more contented and our lives become more meaningful. Also, it was the men’s successes, not their failures, which predicted subsequent mental health. For example, what they did with a loving or bleak childhood had as much to do with future success as the childhood itself. In other words, it is not necessarily what happens to you in childhood that determines your well-being. Instead, the actions that you take following the events of childhood are what matter. So, we’re not automatically doomed by our destiny.

Suzie: You mentioned the importance of positive emotions on health. Can you elaborate?

George: I believe that we need to replace the cognitive construct of "happiness" with the positive emotions of hope, joy, and love – which are visceral – because research, especially fMRI data, shows that visceral things affect health.

The effect of positive emotion on the autonomic (visceral) nervous system has much in common with the relaxation response through meditation. In contrast to the metabolic and cardiac arousal that the fight-or-flight response of negative emotion induces in our sympatheticautonomic nervous system, positive emotion via our parasympatheticnervous system reduces basal metabolism, blood pressure, heart rate, respiratory rate, and muscle tension. In other words, positive emotions like joy and forgiveness slow down the heart; whereas, happiness and excitement speed up the heart.

Suzie: Fascinating! What are some specific ways we can use positive emotions to induce the relaxation state?

George: Replacing resentments with forgiveness and putting yourself literally in the loving embrace of others are two examples.

Suzie: Speaking of others, you mentioned that relationships can heal the deepest of wounds and be a lifelong source of strength. Can you elaborate?

George: Yes, overwhelming research from the Grant Study shows that a healthy marriage can help soothe past hurts and lead to contentment later in life. And a warm maternal relationship can help protect us down the road, making us more resilient during tough times.

Suzie: In conclusion, what are the triumphs of experience?

George: To allow hope to triumph over experience does more good than harm.

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About George Vaillant

Dr. Vaillant is a Fellow of the American College of Psychiatrists and is an IPPA board member. He is on the steering committee of the Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania, and is a faculty member of its Master of Applied Positive Psychology (MAPP) program. An internationally celebrated research psychiatrist, Vaillant has received numerous awards, including The Distinguished Service Award from the American Psychiatric Association and the 1995 research prize of the Psychogeriatric Society. In addition to his latest book, Triumphs of Experience (2012), he has written Spiritual Evolution: A Scientific Defense of Faith (2008), Aging Well (2002), The Wisdom of the Ego(1993), Ego Mechanisms of Defense: A Guide for Clinicians and Researchers (1992), Natural History of Alcoholism: Causes, Patterns, and Paths to Recovery (1983), and Adaptation to Life (1977), his classic tome on adult development.