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inherent bias - An uncomfortable truth

Inherent Bias – An uncomfortable truth

Posted by Bronia Szczygiel

We often explore Inherent Bias as part of our Bridging the Gap programme.

It’s interesting to note how people react to the idea that they might hold an inherent bias towards a particular majority group, or against a minority group. Especially the idea that they might be biased against their own minority group (for example, women scientists being biased against women in senior science roles).

There’s often a pretty strong reaction – usually rejection of the test (the test is rigged or doesn’t make sense), denial of their result and / or offering of their credentials to demonstrate they don’t have it.

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Leadership blog part 3 header image cogs magnifying glass brain

Reading people’s emotions; 8 practical tips – Leadership part 3

Posted by Matteo Trevisan

In part one and part two exploration of Leadership through reading peoples’ emotions – (i.e: Emotional Intelligence) I covered several key areas. here are the main points to consider:

  • Emotional Intelligence is a strong factor to effective leadership and an important element of E.I. is the ability to read emotions. (for more on effective leadership see our Leadership Course).
  • Quite a few mammals are able to read our emotions so we can conclude words are not the most essential source of information.
  • The seat of emotions is our face. There are at least seven universal expressions: anger, contempt, disgust, fear, joy, sadness, and surprise. These and more can be learned from experience.
  • Combined with facial expressions we also assimilate voice volume, pitch and body posture to create a holistic judgement about the person’s internal states.
  • This information needs to be processed by the brain at many levels. To do this the brain is constantly making predictions about the world around it.
  • These predictions lead to creating virtual models of other people’s minds in our own brains.
  • The ability to create these virtual models, combined with predictions made from accurate information, allow people’s brains to literally synchronise.
  • This synchronisation is a strong indication of true understanding and connection between two people. You are ‘clicking’.

So that’s a good look at the theory. What do we do about all this in practice?

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Leadership the brain as a prediction machine illustration

The brain as a prediction machine – Leadership part 2

Posted by Matteo Trevisan

In Part one of this Leadership blog I outlined how we actually see with our brains rather than simply with our eyes. So how does that work?

Look up at the sky.

What do you see? If you live in the U.K. there is a good chance your answer is…

Clouds… Lots and lots of clouds.

And if you look a little harder, you might distinguish the outline of a dog, or a fish, or your favourite leader. Our ability to constantly make predictions about the world around us is most obvious when it comes to the visual system. What are the implications of this when it comes to leadership? Read more