We are witnessing a new world in the making. In the next 15 years, every industry on the planet will have to be re-designed. This requires brain power, creativity and a new style of leadership.

We need new cities, new sustainable energy, new mobility, a new supply chain infrastructure, food, education and health for 9.7 billion people.

The business models of the 20th Century are no longer applicable. Companies is this century, need to play by different rules, including how we lead.

Since leadership was conceptualised by Warren Bennis in 1961, many theories and definitions of what leadership is, have emerged.

The leadership of the ‘Industrial Age’ was characterised by managers who led using the ‘command and control’ approach in order to achieve a task in a systematic way. This model partly shifted to the acquisition of knowledge as the main source of power for a company. 

The leaders of the ‘Information Age’ changed their approach to lead teams towards a vision. However, in today’s economy, since knowledge can be easily reached, the source of power for an organisation lies on the ideas and the thinking of the people. This is called the ‘Imagination Age’.

Being able to elicit ideas from team members and support the feasible ones, while motivating different groups to work together and implement them, requires a new type of leader: the ‘Neuroleader’.

This leadership archetype can be defined as someone who knows how to inspire and achieve collaboration, someone who understands how creativity works and who is agile enough to adapt to constantly changing conditions.

The term ‘Imagination Age’ was first introduced by designer and writer Charlie Magee in 1993 and then popularised by artist, writer and cultural philosopher Rita J. King. 

The concept of the ‘Imagination Age’ has been extended by some thinkers to an ‘Imagination Economy’ where intuitive and creative thinking create economic value, after logical and rational thinking has been outsourced to other economies.

Imagination refers to the faculty of mentally forming new concepts, ideas or patterns without involving the senses. Imagination is important because our brain imagines all the time, even when we do not notice it.

Imagination influences everything we do, think about and create. It leads to elaborate theories, dreams and inventions in any profession from the realms of academia to engineering and the arts. Read more here.

Developing the leaders of the ‘Imagination Age’ requires a different approach to the traditional methods used in the past. New discoveries and technologies are shifting how we think, behave and interact with the world and with each other.

The emergence of neuroscience and its application to this field provides a new understanding of how to best develop the leaders and the organisations in this new world that many call VUCA.

VUCA stands for Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity. It is a term that derives from the American military terminology and has extended to the business world. Change is all around us! The boundaries between our private and professional lives are blurred - and balancing both is increasingly challenging.

Against this backdrop, we need to rethink how we equip ourselves to perform consistently well at a high level. We believe that nurturing the abilities of the i4 Neuroleader™ Model can have a significant impact on leadership effectiveness, helping leaders better respond to the ‘VUCA’ world and meet the demands of the Imagination Age.

The i4 Neuroleader™ Model & Methodology is a neurobiology-based set of strategic and practical processes, created by leadership expert Silvia Damiano, used by organisations to improve leadership performance, collaboration, innovation and agility for personal and business growth.

The concepts that support this methodology are based on the latest findings from the fields of neuroscience, gut health, sleep, meditation, body movement and neurofeedback, mind-brain development, high performance, mindfulness, emotional intelligence, positive psychology, design thinking, strategy, innovation, change management and agile methodologies.

The competencies of the i4 Neuroleader™ Model are: performance, collaboration, innovation and agility. They are underpinned by 16 pillars or abilities of equal importance. Amongst them there are 4 abilities that start with the letter ‘i’, hence the name i4 Neuroleader™. 

The 4 ‘i’ abilities can help leaders to navigate a VUCA world. Let’s have a look:

• Imagination is critical to deal effectively with volatile conditions generated by continuous change. 
• Inspiration can help overcome the uncertainty created by unpredictable circumstances. 
• Integration is crucial to realise the connection between different variables in a complex world, a balance and integrated brain is key. 
• Intuition can help resolve the ambiguity of our times, in which the sequence of simple and linear ‘cause and effect’ no longer work.

Yes! The 16 abilities can be measured using a psychometric tool called the i4 Neuroleader™ Assessment. It is made up of two components: a self-evaluation and a 360° feedback evaluation (completed by people who know the person well). 

The participants can invite not only people from work, but also family and friends. This type of feedback allows participants to have a more objective view of themselves so they can focus on the areas that need development.

The i4 Neuroleader™ Program is a neurobiology-based personal leadership journey designed to optimise brain function and emotional wellbeing. 

Through feedback, reflection, coaching, experiential activities and self-paced learning, participants become more aware, resilient, creative, intuitive, mentally sharp and influential. 

This research-based program aims to develop the collective consciousness of teams and organisations by enhancing the competencies of performance, collaboration, innovation and agility.

If you would like to roll-out the i4 Neuroleader™ Program for staff, contact us to learn more. You can also certify HR/L&D/OD/business champions/consultants who can then conduct this program internally.

If you are an external consultant you can become certified and run the i4 Neuroleader™ Program with your clients within the organisation.

If you are a leader or you are interested in developing your personal leadership, you can sign up to our i4 Neuroleader™ Platform to learn online at your own pace.

The term ‘Neuroleaders’ are people who are aware of how their brains work and use this knowledge to lead themselves, their teams and organisations more effectively. 

The term derives from the field of ‘neuroleadership’, a word coined by consultant David Rock to explain how neuroscience findings can be applied to leadership and organisational development.

Based on a publication by the World Economic Forum, some of the skills to be ‘future fit’ are leadership, communication, creativity, complex problem solving, critical thinking, emotional intelligence and networking. 

These skills depend on the optimal functioning of the brain and the balancing of the analytical and interpersonal skills. The i4 Neuroleader™ Model & Methodology provides the foundation as it can help a person understand how the brain works and the strategies that are required to improve its function.

The future of leadership development will be focused on refining brain function rather than merely trying to only improve behaviour. Most of the frameworks, models and methodologies used in the past have been developed using psychological and behavioural change approaches which not always proved to be effective. Neuroscience discoveries are providing a new lens to understand leaders’ behaviours, decisions and actions.