Neuroscience of Cults
If you think you’d never be pulled into a cult, that belief itself is part of the danger. In this episode, we explore why the brain is far more influenceable—and more predictable—than most of us want to believe.
We take a closer look at what happens when belonging, something we’re biologically wired to seek, becomes a pathway into harm. Together, we examine how group dynamics, stress, and relationship patterns can quietly shift a person’s behavior and sense of self. Laine brings research and real-world examples that show just how thin the line can be between healthy connection and unhealthy devotion.
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General Outline of Episode
1. Intro & Overview
In our last episode, we explored how teamwork changes the brain—and how connection drives performance.
But even the strongest teams need direction. When things get uncertain, we look around and instinctively ask: who’s in charge?
In those moments, leadership doesn’t just guide action—it shapes how safe we feel, how we solve problems, and how willing we are to take risks.
And today, we’re looking at leadership through the lens of neuroscience—how it works in the brain, when it breaks down, and why it matters more than ever.
In 2022, Stephen Covey wrote a book on leadership. In the book, one of the case studies he reviews is Microsoft, citing its history. Specifically, where Microsoft moved from being ‘the’ tech giant to honestly fading to its competitors. An Article in CIO documents how between the blue screen of death and all but disappearing from mobile tech changed them. Covey cites “innovation had all but ceased” and “It was losing relevance in the marketplace and the workplace. Vanity fair also reported on this, documenting how their best days were behind them and their stocks were plummeting. Covey cites how “top talent was leaving” and it stopped being “the” place to work. He cities that the foundation of this was culture, noting how a cartoonist drew the company’s org chart as a pyirmid shaped hierarchy “a hand stuck out of each spot on the pyramini, pointing a gun directly at one of the others”. In 2014 Satya Nadelle moved into CEO. In Nadelle’s book he cites that “innovation was being placed by bureaucracy". A company that was once sought after as the place to work, was not, its leaders moved from innovators to finger pointers. Its product is losing relevance. And it showed. At its peak, Microsoft was worth 600 billion. When Nadella became CEO the company had dropped to being worth $300 billion. It is now worth 3.79 trillion. How did Nadella take a failing company from 300 billion to 3.79 trillion? Good leadership.
So, this is the neuroscience of Leadership.
2. Theoretical Foundation
On this podcast in the past, somewhat on accident, we have covered how we are a social species. Our strength is in our ability to connect, to work with one another. We covered this last month in depth by exploring teamwork. However, as teams get bigger, or as we covered even in our first season, when we get stressed, we look to leadership. Without knowing it, more often than not, in a stressful situation, humans will be looking around to explore ‘which one of us is taking charge’. And yet, according to Rock and Schwarts, we resist change, we resist being told what to do and “Our brains are addicted to creating our own insight–conclusions we draw on our own, through answering questions and discovering things on our own”. When we are stressed we don’t want to do things alone, but when we are not stressed, we don’t like being told what to do.
How do you lead humans than?
Rock, Shcwarts, Melwin, Joy, Scharfebue, and Covey - in fact all of the research that this podcast could find, pretty much all boiled down to the exact same thing. Leaders need to find a way to create a space that is safe to be brave, to explore, to feel motivated, to feel that we are seen and heard and valued and trusted. To boil it down to Porages, we are in a connected space (where we feel safe and when we feel safe we get creative, we get more intelligent, we can problem solve, we take risks, we do incredible amazing things) or we are activated - we pull in for safety, we get reactive, we get defensive or we go numb and collapse and withdrawal. We don’t want to talk risks because we will be harmed. We don’t want to speak up because that could cause backlash. We just survive somehow. So to look at the neuroscience of leadership, we need to look at if leaders are creating a space of connectedness or safety.
Thus, if you want a high preforming successful environment, you need to think in terms of “neuroleadership”, which is a growing field looking at how neuroscience helps us understand effective leadership. So to dive into Neuroleadership - lets take a look at the brain.
3. What Happens in the Brain?
Leadership does encompass many things, so for this reason a whole branch of neuroscience has been created to explore it. With that in mind, obviously this episode will not be able to go into all the ways our brain can fire when we are engaged in neuroscience. And some, if not many of them are a review, specifically from last episode or from the Neuroscience of trust which is how we started this season. In quick overview, they encompass our prefrontal cortex because when we have access to this part of our brain, this is what help us engage in strategy and problem solving (the access comment is a hint of what is to come in this episode if you are wondering). Things that impact our access to this should not surprise you, is the amygdala, which is more activated when there is cortisol which is our stress hormone, impacting our activation, increased energy in our nervous system and putting us into a treat response. Besides working to be regulated, social connection, mirroring neurons, and empathy can help and to make this feel worth it, our dopamine system in our ventral tagamental area and nucleus accumbens keep us coming back for more and trying hard. Since we covered a lot of what goes on the brain for these same responses last episode, lets cover some new factors where the brain is impacted by leadership.
Jeffery Schwartz and David Rock state “Businesses everywhere face this kind of problem: Success isn’t possible without changing the day-to-day behavior of people throughout the company. But changing behavior is hard, even for individuals, and even when new habits can mean the difference between life and death.”
Specifically, our brain does not like change at all. It is actually read the same way as pain is in the brain. Even something that might appear simple or easy can cause physical discomfort. Change is also more taxing on the brain, meaning we feel more drained.
According to Rock and Schwartz “Just trying to change the smallest, routine behavior can send out strong messages in the brain that something is not right. They can overpower rational thought.” and when this happens and our brain is saying something is wrong, this means higher thought is limited, which makes being creative and problem solving through change even harder.
They will also state that more often than not “when leaders tell us what to do, we react like two-year-olds and push back (or reject the coaching entirely)”. Human’s do not like change and we don’t like being told what to do and we don’t do well with it.
And yet, how many of us have experienced managers that do that. But as Covey states that most of the tools most managers use “were invented people born in the nineteenth century, not long after the end of the American Civil War”. In what other area of life would we be continuing to use tools developed in the 1800s.
Nothing fails like success.
4. Practical Application (Strategies & Takeaways)
Covey describes how most leaders work through something he calls “command and control”. He states that when you hear the word manager and you think about what they do, most people will say they “manage people” and that is the difference between a manager and a leader. He states to do this, we need to manage things and lead people. When we work from the perspective of trying to command and control people, we shut them down. With command and control “the constant focus on efficiency often leads to managers treating people the same way they would treat a machine”. The problem is that people are people. We are unique, and creative. We are not machines. In the best ways - humans can still do things machines never will, we can do great amazing things, but not if we are treated like machines.
Rock and Scharwatz state “Helping people reach their potential through imagining a different future-state (self-actualization) produces powerful chemical reactions in the brain. In short, we are addicted to creating our own insights.”. They explain that when we solve a problem ourselves, our brain’s neuro network of reward lights up. We get adrenaline and dopamine. It feels great! To do that we need to be trusted.
Trust means an emotional connection. Its being with someone who is regulated, who won’t lash out at you. Its being with someone who can help you when you are stressed. Its someone who understand, sees you and knows that you matter.
Rock and Schwartz also state that positivity lights up the brain. We’ve covered that a lot here. Its not just about doing something but really noticing what you have done and being proud of it.
Manu Melwin Joy states “The human brain occasionally regards social rewards like physical rewards.”. Positive feedback has been show to stimulate the same reward centers in the brain that financial rewards to, and often give more of a light up. And yet we keep using carrot and stick in the work place. We think in teams of financial motivation or harm only and Covy will state “Extrinsic motivation offers short-term success but has been proven to be defieicne, ore even detrimental in the logn run”.
Joy states the need for understanding how much we are social creatures in the work place, understanding how much we need positive social interaction, social interaction that creates a space that helps us feel trust and inspired matters. Joy states there are “ five social rewards and threats that are extremely vital to the brain: status, certainty, independence, relatedness, and equality”. When we work in leadership to support these, we see a much different response.
Covey state ”When we model people will think I want to be like this person
When we trust, people will think, I watn to deliver for that person
And when we inspire will think I watn to contribut with that person”
5. Closing & Recap
In Simon Sinek’s Ted Talk, he reviews how the Navy Seals (considered to be the best of teamwork and leadership). He inquires how they do what they do. He says they drew a graph with performance on one side and trust on the other. He states when we think of performance, we think of skills, quarterly earning, ect. Trust is how much I can “trust you with my money or my wife”. He states the navy seals look for high preformance and high trust, but when push comes to shove, they will choose a high trusting person over a high preforming person. Which is the exact opposite of what many business do.
In your average corporate american setting, there are many leaders. Most of those leaders got there by starting on more of the bottom of the ladder and working their way up. They proved themselves by being high preforming at their jobs, and those above them thought if they preform so well, they can probably help others preform well.
And some ended up being good leaders. But not uncommonly they are often not always trained. Many ‘work their way up’.
What’s wrong with that? Leadership is what helps control culture. If you know nothing about how to enspire or create healthy culture, how can you do this?
In our last episode, we talked about the needs for teams to flourish well meant we needed things like “Social Cognition & Theory of Mind”. The ability to understand one another, and to understand the thoughts, emotions, references, conclusions, and needs of someone very different to us. We talked about the ability to create empathy, trust,and fairness. The ability to have strong emotional intelligence and the ability to regulate and focus well.
However, most companies will tell you these are “soft skills”.
Neuroscience will tell you they are hardwired neurological needs.
