Hardwired Humans. Andrew O'Keeffe

close to them

       give them resources

       protect them from unreasonable demands

       challenge the system where necessary

       decline to turn a blind-eye.

      While the team will appreciate their style, the downside is that such a leader might be seen by people higher in the organisation as difficult.

      In many organisational cultures, it is difficult for a leader to be good at managing both up and down. The ability to do so, apart from the leader’s own bias, will be driven by the culture of those in the high-power positions and whether those people are easy to please and expect managers to be effective at leading their people. Politics for social animals can be quite a challenge!

      So far we have covered how humans live. Together, the first two instincts describe a species that lives in hierarchical social groups. We have covered how leaders can use that natural orientation to make their job as a leader easier and more successful. The remaining chapters can be categorised as instincts that reflect the way humans think and feel. They relate to how we process information, how we make decisions and, in an evolutionary sense, how we make ourselves attractive to a member of the opposite sex as a potential mate. We’ll build up the picture as we go.