1: Introduction: Leaders' Brain as a Decision-making Organ

What exactly is leadership? At its core, leadership is about motivating a group of people to achieve shared goals. To understand leadership, we need to answer a fundamental question: Why do people behave the way they do? Traditionally, leadership has been studied through a behavioral lens – an examination of leaders' behaviors. Yet, this behavioral approach invites a further query: Where does behavior come from? Behavior, both leaders' behavior and how people respond to it, is an outward manifestation of a decision made in the human brain. Think of leadership as a tree, where visible branches and stems represent observable behaviors. Still, there is a substantial part that remains invisible – the root system, which is like intricate mental processes that underpin decision-making. Much like a tree that draws its strength from its roots, the quality of a leader's decisions is heavily reliant on their underlying mental processes.