Why Do Smart Leaders Make Bad Decisions Under Pressure? | Neuroscience in AI| AI for executives - AI Cafe Conversations | Neuroscience, Neuroleadership, and Human-Centered AI for Executives

Episode Transcript
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(00:12):
Have you ever made a decisionunder pressure that you knew was
wrong the moment you made it,and you still made it anyway?
That is not a character flaw.
That is your prefrontal cortexgoing offline.
And today I'm going to show youexactly what happened in your

(00:38):
brain and what regulated leadersdo differently.
So again, going back to thedecision that you took under
pressure, though you knew youshould not make it.
And you didn't take thatdecision not because you didn't
care, not because you were notsmart enough, not because you

(00:59):
were not experienced enough.
You still made the wrong call.
And maybe afterward you thought,what was wrong with me?
Here is the answer.
Nothing was wrong with you.
Your prefrontal cortex wentoffline.
I'm Sahar Indradi, I'm aneuroleadership coach and Force

(01:20):
Coach Council member.
Welcome to the AI CafeConversations.
I'm here today to show youexactly what happened inside
your brain in that moment andwhat regulated leaders do
differently.
Because the difference between aleader who stays clear under
pressure and one who unravels isnot intelligence, it's not

(01:43):
experience, it's not willpower,it's nervous system regulation.
So let's get into it.
Let me talk you into thebiology, or let me take you
inside your brain for a moment.
You are in a boardroom, theboard is watching, someone puts
a question to you that you werenot expecting.

(02:04):
The stakes are high, your bodyknows it before your brain
catches up.
What happens next is ancient, isnot modern, it's not leadership,
it's pure survival.
Cortisol floods yourbloodstream, adrenaline follows,
your heart rate climbs, yourmuscles prepare to move.

(02:28):
This is your stress responsesystem doing exactly what it was
designed to do.
Protect you rapidly withoutasking permission.
Here is the problem though.
That system was designed forphysical threats, a predator, an
attack, a sprint for survival.

(02:48):
It was not designed for a budgetmeeting or a bold question or
even a team conflict.
But your nervous system does notknow the difference.
So what happens to your brain inthose seconds?
Blood flow shifts.
Specifically, it shifts awayfrom the prefrontal cortex.

(03:11):
The prefrontal cortex is thepart of your brain responsible
for rational thinking, strategicreasoning, consequence
evaluation, impulse control, theability to ask: wait, is this
the right move?
When cortisol hits, thatfunction goes offline.

(03:34):
The amygdala takes over.
The amygdala is your threatdetection center.
It's fast, it's automatic.
And it's built for speed, notaccuracy.
The amygdala does not ask, isthis threat real?
It asks, is this threatpossible?

(03:57):
And then it reacts.
That is what neuroscientistssometimes call an amygdala
hijack.
The emotional reactive brainoverrides the thinking brain.
And here is what that looks likefrom the inside.
The decision feels urgent, itfeels necessary, it feels right

(04:23):
in the moment because yournervous system is treating it as
survival.
You're not making a strategicdecision, you're having a
survival reaction and calling ita decision.
This is not weakness.
This is 200 million years ofevolution doing its job, but in

(04:45):
the wrong context.
Research confirms whatneuroscience has long suspected,
your judgment under pressure.
Depends far more on yourphysiological state than your
intelligence, than yourexperience, than even your
intentions.

(05:06):
Your brain under threat is adifferent brain, literally.
The neural pathways being usedare different.
The chemical environment isdifferent.
The information beingprioritized is different.
You are not the same thinker at10 a.m.
in a regulated state as you areat 4 p.m.

(05:29):
after six hours of high-stakedecisions and a cortisol spike.
And yet, we expect leaders toperform at the same level in
both states.
That expectation is notleadership development, that is
wishful thinking about humanbiology.

(05:55):
What it looks like in the room,now let's make this real.
Because I want you to recognizethese moments, not in theory, in
the rooms you have been in.
The leader who commits to thewrong vendor because the board

(06:16):
is watching.
She had reservations, she hadflagged concerns in private.
But when the moment came whenall eyes were on her and the
silence stretched, her nervoussystem read the womb as a
threat.
The pressure to resolve thetension was louder than the

(06:42):
daytime.
Imagine that.
She signed the contract andspent the next six months
managing a relationship thatshould never have started.
That was not a leadershipfailure.
That was a nervous systemresponse.

(07:04):
The executive who approves abudget cut he does not believe
in.
He had a counter proposal ready.
He had the numbers, but when hissupervisor pushed back with
impatience, his buddy registeredit as a threat.
The discomfort of disagreementfelt dangerous.

(07:28):
So he folded.
He called it beingcollaborative.
His team called it abandonment.
That was not a character flow.
That was a fawn response.
His nervous system choseappeasement to reduce threat.

(07:49):
The CEO who doubles down on afailing strategy.
She has seen the data.
The pilot results are notmoving.
But reversing course would meanadmitting she was wrong in front
of her board, her team, and herinvestors.

(08:09):
Her nervous system readsreversal as a threat to
identity.
So she pushes harder,rationalizes the data, blames
executions, and by time.
That is not stubbornness, that'sa threat response protected, her

(08:31):
sense of self.
Here is the pattern across allthree.
They all feel like decisions,then actually reactions.
The distinction matters becausedecisions can be improved with
better data, better processes,better framework.
Reactions cannot, not at themoment they happen, not without

(08:57):
first addressing the nervoussystem state that is driving
them.
And this is where leadershipdevelopment typically fails.
We teach leaders betterframeworks for decision making,
we give them mental models,matrices, and looks and tools.

(09:23):
But none of those tools functionwhen the pre-frontal cortex is
offline.
You cannot use a tool you cannotaccess.
Remember that.
When you are on survival mode,you can never access any tool
because you live in that threat.

(09:46):
So you cannot use a tool thatyou cannot access.
So what regulated leaders dodifferently, and I always like
to make sure to share that inevery podcast.
I want to be clear about what Imean by regulated.

(10:07):
I'm not talking about calm.
I'm not talking aboutunemotional.
I am not talking about neverfeeling pressure.
Regulated means you have enoughaccess to your prefrontal cortex
to choose your response ratherthan react from your amygdala.

(10:34):
This is the entire difference.
Choice versus reaction.
Here is how regulated leadersbuild that capacity.
First, they create a gap.
Between stimulus and response,there is a gap.

(10:55):
Viktor Frankel wrote about this.
Neuroscience confirms it.
The gap is real.
It's physical.
It's the milliseconds andseconds between the moment your
amygdala fires and the momentyour prefrontal cortex either

(11:19):
comes back online or staysoffline.
Regulated leaders know how touse that gap.
Not as a mindset tip, not as athink before you react,
reminder, as a physicalpractice.

(11:42):
A breath that is longer on theexhale than the inhale activates
the vagus nerve and shifts thenervous system toward
regulation.
Your vagus nerve is basicallythe highway from your neck down

(12:04):
through your body that transmitsall the actions from the nerve,
from the vagus nerves.
So the vagus nerves shifts thenervous system toward regulation
when you exhale longer than youinhale.

And I usually say this (12:24):
inhale on four from your nose, hold for
four, and then exhale from yourmouth on the count of it.
That is not motivationallanguage, that is automatic
physiology.
Again, inhale from your nose forfour counts, hold for four

(12:48):
counts, exhale for eight counts.
Do it three times, three cycles.
That is enough to begin shiftingblood flow back towards the
frontal cortex.
Ninety seconds.
That's all it takes.

(13:10):
So if you start having this as ahabit to exhale longer than you
inhale for three cycles, four,four, eight, you can actually
shift the blood flow to go toyour thinking part of the brain,
the prefrontal cortex, so it cancome back online.

(13:32):
You don't need 20 minutes.
Again, 90 seconds, and aphysical practice you have
actually trained for.
Second, they know their ownearly warning signals.
Emotional intelligence, anyone?
Every nervous system has tells.

(13:53):
For some leaders, it's the jawtightening, for some, it's the
chest pressure.
For some, it's the voice thatgets whiter or the voice that
gets louder.
For some, it's the moment theystart talking faster than they
are thinking.

(14:14):
Regulated leaders know theirsignals, not in retrospect,
before the cortisol fully hits.
This is the window.
The moment before hijackcompletes.
That is where intervention ispossible.

(14:34):
Once the amygdala has fullytaken over, you are managing
damage.
The regulated leader catches itbefore that.
You can't catch a signal youhave never met.
Third, they separate urgencyfrom importance before the
pressure arrives.

(14:55):
This is the piece most leadersskip.
Most urgency is manufactured,not by malicious intent, but by
a nervous system.
When someone else isdysregulated, they create
urgency.
They need an answer now.

(15:16):
They need a decision today.
They need a resolution.
And their urgency is contagious.
Your nervous system picks up thesingle and begins to mirror it.
Regulated leaders decide what isactually important before they
are in the room.

(15:37):
They know which decisions aretruly time sensitive and which
decisions are only feeling thatway because someone else's
amygdala is running the meeting.
The question is not, is thisurgent?
The question is, is this urgentto me?

(16:00):
Or is this urgent because I haveabsorbed someone else's threat
response?
The framework underneath allthis, everything I just
described, the gap, the earlywarning signs, the predecision

(16:21):
regulation, they are notseparate tips.
They are part of a connectedapproach to building a nervous
system that leads rather thanreacts.
The approach I use withexecutive has a name.
Brain.
Five evidence-based principlesthat create the neurological

(16:45):
conditions for lastingleadership change.
I'm not going to unpack the fullframework here.
That work lives in my workshopsand coaching programs.
But what I want you to know isthat this is systematic, not
accidental.
Regulated leadership is not apersonality trait, it's a built

(17:10):
capacity.
And it can be built.
The next time you feel the pullto decide right now, that
feeling is latent.
Your nervous system is signalingthreat.
The question is not whether tomake a decision, the question is
whether you want your amygdalarunning your organization or

(17:34):
your pre-frontal cortex.
Because the best strategy in theworld is useless when the brain
running it is in survival mode.
You're not broken.
You're wired the same way everyhuman is wired.

(17:56):
The difference is whether youknow it and what you do with
that knowledge.
If you want to know where youstand, not your organization,
not your team, you personally.
I keep 30-minute leadershipclarity calls open for exactly
this conversation.
No pinch, no presentation, justclarity.

(18:20):
The link is in the descriptionbelow.
Thank you for being here, anduntil next time, stay regulated.
Before I leave, like every timeI ask you to show me some love,
subscribe, comment, rate ourpodcast, share it with someone
that needs to read it.

(18:40):
We have a fan mail link here.
I received a couple last weekand I was so happy and giddy
about it.
So thank you.
Please, like I said, show ussome love.
Um commenting and rating it andsharing our podcast.
Help us reach more people thatactually really need to hear
this.

(19:01):
Till I see you next time in ourFriday Forbes article by short
episode.
Peace out.

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Why Do Smart Leaders Make Bad Decisions Under Pressure? | Neuroscience in AI| AI for executives

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