Once upon a time, a long time ago, I was THAT BOSS. Maybe not as much of a blowhard as say, Alec Baldwin’s Blake in Glengarry Glen Ross, as much of a jerk as Gary Cole’s Bill Lumbergh in Office Space, or as narcissistic and micromanaging as my personal favorite, Tony Stark (aka Iron Man), but I had my moments.
There was a reason for that: mirror neurons.
I started my digital consultancy Digital Surgeons from my dorm room in the predawn of the geek chic era. Within a few short years, my side gig was a full-service agency. Suddenly I was working with world-class brands, many of them tech-based. My biggest role models, like Steve Jobs, said to me that the world rewards bravado and favors boldness over kindness.
Like a boss.
And my biology supported this behavior, too. Like monkeys, we naturally tend to emulate what we see. The good news is we can use our natural wiring to be a force for good vs. terror in the workplace.
What are mirror neurons?
Simply put, they are that group of neurons in your brain that sees behavior and decides to mimic it. First noticed in monkeys (as in “monkey see, monkey do”), science shows we humans have the same mirror mechanism.
