Workshop Takeaways
Neuroscience of Change Leadership
General Meeting: February 12, 2026
Presented by Megha Makam, PhD
The workshop may be over, but the growth and learning continue! Use this page to revisit the concepts, tools and printable resources.
Related Workshops
Workshop Tools
Leading through Ambiguity
People tend to freeze and make up stories when the future looks ambiguous. Leaders can counteract these effects:
- Call out transparency. Overshare.
- Set expectations for the next update.
- Practice the no-update update.
- Tell people how to act "keep doing what you're doing"
Take a Slow Exhale
Take a deep breath in and exhale very slowly through pursed lips. Do a few of these if you can.
- Instantly activates the vagus nerve and your parasympathetic nervous system
- Your nervous system relaxes
- Now you're ready to apply tool #3
3 Quick Steps to Activate EQ
- Label the emotion (it doesn't have to be exact)
- Ask a question to stimulate rational thought
- Ask "what could I do that I'd be proud of later?"
The limbic system "let's go"- The prefrontal cortex is re-activated
- Framing the decision reduces emotional impact
Slide Deck
Research Cited:
- Friedland, N., & Keinan, G. (1991). The effects of stress, ambiguity tolerance, and trait anxiety on the formation of causal relationships. Journal of Research in Personality, 25(1), 88-107.
- Mason, D., & Allen, B. P. (1976). The bystander effect as a function of ambiguity. The Journal of Social Psychology.
- Torre, J. B., & Lieberman, M. D. (2018). Putting feelings into words: Affect labeling as implicit emotion regulation. Emotion Review, 10(2), 116-124.
- Lerner, J. S., Li, Y., Valdesolo, P., & Kassam, K. S. (2015). Emotion and decision making. Annual Review of Psychology, 66, 799-823.
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