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Certainty
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Certainty

How Great Bosses Can Change Minds and Drive Innovation

Mike Mears
Fast Company Press, 2025
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Recommendation

Mike Mears combines neuroscience, psychology, and real-life leadership stories to provide actionable strategies for working with human nature — not against it — to overcome the fear and resistance that stifle innovation. Offering tools for feedback, change management, and delegation, Mears shows how to create an environment of certainty and trust. His guide is a must-read for leaders seeking to unlock their team’s potential by understanding the minds they work with, fostering loyalty, and driving performance.

Summary

The modern office environment conflicts with people’s hardwired instincts.

Humanity is wired for survival. People respond, by default, to potential threats with immediate, instinctual reactions — fighting, fleeing, or freezing. These primitive fear responses stem from your “auto-brain”: the part of your brain that handles habitual actions, instincts, and emotional responses without conscious thought. It is highly energy-efficient and focuses on guiding your reactions rooted in evolutionary survival programming, such as resisting change and seeking certainty.

Unfortunately, survival mechanisms don’t align well with the modern workplace, and can cause problems for managers who push for change. When faced with new policies or a different leadership approach, employees may unconsciously feel threatened, because the auto-brain perceives any change as potentially dangerous. Managers who rely on rational arguments for change may find themselves frustrated by their team’s desire to retain the status quo. However, leaders who recognize and adjust their approach to address the auto-brain dynamic create an environment...

About the Author

Retired CIA chief of Human Capital, Mike Mears, founded and led the CIA Leadership Academy.

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