Resonant Leaderhip: Post #3- Renewal Cycle

The Renewal Cycle: Just as The Sacrifice Syndrome can infect anyone, especially leaders, with negative attractors, causing dissonance that can be their eventual undoing and a source of individual and corporate cultural rejection, the Renewal Cycle has the opposite effect. In the Sacrifice Syndrome, the negative stimulus (dropping revenues, a difficult boss or employee) enters the right part of the brain and gets transmitted through the Sympathetic Nervous System. This stimulates the release of hormones (adrenaline and cortical) which is really good when you’re really in trouble…not so great when released several times a day. On the other hand, positive attractors, things that happen that are pleasant, even gratifying (being loved, praised, honored) trigger the opposite side of the brain, and the lucky person secretes either oxytocin (women) or vasopressin (men)—both of which reduce blood pressure and make us calmer, more relaxed, and more able to solve problems more quickly and easily. Such a cycle basically reboots our brain and resets the positive balance, especially when we’re out of balance because of The Sacrifice Syndrome. And, like the negative attractors, such positive attractors are very infectious. In fact, the quickest way to attract someone to your positive wavelength is through smiling or music—both of which are hard wired into our limbic, primordial brains. The authors offer three types of positive attractors to get this Renewal Cycle started: Mindfulness, Hope and Compassion.