The biology of how we read impacts the way we see leaders

How is effective leadership reflective in the way we read? The question is actually very interesting, and one of those ah ha moments, where you see deeper into biology and psychology of everyday life. In the book by Susan M. Weinschenk “100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People”, she explores how we actually read through the use of saccade and fixation patterns. We don’t read smoothly and actually work through patterns. While we are reading, our eyes are using their peripheral ability to scan the letters coming up. So, we are interpreting patterns as information that we use to create images for what we are reading. We are so well tuned to figure out patterns, when reading words that are misspelled, we can instantly figure out what the misspelled word should have been: example wihch bird hsa hte sharp lcaws?  

So, what does my lack of proof reading have to do with leadership? Answer, everything! Everyone has said sometime in their lives, “I wish my boss would be consistent”.  Realistically, you want a great leader over a good leader. You want a good leader over a bad leader, right?  But, I bet you want a bad leader who is consistent over one that fluctuates from good to bad at the drop of a hat. It all comes back to consistency in action. If you have a great boss, you can prepare each day to have a relatively good day. If you have a bad boss, you come in, sit down, strap in, prepare for work, and sharpen your resume. It’s the boss that fluctuates that drives everyone crazy.  Your peripheral vision cannot read the pattern and prepare you for the future. It’s like a roller coaster ride through a dark tunnel. You never know what is about to happen and you don’t know if you are coming or going.

It is easier to improve a bad leader than an inconsistent one. Why, because the inconsistent one sometimes makes good decisions. They have to learn to look deeper into issues and how they would naturally react. Then, they have to learn which action they would normally do is correct. They have to relearn and apply new decision making patterns to become more consistent. Sometimes they become bad leaders, but that can be easily fixed. Hopefully, they become great leaders, and that should be reinforced. But it still comes back to how biology has helped us survive through the use of patterns.