We don’t necessarily do this consciously. It’s just our brains’ natural response when our status is under attack, say the neuroscientists.

So when  corporate rebels and mavericks challenge an organization’s status quo and executive decisions, leaders’ brains go on high-alert. Their decisions, their plans, their position feel threatened and under attack. The neuroscience research says this threat to status activates the same brain regions as physical pain.

The leaders’ knee-jerk reaction is often to label the people with the fresh new ideas as troublemakers. Or not having enough experience to really know what they’re talking about. And jeez, that kid isn’t even a manager, what could she  know? (See how put downs can make you feel better and restore your status?)

Guess what this reaction does to people with the fresh ideas that you need to lead? They run for the hills. Maybe they try to approach you or another executive again, but you’re likely not to welcome what they have to say.  Through words, tone or body language you broadcast the message throughout your organization: your ideas are NOT WELCOME.

And then you wonder why the culture isn’t more innovative and creative. Why too few people speak up with substantive comments at meetings.  Why it seems like you’re the only one with the answers.

Time to get your brain in line and recognize your “threat” triggers so that you can control them –  instead of them controlling you.

Who needs to change their ways: leaders or rebels?

Some executives have told me that “rebels and change agents need to learn how business works. You can’t just disrupt things and expect everyone to change.”

But should the corporate rebels be the ones to have to adapt their style? Or should leaders find ways to better understand how to control their threat triggers so that they can create a safe, welcoming climate for new ideas?

To me, this is the responsibility of the leader. All people can benefit from understanding and managing what trips them up. But with the prestige and financial compensation of being a leader comes the responsibility for first and foremost managing oneself. So your head is ready to be in the game of leading.

Humility and reappraising

This is why so many great leaders are humble. Humility reduces the status threat. It puts people at ease talking with you. It clears the leader’s mind of emotion so that he or she can really understand what people are saying.

Another way to manage the brain is to reappraise situations that start to trigger your emotions. What’s  the other person’s perspective? What does he want me to understand? What does she want me to do and why?  Look at what’s being said as data and nothing more.

Economic and competitive threats are relentless, causing their own set of threats and associated behavioral responses. But to succeed companies need new ideas and the best ideas are likely to come from the rebels and mavericks inside your own organization.

As a leader, help those people who can most help you succeed. Even if they make you uncomfortable. Maybe especially because they make you uncomfortable.

Help yourself by seeing challenges to the status quo as possibilities not attacks on your position.

Here’s an excerpt that captures the behaviors of those with a desire to lead.

Turning to one another

Ask “what’s possible?” not “What’s wrong?”  Keep asking. Notice what you care about. Assume that many others share your dreams.

Be brave enough to start a conversation that matters.

• Talk to people you know.
• Talk to people you don’t know.
• Talk to people you never talk to.

Be intrigued by the differences you hear.

• Expect to be surprised.
• Treasure curiosity more than certainty.

Invite in everybody who cares to work on what’s possible.

• Acknowledge that everyone is an expert about something.
• Know that creative solutions come from new connections.

Remember, you don’t fear people whose story you know.  Real listening always brings people closer together.

Trust that meaningful conversations can change your world.

Rely on human goodness. Stay together.

– Margaret Wheatley

• S = speed

• O = open. “If you don’t have an open environment inside your company or country, these new tools will blow you wide open.”

• C = collaboration. “This revolution enables people to organize themselves within companies and societies into loosely coupled teams to take on any kind of challenge — from designing a new product to taking down a government.”

• I = individuals. “People are able to reach around the globe to start something or collaborate on something farther, faster, deeper, cheaper than ever before — as individuals.”

• A = alignment. “The power of social media is that it is easier than ever to both articulate, and reinforce, the vision and values that create and inspire alignment.”

• L = leadership. “In a SOCIAL world leadership has to be a mix of bottom-up and top-down. Leaders need to inspire, enable, and empower everything coming up from below in a company or a social movement and then edit and sculpt it into a vision from above into a final product.”

From my observation working with large organizations, the greatest opportunity — and challenge — for companies is the Land the A. The I’s seem to be quickly  adopting the S, O and C.

As companies plan to roll-out internal social collaboration platforms like Sharepoint, Newsgator and Jive, they worry a lot about putting rules and guidelines around what employees can and cannot do.  Many fear what might happen if employees can connect freely. How are we going to prevent “them” from saying or doing inappropriate things, they ponder.

The bigger question to me is how is social changing how we lead? 

• How are we going to help and recognize managers to do and say more appropriate things that will make a difference to business outcomes?
• What new competencies will help managers tap into the extraordinary potential value?
• What traditional management practices are no longer as relevant — and what is emerging as more relevant?
• What might be possible if leaders were more passionate, and less fearful about SOCIAL?

“How could that happen,” I asked. “Wasn’t this a collaborative process where people came together to talk about possibilities, aspirations, and how to build on your formidable strengths?”

“Nope,” he replied. “The president wanted this to be done fast. He hired  a consultant and had some meetings with him, and then the consultant sent us a vision statement three weeks later. When we read it, we couldn’t tell that it was for our university. It could have been for any major university.”

“But you could have had speed and participation and you would have ended up with vision and beliefs that mean something,” I suggested.

“That’s not the perception. The feeling is that if you involve people, it will take a long time.”

I hear this a lot from executives. It would be “nice” to get people involved, but we don’t have time for that. Here’s the flip side: if you don’t involve people, you’ll end up with something that is ignored, something that requires enormous energy for  “buy in,” something that people don’t feel motivated to make real.  Your vision, plan or strategy will likely get stuck when it comes to implementation.

The real opportunity is to use new talent and techniques for facilitating collaborative planning so that you can achieve participation and speed.

Check out some of the “open source”  collaboration and positive change techniques like the Art of Hosting, World Cafe, and Appreciative Inquiry.  No proprietary methodologies here. Just brilliant approaches that work.

Innovative organizations like Google, The Gates Foundation, the city of Columbus, Ohio, and many more are adopting these approaches into their cultures for one reason: tapping into your own talent in new ways is the best way to ultimately achieve more, more quickly and in more meaningful ways.

1. Be positive: recommendations that are stated in the affirmative, that show what’s possible vs.what’s wrong, are more likely to be heard and acted on.

2. Frame it: frame how your idea helps the organization’s goals, cause, purpose. The more relevant the idea is to what everyone wants to achieve, the more open people will be to the idea.

3. Ask questions that highlight the possibilities vs. further damn the problems.  Possibilities create energy, problem dissing saps it.

4. Judge ideas, not people.  The first creates useful conversations, the second hurts, disrupts and usually dead-ends.

5. When angry, stop and wonder why. This has been especially helpful to me. I used to get so angry that I’d immediately react, or should I say over-react. Wondering why a person or company did or said something provides helpful perspective. The more we understand hidden motivations the more we can frame our ideas.

6. Strive for influence not power: influence inspires and motivates people to believe and act; power requires them to do so. Influence evokes possibilities, power evokes fear.  Power requires authority, titles and positions. Influence can be earned by anyone, no titles required.

7. Start the flame, tap into the collective brilliance of others to fuel the fire:  Change agents and rebels are the ones with the courage to be the first to stand up. To move from ideas  to action, bring in others who want to help. One person with a contrary idea usually gets little attention. Three people with a shared passion around a contrary idea start to get noticed.

8. Share the glory:  Revel in achieving something that benefits many, sharing the credit and the glory of all involved.  During my freshman year in college a philosophy professor told us, “Those who know know.” Even if it’s never publicly shown.

9. Communicate in ways that create clarity from complexity:  People need to understand what the idea is, why it’s relevant, and how it will provide value. Too often we get caught up in the “how we’re going to change things” before addressing the other important issues: context, relevancy, value.

10. Address the cost/value tradeoff:  are the benefits and value of the new way commensurate with the costs of change?

11. Let it breathe:  people often need time to absorb a new way, think on it for a while. As rebels we see things sooner and clearer than most and  get impatient with other people who aren’t as fast and decisive as we.  If we go too fast, we can mow over people, hurting the chances of being able to affect change.  In my corporate rebel research study, one write-in comment summed it up, “know that our velocity scares people.”

12. Pick the right boss or executive sponsor: find that person who appreciates your creativity, your fire-starting ideas, your naked truth-telling — and who can help guide and protect you  through the complexities of organizational politics and decision making.

13. Ask good questions, become a keen listener:  These two skills will serve as your advanced navigational systems as you chart through often foggy and potentially dangerous corporate seas.

14. Learn how to facilitate messy collaboration workshops to improve on your ideas, get buy in from others. People act on what they believe in. The more people who participate in shaping a new way, the more likely it is that they will adopt that new way.

15. Show how success can be measured.

16. Address the fears:  understand what people fear about the idea; respect, explore and test their assumptions; and/or explain how you plan to remove or minimize those fears.

17. Learn how to have constructive conversations. Most organizations are use to discussions (usually in the form of PowerPoint) that advocate for ideas, a win/lose form of communications. Constructive what/if conversations examine assumptions, open up possibilities, invite everyone to contribute, and value all points of view. A good book on this topic is “Naming Elephants: How to Surface Undiscussables for Greater Organizational Success.”

18. Be thoughtful in all you do: Thoughtfulness engenders support, abets truth telling, brings more humanity to our work, and adds more meaning to our cause.

19. Know when to walk away: perseverance is important. But so is knowing when to walk away, when the support for your idea just isn’t there. It may have nothing to do with you or the idea, the timing might not be right. Or the risks may be too great for the corporate culture.  Or people might not believe it’s really possible.  Don’t let your idea turn into a negative soapbox, where you lose your influence and rob yourself of energy and health. As Yogi Berra supposedly once said, “If no one wants to come, there’s nothing we can do to stop them.”

20. Believe you are enough.

Does your organization support a culture of change and innovation?

While most leaders want to be more innovative, often their cultures, business practices and management values don’t support such an environment.  Foghound’s study on corporate rebels found that just 34% are very satisfied with rebels ability to provide value in their organizations.

Here are six questions for leaders to consider as they assess how “change and innovation-friendly” their companies really are.

• When you look in the corporate mirror do you see a culture open to new perspectives?

“Rebels often butt heads with their supervisors who want helpers not idea people. Rebels don’t want to hear, “That’s not the way we do things around here.” Foghound Corporate Rebel survey respondent

• How do you lead management discussions so that people learn how to make decisions within a paradox of innovation?

How do you balance getting work done – with finding new ways to work? With adhering to standards – with taking risks? With rewarding employee cooperation – with recognizing employees for challenging the status quo?

• Does your culture create obstacles or opportunities for people with the courage to challenge assumptions and ask new questions?

• If people are your most valuable resource, how are you creating ways to tap into their collective brilliance? How do you make diverse perspectives heard?

• Who and what filters new ideas? Are they helpful filters — or blinders?

• Do your corporate values and beliefs encourage behaviors needed to innovate? (Or are your values rather bland and safe?)

Foghound Corporate Rebel Study: Value Rebels Provide to Companies