How to use both sides of your brain to achieve balance and success

Months ago, I began coaching a manager and their direct report. The two were in deep conflict—the manager felt the direct report was reactive and defensive, while the direct report was unwilling to give difficult feedback, manage up, and advocate for their needs. At the time, their interactions were fraught with anger, frustration, and irritability. Attempts to resolve the conflict were unsuccessful. Neither were fully engaging their right hemispheres. Instead, they were operating from a predominantly transactional mindset and a triggered nervous system.

After a couple of months of one-on-one coaching with each, the direct report found the confidence and courage to deliver feedback to their manager. It was met with openness. The manager was able to sit in the discomfort that comes from the receiving end of feedback. Once there, they could move into a conversation underscored by tactical empathy, using resonant language to identify unmet needs and how they could collaboratively come to a solution.

In my ​​previous article, I suggested that rebuilding organization-wide trust requires a top-down commitment to rewiring the brain’s right hemisphere. Too often, leaders and staff in today’s workforce are prioritizing their transactional left hemispheres (versus their relational right hemispheres).

When both hemispheres come together and work in harmony, they offer unique opportunities to create connections, drive strategy, and influence teams—but only when balanced. If one is prioritized over the other, businesses will experience toxicity, low motivation, and other productivity killers.

The combined power of the left and right hemispheres

Leaders acting primarily from their left hemispheres often face challenges in receiving feedback, might find difficulty in fostering someone’s potential, struggle with flexibility and team-building, default to sarcasm instead of humor, and frequently find a lack of enjoyment in their work. Such behaviors are never isolated to an individual. Their impact permeates the business, presenting as imposter syndrome, frequent communication challenges, an inability to see different perspectives, and overall leadership friction. Alternatively, when acting from the right hemisphere only, individuals often possess large visions but struggle to devise the strategy to realize them. They might be plagued with depression and pessimism and may even act in retaliation or out of spite.

We are wired to belong and to be in relationship with each other. When your right hemisphere is not fully online, your instincts will still drive you to be in relationship with others—but you may act from a place of exclusionary relationship management. When our right hemisphere is diminished, it is common to exhibit exclusionary relationship behaviors such as:

• Placing blame instead of getting curious 

• Gaslighting instead of validating or listening 

• Avoiding instead of giving feedback 

• Bullying instead of guiding 

• Micromanaging instead of leading 

• Deflecting instead of reflecting 

The right hemisphere offers relationality and the ability to receive feedback, course-correct, and keep people coordinated. A more functional right hemisphere can help you create boundaries, prioritize your well-being, write inclusive policies, and provide air cover for your team. The left hemisphere offers structure, strategy, energy, and clarity. Together, they create a beautiful, crucial balance that enables us to flourish in the workplace.

How conversations using both sides of the brain can drive connection

Like the manager and direct report mentioned above, we struggle in conflict because our right hemisphere is not fully wired in a way that supports us through challenging or uncomfortable moments. In Dr. Inge Hansen’s book, The Ethical Sellout: Maintaining Your Integrity in the Age of Compromise, she states that “if a person can sit in distress, uncertainty and helplessness, they can manage anything.”

In a moment of conflict, someone has to be vulnerable—a right hemisphere behavior—to move into exercising tactical empathy. Sitting in discomfort affords you the luxury of staying in that zone—sometimes at length, while the other person who is unaware of how to join you in that discomfort, remains activated.

Remember that apathy impedes progress. If you choose to stonewall to avoid discomfort, you signal you are not committed to creating a connection. You can certainly take time to process and come back to the situation, but avoiding someone altogether generally isn’t helpful in the long run.

In a conversation that uses both sides of the brain, on the other hand, employees feel empowered to delegate, ask for more resources, speak up when they see harm, and have difficult conversations with their peers and leaders. Team members who are fully engaging their right hemispheres will also find that conflict can lead to connection. Leaders who fully engage both hemispheres will ask:

• “How can I show up for you right now?” 

• “How can we meet your team’s needs?” 

• “What does success look like as we partner on this project together?” 

• “Would you like me to just listen or provide insights as you share your story?”  

If you’ve been reading my articles over the past year, concepts such as “tactical empathy” and “sitting in discomfort” might sound familiar. Reading a handful of articles, however, does not equal a rewired right hemisphere.

As I noted, the individual and collaborative work between the manager and direct report took months to unfold. This might feel slow to you, but I encourage you to think critically about what could be at stake should you refuse to engage in the work to rewire your right hemisphere. If you or your team is experiencing broken trust, a lack of clarity, or an unwillingness to collaborate on a project, take a moment to slow down and assess what might be causing it.

Your business will demand moments of speed. This is okay—sometimes fast food is exactly what you need to satiate your hunger and keep going. And sometimes your team deserves a moment to slow down and savor a Michelin-star experience, as well.