Understanding Your Brain on Change!

Posted Jun 16, 2025 by Rick

Last month we explored leading in today’s crazy-fast, disruptively changing work environment – what I call “The New Ab-Normal.” We discussed how important it is today for leaders to understand their role in being a “dealer in hope” for their workforce – helping to keep folks balanced and de-stressed in the face of a dynamically changing world.

While it is true that we all need great leaders in our lives to help us navigate the world, we need to also acknowledge that each of us is responsible as a leader – if only as a leader of ourselves – and that we each need to strive to improve our coping skills because the world is not likely to slow down for us. The pace of change is never going to be this slow again, so we all need to decide to be better at coping with change and uncertainty. We all need to understand our brains on change!

So, let’s do a short “crib-notes” version of brain science to understand how humans (all of us) tend to process uncertainty in our world. The image here shows a few, key parts of the human brain:

• Prefrontal Cortex: Our critical thinking, analytical processing part of our brains.
• Amygdala: The emotional processing center of your brain ( together with the Limbic System, sometimes called the “primitive or reptilian brain.”)
• The Limbic System: The Amygdala works with the Hypothalamus to trigger your limbic system when you feel threatened

To understand our response to change, let’s focus on the role of our Amygdala – the brain’s emotional processing center. Part of our primitive brain, the Amygdala works to protect us from threats in the world around us. It is constantly scanning the environment to check for threats – literally for lions, and tigers and bears (Oh my!). 

When it finds something (like a predator) that might be a threat to us, it triggers our limbic system to flood the body with adrenaline – preparing us to defend ourselves through the fight, flight or freeze response. When triggered by anything we perceive to be a threat, the Amygdala works instantly to determine our best recourse – whether we can run or whether we need to hide (freeze) or even turn and fight There is no time for analytical reasoning, so the Amygdala takes change – temporarily turning off the pre-frontal cortex so that we can survive the immediate threat. We can reason later – now we just need to survive!

In our current, crazy-paced world, many may be suffering from a chronically triggered Amygdala. We may become overwhelmed and stressed by what might appear to be constant “threats” around us. Such chronic triggering has the effect of keeping our Amygdala in control of our responses and behaviors. Our emotional brain – our primitive brain being chronically triggered means we behave emotionally – deprived from the more objective, analytical perspectives that our pre-frontal cortex might offer. This chronic state is referred to as an “Amygdala Hijack” and helps to explain why we (and our co-workers) might be dis-engaged, stressed or even “quiet quitting” at work.

So, what can we do about better managing our brains on change? Well, a first step is to understand that our brains are working as designed. They are pre-programmed to protect us from environmental threat – so your brain is functioning as designed. It just wasn’t designed for this – a constant state of change and stress in our world.

When we understand what is happening, we can take a few steps to adapt:

1. Realize that “this too shall pass.” Remember times that changes in your life seemed to be over-whelming. Events you thought you might not be able to control. You’re still here, right? Still standing? What did you learn? (That you’re stronger than you thought?) Resilience in life is born of life events you’re survived. Your grandfather was right, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger!
2. Explore techniques to improve your emotional regulation (your ability to process emotions for better stability). I’m a big fan of a five-step process for managing your emotions in the book Learned Optimism, by Martin Seligman (the father of positive psychology).
3. As a leader, embrace your role as a coach for your team. Build your own emotional stability and model it for your workforce! You can curate a more adaptive culture at work – and today’s best leaders do just that!

There is so much more to say on this subject, but, for now, I hope to provide you just a quick-start roadmap to better understand your brain’s response to change and uncertainty. You owe it to yourself and your team to intentionally build your resilience skills and in doing so, learn not just to survive, but to thrive and find better life balance in these crazy times!