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Today’s work environment requires a new type of leader development. It is no longer enough for leaders to be qualified and knowledgeable. Leaders must be focused, adaptable, and resilient in order to be effective amid the increasingly distracting and chaotic organizational world. We argue that current methods of leader development need to evolve to encompass leader well-being and focus on intrapersonal competencies in order to adequately prepare leaders for today’s stressful work world. We provide a holistic development framework for leaders which we believe is a better match for the intrapersonal capabilities required by leadership roles. Our approach is two-fold. First, we believe it is important to educate leaders on the potential interaction between the external sources of stress and leaders’ neurophysiological and subjective well-being. Second, we believe leaders need different development experiences, ones that can help renew psychological resources. We review four categories of holistic leadership practices – mindfulness, social connections, positive emotion inductions, and body-based practices – which can help to counter the effects of overload and exhaustion. We also discuss the future of holistic leader development and suggest directions for future research.

This chapter overviews organizational neuroscience (ON), covering the past, present, and future of this growing field of inquiry. First, we define ON and clarify the boundaries of the field. Second, we describe the evolution of ON by starting with early papers that tended to discuss the potential of ON to benefit both research and practice. Throughout its development, debates have abounded about the value of ON. Such debates are often related to challenges in collecting, integrating, interpreting, and using information from the brain-level of analysis. It is time for the field to move beyond these debates to focus on applying neuroscience to further theory development and reveal more comprehensive answers to research questions of importance to both academics and practitioners. Third, we propose and describe future research directions for ON. The research directions that we propose are merely a sample of the many paths along which ON inquiry can move forward. Fourth, we outline potential practical implications of ON, including: training and development, job design, high-performance assessment, motivating communications, and conflict prevention. Finally, we draw conclusions about ON as it stands today, address challenges in developing ON, and point out opportunities. We conclude with takeaways and highlight the importance of ON for both academics and practitioners.