A common experience of the Hero and Superhero

I spent last weekend with a psychology learning group looking at behaviour through the lens of "shame" - an enlightening perspective! It triggered a lot of new insights, one of which was about the place of shame in the Centaur character styles of Hero and Superhero.

Both types know about shame, and about it's antidote at the opposite end of the spectrum, which is pride. The difference is that for the Hero, shame and pride take centre stage at particular moments, whereas for the Superhero they are existential - a part of their way of being. The Hero character style can sometimes act very aggressively to avoid the shame of failure and sometimes display "true" pride in the achievement of success. The Superhero is similarly aggressive in protecting themself from the deeper (primary) shame of not actually being a superhuman, and needs to maintain a virtually permanent display of "false" pride.

Two things I took from this analysis. One is an explanation for why people so often incorrectly point at a male Hero's behaviour and say "he must be a Superhero" - the Hero's aggression or their pride can look very similar from the outside. The other is real empathy with the Superhero - our common experience of shame and pride means I understand what it can feel like on the inside.

How does Centaur link to basic emotions?

This post is mostly for those who already have some knowledge of the character styles of Sandy Cotter's Centaur model, picking up an interesting link with some output from the Neuro Leadership Institute (NLI). The NLI applies the knowledge of brain functioning coming out of neuroscience research to the challenge of business leadership, sometimes explaining why new and counter-intuitive approaches might be helpful to try out, more often simply validating approaches which are already well established, but not well explained.

One of their principles is differentiating between emotions and feelings. Emotions are the building blocks, "hardwired" into us at birth, activating identifiably separate pathways in the limbic brain and producing predictable responses when stimulated. Feelings are more complex combinations of emotions and thoughts created as the brain develops and makes linkages between emotions and events.

Looking at their list of basic emotions, I can easily link each of the five character styles links to one of the basic "avoidance" emotions (ie Fear, Sadness, Disgust, Shame, and Anger). I can also link each of the 3 character styles which are below the confidence line to one of the basic "attractor" emotions (if I add physical Gratification/Pleasure to their Love/Trust/Security, and Excitement).

I'm not sure what this adds to the Centaur model. We already knew it had a solid psychological basis and was focused on the deep patterns in the limbic brain, as well as demonstrably "working" as a predictor of limbic brain responses. I guess it's just nice to see that the NLI's work supports this idea of predictable limbic responses! And, of course, it confirms that the Centaur model is an essential tool for "the limbic leader" - a great phrase from the NLI which I would love to see take off as a mainstream idea in leadership development.