The duplication of beings and minds has a rich history in human culture, both in the field of fantasy and in that of scientific research. In the latter, we find relatively significant milestones, such as the Dolly sheep - which was born old - or the modeling of extraordinary skills using NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming). In everyday life, however, we can witness more effective and potentially much more dangerous cloning phenomena, because they are imperceptible to most of us.
Human beings have always learned by imitation and to a large extent we are the result of the society in which we live. But only in 1996 were we able to begin to understand the reason for this apparent mystery. In that year, the team of Giacomo Rizzolatti, from the University of Parma (Italy), managed to identify certain neurons whose behavior was surprising. They made the brain of one monkey, which watched another perform certain actions, activate the same neural patterns as the brain of the observed monkey. For this reason, Rizzolatti called them mirror neurons.
These neurons were later investigated in the human brain by neuroscientist Marco Iacoboni, who found them responsible for imitative learning and empathy in our species. Its hidden power is explained by the fact that they act on a non-conscious level and are distributed in all regions of the brain, on which they affect.
We use them - without knowing it - to learn everything from the first smiles to a complicated dance or a sport. They are capable of producing sensations, muscle movements and feelings from any sensory stimulus, not only from vision. Listening to a phrase or a sound, smelling an aroma, remembering an experience or reading a book can make us relive authentic sensations, transport us very far in time or space and even prepare us for great challenges, to the point that the so-called active visualization constitutes one of the mechanisms preferred by elite athletes to train particularly demanding skills.
And we also use them to connect with others, to understand their inner world and to bond emotionally through those incredible sources of emotional information that are facial expressions and tone of voice. For this reason, the Indian neuroscientist Vilayanur Ramachandran called them neurons of empathy. They complete the bridge between science and Eastern philosophies, which affirm that we are all one being, because they have the virtue of removing material barriers to really make us feel the pain or joy of a similar. But they are also implicated in imitating violence and other destructive behaviors, which are directly linked to our most primitive instincts.
Whether we like it or not, then our behavior influences others and there is nothing we can do to avoid it. The time in which we expose ourselves to interaction with other people has a direct relationship on the probability of “catching” and makes certain social spheres - such as organizations - constitute the breeding ground for a large part of the behaviors learned in adulthood. Here we train ourselves in deception, corruption and addictions, but altruistic behavior, responsibility, a sense of duty, patience and good humor also adhere to us. Tell me who you are with…
The greater the visibility of the model, the greater the probability that its behavior will be imitated by those who observe it. The greater the closeness with these, the more powerful and subliminal will be their influence. The higher its hierarchy, the faster the imitative response. And the more practical activity involved, the more deeply the behaviors will be fixed in our brain.
If we have the mission of leading a team, these reflections come to occupy a privileged place in our behavioral criteria. The Biolider understands that he is managing nature's most complex and powerful mechanism - his own brain - and understands, too, that his team faces a similar challenge. The process involves a feedback cycle of teaching-learning and must be supported by an intelligent use of the same resource that you are trying to model.
To achieve this, the Biolider opens paths, explores them and retraces his steps to accompany his team towards the goal, pointing out obstacles and building bridges with their help. He leans on others and also supports them. He knows his own capacities and also his limits, as well as the limits of his collaborators, whose borders he proposes to continually expand. It does not order, it invites. It does not sanction, it supports. You can be wrong like anyone, but you recognize and learn it. He does not have the authority, but he fully exercises a responsibility that enlarges him and makes him respectable. And it is respect-not the "gift of command" -that gives him true authority.
The coherence that the Biolider gives to his behavior creates the conditions for his team to incorporate similar virtues. Therefore, the skills of Bioliderazgo cannot be "taught" from the outside, but must be cloned from the inside, based on the strong motivation that a true Biolider inspires, and consistently manifested on a day-to-day basis. Because the word clone comes from the Greek, in whose language it means sapling. And offspring, in ours, is the stem or stem that casts the plant again-a multiplication of the original being that continues the vital mission of the womb.
