Healthcare Leadership Excellence
Sep 24, 2026 · 41 min · 13 segments
In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Brandon Fielding to explore the connection between how leaders think, react, and interact with the people around them. Dr. Fielding brings experience in…
Brandon FieldingGuest
Carl PisterHost
When we take a look at the structures of the brain, primarily the limbic system and the prefrontal cortex, it helps us when we have awareness of that and how it works, we can then do something about it.
The limbic system is the part of our brain, the amygdala, the hippocampus, all that stuff down at the base.
So if we are preceding threat in some way, then that part of the brain turns on.
The medial prefrontal cortex, the Mohawk, as it's called, is the part of our brain that develops last by about age 25 in men, a little bit earlier in women.
And it's also the part of us that deals with impulse control and executive functioning, essentially thinking through things and what the consequences will be before we act.
Either the limbic system is on and reacting or the prefrontal cortex is on and we are acting.
We don't want to be thinking through social interactions and how we're going to react if a grizzly is chasing us.
But I would venture to say that most of your listeners haven't been chased by grizzlies, but they certainly have had limbic reactions because of their past experience.
Things that for them maybe have signified some sort of threat or danger in the past.
So we end up doing and saying things out of reaction instead of slowing down and doing it in action.
Something as well that's important for people to understand is the Broca's area, the part of the brain, it's like the temple area.
When the prefrontal cortex turns off and the limbic system takes over, that Broca's area also disengages.
Or... 20 million years, we operated in groups of 20 to 40 individuals, hunter-gatherer groups.
And the people that survived, the groups that survived, were the ones that got along.
So Kronk and Grok or whatever, the ones that didn't hunt well together and get along were the ones that died and didn't pass on their genes.
When we take a look at the structures of the brain, primarily the limbic system and the prefrontal cortex, it helps us when we have awareness of that and how it works, we can then do something about it.
The limbic system is the part of our brain, the amygdala, the hippocampus, all that stuff down at the base.
So if we are preceding threat in some way, then that part of the brain turns on.
The medial prefrontal cortex, the Mohawk, as it's called, is the part of our brain that develops last by about age 25 in men, a little bit earlier in women.
And it's also the part of us that deals with impulse control and executive functioning, essentially thinking through things and what the consequences will be before we act.
Either the limbic system is on and reacting or the prefrontal cortex is on and we are acting.
We don't want to be thinking through social interactions and how we're going to react if a grizzly is chasing us.
But I would venture to say that most of your listeners haven't been chased by grizzlies, but they certainly have had limbic reactions because of their past experience.
Things that for them maybe have signified some sort of threat or danger in the past.
So we end up doing and saying things out of reaction instead of slowing down and doing it in action.
Something as well that's important for people to understand is the Broca's area, the part of the brain, it's like the temple area.
When the prefrontal cortex turns off and the limbic system takes over, that Broca's area also disengages.
Or... 20 million years, we operated in groups of 20 to 40 individuals, hunter-gatherer groups.
And the people that survived, the groups that survived, were the ones that got along.
So Kronk and Grok or whatever, the ones that didn't hunt well together and get along were the ones that died and didn't pass on their genes.
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