What brain science says about hope as a leadership strategy
Why are some people unceasingly hopeful, even in the worst of times?
In January 2026, I joined the online event, “The Hope Collective: A Space for Reflection, Creation, and Connection,” organized by the Shirley Chisholm Cultural Institute in New York, as part of the Learning Planet Festival, a global movement uniting youth, educators, organizations, and changemakers committed to reimagining the future of learning.
Global guests from the worlds of art, culture, and education shared inspiring presentations designed to spark imagination and deepen dialogue around the concept of hope. I was struck by stories about the natural world and nature’s connection to our well being and to our understanding of ourselves.
There were children sharing experiences with the outdoors and appreciation for the earth and its resources, with hope for the future.
An artist expressed his creativity as taking a relic and turning it into something—hope in action as transformation.
The magic of sea creature bioluminescence was connected to the human gift of individual light.
Stories were told of Gambian youth valuing the earth and soil in their agriculture-based community, their immersion with nature’s lessons and rhythms reflected in their relations with one another, as if an instruction manual for life on Earth. Elders shape moral code and are respected; communities value disagreement and peace that can come from it; and tolerance is considered the basis of freedom.
I resonated with the influence of nature because of the tie to the harvest symbolism of my coaching and consulting business. I have long followed how nature’s cycles inform as a script for life and work, delivering divine perfection along with anomalies and uncertainty, difficult and seemingly unscientific for those who prefer absolutes. Understanding the “both-and” of nature helps with the both-and of the workplace. The beauty and promise of nature can help with hope and resilience in life.
Studies have shown that hopeful individuals are more likely to persevere through difficult times, cope with stress more effectively, and maintain a positive outlook on life despite challenges.
There is an important link between the brain’s Behavioral Activation System (BAS), responsible for goal-directed behavior when there is potential for reward; the Behavioral Inhibition System (BIS), for self-regulation by helping us assess risk and make decisions that prevent harm; and Dopamine, released when we anticipate or receive a reward, telling the brain that something good is happening.
This link presents exciting opportunities for developing hope and motivation with those we lead. The BAS-BIS-Dopamine link is the foundation for executive coaching—coaching tied to workplace contributions and performance. When employee motivation needs a boost to move forward on goals or even out of depression, our understanding of neuroscience informs executive coaching strategies, inviting clients to:
set achievable goals and imagine positive outcomes, for dopamine blasts as if they already received the reward
practice meditation and deep breathing to reduce stress and anxiety to dampen activation of the brain’s BIS
reframe negative thoughts to train the brain to be more hopeful, the brain’s neuroplasticity creating more neural circuits that make hopefullness more likely in days ahead
According to Gallup’s study of 10,000 people in follower roles, the four basic needs followers require of their leaders are trust, compassion, stability, and hope.
In addition, 69% who strongly agreed that their leaders made them "feel enthusiastic about the future" were engaged at work. Employee engagement is that well-sought-after rubric of organizational health, or at least employer attractiveness, that seems so elusive in the hours HR teams devote to figuring it out with well-meaning social activities. A hopeful leader may be a better determinant for building community.
Hope helps people feel the future is worth working toward, and they can be optimistic about it. Employees act because they see their leader demonstrating. Mirroring is recognized in neurolinguistic programming as subtly imitating another person's body language, speech patterns, or attitudes to build rapport and enhance communication. Employees may be more likely to mirror their hopeful leader, particularly when the leader is trusted, and even more if the leader leads with compassion and stability.
Hope is resilience, especially when your team is tired, anxious or overwhelmed, your belief in what’s still possible can help them reconnect to their own strength.
But what of the leader’s health? Leaders are often drained from so much time given to others, so what do they get out of hope? Psychology Today, in The Health Benefits of Hope, mentions why hope starts at home:
Hope improves your physical health — boosts immune function and decreases pain
Hope improves your mental health — lowers anxiety and depression
Hope helps you choose healthier behaviors — choosing new habits or patterns due to optimism for the future
For high-impact leadership behaviors that even the hardest critics dismissing hope as a soft skill can appreciate, hope fosters:
critical thinking, necessary for problem solving
adaptability, required for managing change and uncertainty
better conflict resolution, required for transforming differences into brilliant strategies
enhanced emotional regulation, required for emotional intelligence, a core leadership capability
stronger social networks, required for business development
Some people are unceasingly hopeful because they mirror the behaviors of their families, the friends who love them when families do not, and people they trust and admire.
Or because they have practiced being hopeful enough that their brains repeat the hopeful pattern until, with efficiency, hope becomes the predictive way we, and our brains, move through life.