Improving the cognitive agility of top executives: mental agility exercises to process information more efficiently

Some call it charisma. Others, good luck. Others, intelligence. The ability of a leader to influence and convince his followers with persuasive language or with powerful arguments. Figures and data have a lot to do with cognitive abilities and the agility of the brain.

Leaders train and develop certain areas of the brain to quickly adapt to new challenges, or to make strategic decisions in situations of uncertainty, and oftentimes with little information. They tend to train a lot with repetition, concentration, and attention.

In order to exercise good leadership, one must have an optimal physical condition and must follow a proper diet. This is the foundation on which healthy brain activity is built. According to the profession, some areas of the brain can be activated more than others. For example, finance professionals develop the parietal lobe more for calculation functions, a CEO who must store a large amount of data, analyse and synthesise it, develops the visual part in the occipital lobe and the memory in the intemporal lobe. When you group all your knowledge, you use more than 50% of your brain while making a decision.

Leaders who tend to retain information for short-term use develop the hippocampal area, while those who are cold-blooded and tend to make far-reaching decisions tend to use more of the frontal lobe of the brain.

A leader must also cultivate their mental and emotional strength. Mental toughness is the ability to consistently perform at the top range of your talents and abilities under any circumstances. To give the maximum of oneself under pressure and stress.

Problem solving is a mental strength that a leader must promote, as well as team management, decision making, planning and emotional self-regulation. And all this can be obtained when mental agility is trained.

There are different forms of mental training that can be put into practice to train specific skills. For example, to exercise memory you can use mnemonic exercises and memory games. Both improve retention and memory capacity. A few minutes a day is sufficient, if practiced consistently, to notice rapid improvement. Memory is one of the attributes that we have lost the most with the expansion of technology. If before we could memorise up to twelve telephone numbers, we are no longer able to remember any.

Mental focus exercises are suitable for leaders who need to improve their focus and concentration span. Stress, fatigue, and excessive workload hinder the ability to concentrate.

That is why many of these techniques are aimed at avoiding mental fatigue with mental exercises, like those of elite athletes, designed to help people overcome their self-imposed limits. They also help to manage their resources to improve mental stability when working under pressure.

Mental training can also modify behaviors that generate stress, or to face stressful situations more effectively and with less mental demand.

For mental agility to be fast and accurate, there exists specific techniques and exercises, which are combined with those of attention and concentration, to grant capabilities, almost superpowers, for the modern leader. Chess has been revealed as very effective training for cognitive agility. Some managerial programs include a 25-minute game of chess at least twice a week. You can play against the computer, and you can combine the game with the study of games already played. The recommended time to play or to re-play games is once you arrive at the office, or in the afternoon, but never at night or before going to sleep. If this mental game is combined with physical exercise during the day, the effects on the brain are multiplied.