It is evident that the world is drastically changing, as tools like artificial intelligence (AI) flood into our occupational systems. Are general mental ability tests, i.e., I.Q., really going to be a meaningful differentiator among people while still relying heavily on verbal and numerical reasoning, and now, increasingly, the same knowledge is universally accessible through a supercomputer? If I.Q. and emotional intelligence have been touted as key abilities in the past, will they hold up against the current-day transformation into the 4th industrial revolution (Ross & Maynard, 2021)?
AI’s rise has also increased questions and salience around consciousness. The key separator between us and the machines. So, if consciousness is what currently separates us from AI, why don't we evaluate leaders based on their conscious intelligence?
To answer this question, we would first want to know if consciousness is an advantage. While it's easy to assume, in true scientific form, we would want to test this assumption.
However, because the world of work is undergoing transformation, I needed a context-neutral indicator that had already been linked to current-day performance and could remain relevant on an ongoing basis, and the mental faculty of executive function presented itself as a natural solution. Executive function is an umbrella term for many vital sub-variables key to self-determined positive behavioural control.
And so, the study's research question was formed: How is a leader’s level of consciousness related to their executive function?
But what is consciousness?
This erupted a plethora of sub-questions:
- How would we measure it?
- What theory of consciousness would be relevant, and which would not?
- How is consciousness different or similar to attention, awareness and indeed executive function itself?
Refer to the paper to see how I tackled the second and third questions, but regarding the dilemma of measurement, I first deduced a specific distinction between different theories of consciousness, awareness, and attention.
Once complete, the tool criteria became:
- Self-reported to capture the subjectivity of consciousness.
- Previously demonstrated adequate psychometric properties.
- Tested for construct differentiation with self-awareness and mindfulness.
- Measure local states of consciousness, including first and higher-order thoughts.
This made the Troyer Level of Consciousness Inventory (Troyer, 2012) an ideal solution.
To investigate whether leaders who were more conscious had better executive function, this study used a passive correlational design involving the two questionnaires.
We used Qualtrics to create the survey, including both questionnaires, and Prolific to sample leaders based on predetermined inclusion and exclusion criteria.
The data was then audited and put into SPSS for analysis.
Apart from investigating the correlation between the total scores for consciousness and executive function, we also wanted to examine how the sub-domains of each variable relate to one another. Performing multiple correlations would be problematic, as consciousness has 4 sub-domains and executive function has 5, resulting in 20 separate correlations, which would increase the experiment-wise error rate.
Also, since the sub-domains are from questionnaires, they will have multicollinearity with others in the same set, thereby disqualifying multiple regression as an option. Whereas canonical correlation analysis (CCA) can handle multicollinearity between variable sets and permit multiple comparisons to be initiated simultaneously, thereby eliminating the need to perform multiple comparisons sequentially.
The finding that higher levels of consciousness are correlated with higher levels of executive function meant we could at least rest assured that we had found evidence supporting the initial assumption that greater consciousness may indeed be an advantage, specifically in relation to better executive function.
But what about the relationships of the subdomains? The CCA found that conscious reflection was correlated with better cognitive flexibility, planning and emotional control, and, interestingly, that being open-minded was associated with worse impulse control. While meta-self-awareness showed little relevance in the CCA analysis.
The CEO and C-Suite executives had the most extreme scores, with the lowest scores for total level of consciousness and meta-self-awareness, while possessing the highest scores for helping others, planning, and inhibition. However, further investigation was hindered due to the group’s sample size.
While this study does not establish a causal relationship, it is interesting to examine the results.
Firstly, this sample of leaders scored highest for inhibition (impulse control) compared with any other subdomain. The only two subdomains they scored lower on than a non-leadership sample were meta-self-awareness and openness. This raises a question: are people with low openness and meta-self-awareness and high impulse control more likely to be placed in leadership positions? Would attempting to increase their meta-self-awareness have a positive or detrimental effect? Might it help combat unethical pro-organisational behaviour? Since Executive coaching is offered as an intervention, the assumption is that greater meta-self-awareness would positively affect performance.
But this study raises deeper questions about the utility of different levels of consciousness. It might be tempting to take the initial finding from the total scores of the two questionnaires and simply state that the more consciousness one has, the better, but better for what?
Rosenthal (2008) postulated that higher-order thoughts, such as meta-self-awareness, could be unnecessary for executive function; ergo, you might not need to inspect the nature of your mind (introspection) to maintain a good level of performance day to day.
So, is consciousness an advantage? Taking the results from this study, in some ways, yes, first-order thoughts appear to have a positive relationship with some executive function outputs, while others seem to have a negative one, and meta-states (higher-order thoughts) seem unnecessary for executive function performance.
Future researchers may want to investigate whether greater meta-self-awareness leads to worse executive function, namely, whether higher levels of introspection lead to a decrease in self-directed behaviour output, hinting at the notion that overthinking can lead to negative behavioural performance. Since this has the potential to drastically challenge or affirm many assumptions held by psychological helping professions, clarification is needed.
References
Rosenthal, D. M. (2008). Consciousness and its function. Neuropsychologia, 46(3), 829-840.
Ross, P., & Maynard, K. (2021). Towards a 4th industrial revolution. Intelligent Buildings International, 13(3), 159-161.
Troyer, J. A. (2012). How do we measure the invisible? Creation and validation of the Troyer Level of Consciousness Inventory.