Meet Dr Lynda Shaw
In a world where leadership is increasingly shaped by speed, complexity, and constant pressure, Dr Lynda Shaw is changing how leaders think when it matters most. Based in the United Kingdom and working globally, she is a leadership psychologist, behavioral neuroscientist, and trusted advisor to senior executives, boards, professionals and founders who sense that something critical is being missed. As the founder of Brain and Behaviour, a leadership consultancy, Dr Shaw operates at the intersection of neuroscience, leadership psychology, and consciousness. Her focus is not on fixing people or driving harder performance, but on expanding thinking under pressure, helping leaders see what others miss, hear what often goes unspoken, and make better decisions without burnout.
Dr Lynda’s mission is simple but profound: to help leaders create clarity, capacity, and sustainable growth by working with how the brain truly functions.
Where Clarity Begins Under Pressure
When pressure rises, most leaders instinctively narrow their focus. Decisions become faster, but thinking becomes smaller. For Dr Lynda Shaw that moment, when clarity feels just out of reach, is exactly where her work begins. A leadership psychologist and behavioral neuroscientist, Dr Lynda Shaw has built her career around one central idea: the greatest leadership challenges are rarely visible.
They live beneath the surface in unconscious processing, unspoken dynamics, and the subtle signals leaders overlook when stakes are high. Her work helps executives expand their thinking precisely when pressure threatens to shrink it.
Early Foundations: Time, Curiosity, and the Roots of Thought
Dr Lynda Shaw’s story begins in the suburbs of London, shaped less by ambition and more by attention. One of her earliest and most lasting influences was her grandfather, a thoughtful engineer who understood the quiet power of presence. He spent hours in his greenhouses, one dedicated entirely to tomatoes, and it was there that Shaw learned a lesson that still informs her work today. The smell of tomatoes on the vine, she recalls, remains a sensory anchor to a place of calm, safety, and unhurried focus. Time, not possessions, was the gift he gave most freely.
That early understanding of what truly matters planted a lifelong curiosity about human behavior, attention, and meaning. Long before leadership or neuroscience entered the picture, Shaw was already observing how people think, feel, and connect. At fourteen, she began exploring questions of consciousness, a subject that would quietly accompany her through every stage of her education and career.
First Chapter: Understanding the Mind in Theory and Practice
Dr Lynda Shaw’s development was shaped as much by lived experience as by academic inquiry. Her academic path reflects a deep commitment to understanding the mind not as an abstract concept, but as a living system shaped by emotion, perception, and context. She earned her undergraduate degree in Psychology and Social Anthropology at Brunel University, followed by a Master of Research in Psychology. Her early research took her into clinical environments, including work at Northwick Park Hospital with patients experiencing cortical lesions, where she studied visual perception, data analysis, and patient behavior while translating complex neurological conditions into language patients and families could understand.
Before neuroscience became her professional home, Shaw built businesses of her own. She co-owned and operated a members’ health club, overseeing staff, operations, and a growing client base, and later founded a catering business that scaled quickly, turning over significant revenue in its first year and expanding into premises, staff, and mobile operations. Alongside this, she worked for over a decade as a personal trainer and exercise teacher.
These experiences mattered, they placed her inside the realities of leadership, decision-making, and responsibility long before she began advising others. Pressure, for Shaw, was never theoretical, it was something lived.
A Defining Turning Point: Where Science Met Spirit
One of the most pivotal moments in Dr Shaw’s life came with the sudden death of her father. The sudden death of her father left her devastated. He had been an avid traveler and often spoke of the Himalayas as the most spiritual place he had ever known. One year and three days after his death, she stood in the Himalayas and understood what he had meant. In an extraordinary moment, Buddhist monks opened a temple in her honor on what would have been her father’s birthday. The experience altered her relationship with life, meaning, and inquiry. It was here that her direction crystallized.
It was there that Shaw committed to becoming, in her words, “a tiny thread between spirituality and science with a focus on consciousness.”
She committed to deep academic study with a clear intention: to become a bridge between spirituality and science, particularly through the lens of consciousness. This commitment led her to pursue a PhD in neuroscience at Brunel University of London, followed by advanced study in functional neuroanatomy at University of Cambridge. Her early research work with patients experiencing cortical brain damage through the NHS grounded her understanding of the brain not as an abstract system, but as something deeply human, fragile, and powerful.
From Academia to the Boardroom
While Dr Shaw’s academic credentials are formidable, her work was never meant to remain confined to research papers or lecture halls. After lecturing in psychology and neuroscience and contributing to applied research, she made a deliberate shift toward the real-world environments where pressure, power, and consequence collide. In 2008, she founded Brain and Behaviour, a leadership consultancy, bringing applied neuroscience directly into leadership, business, and organizational life. Since then, she has worked globally as an international speaker, advisor, and program designer, often brought in when leaders sense that pushing harder is no longer the answer.
“I don’t fix people,” Dr Lynda reflects. “I expand thinking, exactly when it matters most.”
This philosophy has resonated deeply with COOs, CEOs, and senior teams navigating uncertainty, complexity, and emotional load. Her work supports leaders who carry responsibility that doesn’t switch off, helping them regain clarity, judgment, and calm without sacrificing performance.
Expanding Influence: From the Stage to the Page
From international conferences to bestselling books, Dr Lynda Shaw has made it her mission to bring the science of leadership out of the lab and into the real world. Alongside her advisory work, she is an internationally recognized speaker and a former National President of the Professional Speaking Association, where she was also awarded the organization’s Award of Excellence. Her keynote themes; EXPAND: Leading When Pressure Shrinks Thinking and The Unseen and the Unheard explore the neurological realities of leadership under stress, equipping executives with practical tools to regain clarity, judgment, creativity, and calm without burnout.
Whether presenting to COOs, CEOs, Senior Partners or senior teams, Shaw combines rigorous science with warmth, humor, and direct relevance to the challenges leaders face every day. She is also the author of Your Brain Is Boss, praised by FinTech Scotland CEO Stephen Ingledew as “pragmatic and readable… breaking new ground.” The book distills complex neuroscience into actionable insight, reinforcing her reputation for elegant simplification and demonstrating her ability to translate intricate research into real-world leadership impact.
Seeing What Others Miss
At the heart of Dr Shaw’s work is a single guiding principle: expansion. “I never shrink,” she often says. Expansion, for her, is about rising above the mental “crud” that suffocates decision-making futility, apathy, noise and learning to see clearly again. Her programs, and proprietary concepts including The The Pleasure Umbrella and The Learning Lab for Leaders, help executives work with unconscious bias, emotional load, and hidden dynamics that quietly influence trust, performance, and profit. Whether mentoring COOs who carry relentless responsibility or guiding boards through uncertainty, her impact is measured not by intensity, but by clarity.
She is openly allergic to apathy. “I can’t be bothered” is a phrase she considers corrosive. “Emotional investment pays dividends,” she insists. “We have so much potential, please don’t waste your time.”
For Shaw, leadership is not about control or charisma, but about attention, clarity, and responsibility.
Vision for the Future: Humanity in the Age of AI
Today, Dr Shaw’s work is focused on The Rise of Humanity in the Age of AI. As technology accelerates, she helps leaders stay attuned to the unseen and unheard aspects of communication, culture, and consciousness that machines cannot replace. Organizations often call her when something feels off but cannot easily be named. “It’s a level of uncertainty that’s like trying to hold sand in your hand,” she explains. “You can feel it, but it keeps slipping through your fingers.” Her role is to help leaders slow down just enough to see clearly, and then move forward with intention.
Her motivation is deeply personal. Thinking of her young grandchildren, she asks what kind of world today’s leaders are creating. “It is for them that I work with senior leaders to create something larger than ourselves,” Dr Lynda reflects. For Shaw, leadership is no longer just about outcomes, but about legacy, how people feel, how cultures are shaped, and how intelligence is used responsibly.
Empowering Lessons from the Path of Dr Lynda Shaw
- “The most precious gift we have to give is our time.”
- “We have to be bothered if we want to embrace our precious time on this earth.”
- “Pressure narrows thinking unless leaders learn to expand it.“
Editorial Note: A Call to Lead With Intention
Dr Lynda Shaw’s journey reflects a rare integration of science, lived experience, and human insight. Her work reminds leaders that clarity is not found by doing more, but by seeing more.
In an age of constant pressure, her perspective offers space to think differently about leadership and its lasting impact.
