The 2% Club: A Christmas Reflection on Leadership and Neuroscience

A Christmas Edition of Neuroscience in a Nutshell

Welcome to our festive edition – and you can watch The Tea Break Coach back here – complete with oversized jumpers, a mini tree, and even our port-hole window decked out with a wreath!

If your Christmas viewing includes The 1% Club (a firm favourite in our house), then here’s a little festive twist for you—let’s talk about The 2% Club.

Now, some of you might know I often refer to 2% as a bit of a magic number.

And if I ever did a PhD (thanks to a wonderful series of coaching sessions from my friend and Executive Coach Nikki Yeomans, I’m 98% certain I won’t…)

…but if I did, I’d research and write about my 2% theory.

In my work, day in and day out, I talk about something I call Top Right Thinking. That’s the ability to do two things consistently:

• Build high trust quickly.
• Use that high trust space to provide meaningful challenge

 

Top Right conversations involve building trust and giving feedback that actually helps people grow by giving them protected, safe time AND stretch to think well.

That space – top right – is where the best leaders operate. They don’t sugar-coat, and they don’t shy away from tough conversations. They know how to stretch people and make them feel safe while doing it.

And here’s what I’ve noticed: having worked with thousands of leaders across the world, I’ve got a hunch. Only about 2% of those seem to have this Top Right combination wired into their DNA. You know one when you see one. They are the people you can’t help but follow. That boss who got the performance of your life out of you, and did it all without missing a beat. It was just who they were.

The rest of us? We’re a perpetual work in progress. Myself included.

Too many days in top left, hesitating to challenge for fear of offending or people not liking us.

Too many hours caught up in the “doing” of bottom left that we forget to look up and nurture the relationships that really hold our working lives together.

And too many occasions where someone slips up, we forget to apply positive intent to their motives and we snap, say something we don’t mean and probably wasn’t fair or delivered well. And lose the ability to get someone to genuinely be able to hear and want to action our feedback.

So that’s the 98% of people I meet – people like me who know the science (post our training!) and feel like they will be a perpetual ‘top right work in progress’!

And then it hit me—this hunch I’ve had about the other 2%?  The lucky leaders who just ‘have it’ There’s science that might back it up…

🧠 Dunbar’s Number and the Evolution of Leadership

Let’s go back a bit. Anthropologist and evolutionary psychologist Robin Dunbar proposed that the human brain can comfortably maintain about 150 meaningful relationships. Among those, around 50 are considered good friends, and the rest taper off into acquaintances and connections.

His research is often referenced when talking about workplace cohesion, team size, and—yes—tribal leadership. Because if you think back to our evolutionary roots, in a typical tribe of 100–150 people, you only needed one strong leader. One “top right” individual to coordinate, protect, and move the group forward. The rest stayed alive and passed on their genes by following that leader?

So from that evolutionary standpoint, 2% makes perfect sense.

One great leader for every 50-ish people? That’s your 2% club. That’s potentially why evolutionary biology supports my hunch and experience!

And it explains why so many of us don’t automatically operate in that space. We weren’t meant to back in the day. We only needed 1 in about 50 people to be a good leader. But now we all lead something – projects, work streams and teams.

But don’t despair if you aren’t in the 2% club – the good news is that at 100Brix, we can ABSOLUTELY help you learn to spend time there!

🎁 The Good News: Top Right is Trainable

So, if you’re watching The 1% Club this Christmas and get a couple of questions wrong after a bit of wine and find yourself thinking:

“Well, I’m not in the 1%… and I’m not in the 2% either…”

That’s OK. Neither am I.

And yet, I now live in that top right quadrant most of the time. But only because I practised. Repeatedly.

And I’ve helped countless others do the same.

This year alone, we’ve worked with leaders from:

• Tesco – maybe you’ll shop there for your sprouts!
• Amcor – who probably packaged your crisps.
• And many of the pubs and restaurants where you’ll raise a glass this festive season.

Over 10 years of running my own business, and 23 years in the pub and hospitality industry before that, I’ve seen what real leadership looks like. And it’s rarely about innate genius. It’s almost always about being humble enough not to think you are perfect – and then practice, feedback, and support.

 

🔄 The Challenge This Christmas

So, here’s my Christmas invitation to you:

🎄 When you see the 1% on telly this year, use it as a prompt to ask yourself:

“Can I rise to the 2% challenge in 2026?”

Can you:

• Build relationships that are genuine, safe and help people to thrive

 

AND

• Challenge well, at the same time?

 

Remember Top Right Leadership isn’t about being born in the 2% perfect.

It’s about practising the right things—again and again—to get you there and keep you there.

And what better time to start than now? The season of reflection, recharging, and perhaps, a little rethinking.

Want to Read More?

• [Dunbar’s Number: Why the Theory That Humans Can Only Maintain 150 Friendships Has Withstood 30 Years of Scrutiny – Neuroscience News / The Conversation] — a straightforward summary of the social‑brain hypothesis behind Dunbar’s Number.
• [The Best Leaders Are Great Teachers – Harvard Business Review] — outlines what sets exceptional leaders apart, particularly their commitment to teaching and mentoring rather than just managing.
• [Why Dunbar’s Number Limits You to 150 Meaningful Connections – Oh! Epic summary article on social‑brain limits] — a readable overview of the cognitive constraints on stable social networks and what that means for personal and organisational relationships.
• [Understanding Dunbar’s Number: Limits and Quality of Social Connections – BrainApps.io blog) — another recent, accessible look at Dunbar’s Number and what it implies for building teams and networks.

 

Have a fabulous break – and remember, if you’re not in the 2% now, we’ll help you get there. One conversation, one feedback moment, one courageous step at a time.

🎄 From all of us at 100Brix, Tea Break Training and Top Right Thinking—thank you for a phenomenal year. See you in top right next year!