One of the biggest challenges in management is learning how to motivate those who report to you.

There's no shortage of books that offer advice in this regard. The most popular titles include The One Minute Manager, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, and the greatest bestseller of them all Dale Carnegie's, How to Win Friends and Influence People.

One of the newer entries in the field is psychologist Nashater Deu Solheim's The Leadership PIN Code: Unlocking the Key to Willing and Winning Relationships, which was published last year.

Rooted in neuroscience, it offers a practical roadmap, rooted in empathy, for forging stronger connections with staff and motivating them to help an organization succeed.

The PIN code in the title refers to persuade, influence, and negotiate. And this is accomplished by learning your ABCs: advance planning and approach, body language and behaviour, and mastering the art of conversation.

The video below reveals how Solheim developed this approach after working as a forensic psychologist, where she would have to do risk assessments on psychopaths.

That taught her the shortcomings of being brutally honest—a mistake, she says, that some entitled managers make, justifying this on the basis of being authentic.

"Brutal authenticity kills conversations, kills connections, kills motivation, and kills trust," Solheim advises.

Instead, she recommends that managers focus on three things:

1. Know their role and stay within the boundaries of that while setting expectations.

2. Be prepared and do their research, finding out what motivates their team members rather than simply focusing on tasks and activities.

3. Remain curious even while being challenged.

For more on this, check out her TEDx talk below, which was delivered last November.