Primal Leadership: Realizing the Power of Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman

Description

Daniel Goleman's international bestseller “Emotional Intelligence” forever changed our concept of “being smart,” showing how emotional intelligence (EI) – how we handle ourselves and our relationships – can determine life success more than IQ. Then, “Working with Emotional Intelligence” revealed how stellar career performance also depends on EI. Now, Goleman teams with renowned EI researchers Richard Boyatzis and Annie McKee to explore the role of emotional intelligence in leadership. Unveiling neuroscientific links between organizational success or failure and “primal leadership,” the authors argue that a leader's emotions are contagious. If a leader resonates energy and enthusiasm, an organization thrives; if a leader spreads negativity and dissonance, it flounders. This breakthrough concept charges leaders with driving emotions in the right direction to have a positive impact on earnings or strategy. Drawing from decades of analysis within world-class organizations, the authors show that resonant leaders – whether CEOs or managers, coaches or politicians – excel not just through skill and smarts, but by connecting with others using EI competencies like empathy and self-awareness. And they employ up to six leadership styles – from visionary to coaching to pacesetting – fluidly interchanging them as the situation demands.The authors identify a proven process through which leaders can learn to: assess, develop, and sustain personal EI competencies over time; inspire and motivate people; cultivate resonant leadership throughout teams and organizations; and, leverage resonance to increase bottom-line performance. The book that no leader in any walk of life can afford to miss, this unforgettable work transforms the art of leadership into the science of results. Daniel Goleman is Codirector of the Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations at Rutgers University. Richard Boyatzis is Professor and Chair of the Department of Organizational Behavior at the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University. Annie McKee serves on the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education and consults to business and organization leaders worldwide.

Editorial Review

Business leaders who maintain that emotions are best kept out of the work environment do so at their organization's peril. Bestselling author Daniel Goleman's theories on emotional intelligence (EI) have radically altered common understanding of what “being smart” entails, and in Primal Leadership, he and his coauthors present the case for cultivating emotionally intelligent leaders. Since the actions of the leader apparently account for up to 70 percent of employees' perception of the climate of their organization, Goleman and his team emphasize the importance of developing what they term “resonant leadership.” Focusing on the four domains of emotional intelligence–self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management–they explore what contributes to and detracts from resonant leadership, and how the development of these four EI competencies spawns different leadership styles. The best leaders maintain a style repertoire, switching easily between “visionary,” “coaching,” “affiliative,” and “democratic,” and making rare use of less effective “pace-setting” and “commanding” styles. The authors' discussion of these methods is informed by research on the workplace climates engendered by the leadership styles of more than 3,870 executives. Indeed, the experiences of leaders in a wide range of work environments lend real-life examples to much of the advice Goleman et al. offer, from developing the motivation to change and creating an improvement plan based on learning rather than performance outcomes, to experimenting with new behaviors and nurturing supportive relationships that encourage change and growth. The book's final section takes the personal process of developing resonant leadership and applies it to the entire organizational culture. –S. Ketchum