Resonant Leadership: Renewing Yourself and Connecting with Others Through Mindfulness, Hope, and Compassion [Hardcover]

Richard E. Boyatzis (Author), Annie McKee (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 27, 2005

The blockbuster best seller Primal Leadership introduced us to "resonant" leaders--individuals who manage their own and others' emotions in ways that drive success. Leaders everywhere recognized the validity of resonant leadership, but struggled with how to achieve and sustain resonance amid the relentless demands of work and life. Now, Richard Boyatzis and Annie McKee provide an indispensable guide to overcoming the vicious cycle of stress, sacrifice, and dissonance that afflicts many leaders. Drawing from extensive multidisciplinary research and real-life stories, Resonant Leadership offers a field-tested framework for creating the resonance that fuels great leadership. Rather than constantly sacrificing themselves to workplace demands, leaders can manage the cycle using specific techniques to combat stress, avoid burnout, and renew themselves physically, mentally, and emotionally. The book reveals that the path to resonance is through mindfulness, hope, and compassion and shows how intentionally employing these qualities creates effective and enduring leadership. Great leaders are resonant leaders. Resonant Leadership offers the inspiration--and tools--to spark and sustain resonance in ourselves and in those we lead.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Unlike most other books, Resonant Leadership undersells itself. With easy justification, the authors or their editors at Harvard Business School Press could have applied a more expansive moniker like "Secrets of Enduring Leaders", or "How to Deal with Burnout," or perhaps even "Being Happy at Work." The work's modest title, though, takes nothing away from its grand ambition: to explain what makes leaders effective amid unrelentingly stressful situations.

The authors, Richard Boyatzis and Annie McKee, will be familiar to many businesspeople and management theorists. They collaborated with Daniel Goleman on the bestselling Primal Leadership, which extended Goleman's seminal work on emotional intelligence, and explained how "EQ", not just IQ, underpins success in guiding and directing organizations. With this latest book, Boyatzis and McKee have continued developing their holistic view of management. It's an attractive one. Resonant Leadership begins with recognition of leaders' essential humanity and analyzes the physical, mental, and emotional triggers that make men and women strong or weak as leaders. As readers might expect from an HBS Press offering, Boyatzis and McKee's methodology is appropriately academic, with extensive footnotes and research citations, but it also uses a nice blend of anecdotes from their field work as consultants, and is expressed through decidedly touchy-feely language. What emerges is a highly engaging, readable work that takes business audiences into somewhat unusual psychological territory, far beyond the usual bar charts and spreadsheets.

The book's organization is simple. Boyatzis and McKee start by describing the highly stressful conditions in which leaders operate today, and explain sympathetically how many well-intentioned people fall into what they call "dissonance" due to burnout. Whereas the authors' earlier book focused on the initial ingredients for leadership effectiveness, their interest now is in ongoing, enduring resonance--leaders who can be effective today, but also maintain their edge into tomorrow, as well. Resonant Leadership thus moves from this initial exposition of problems--management ineffectiveness, and/or burnout--to solutions. The authors anchor their prescription around three core qualities which they believe resonant leaders must continually cultivate: mindfulness, hope, and compassion. These may sound like ephemeral concepts, but they form the touchstone of Resonant Leadership and are cited again and again. Readers of Boyatzis and McKee's latest--whether already-strong leaders looking to maintain their effectiveness, or burned-out ones aiming to get back in the proverbial saddle--will find this is a thought-provoking read. --Peter Han

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Building on the principles they laid out in their 2002 bestseller, Primal Leadership (coauthored with emotional intelligence expert Daniel Goleman), Boyatzis and McKee explain how managers and executives can employ mindfulness, hope and compassion to create—and maintain—exceptional business success. "Effective teams and powerful, positive organizational cultures do not happen by accident," they write; they are created by "resonant" leaders who employ emotional intelligence to motivate and nurture their employees. Yet resonance can be exhausting to maintain, the authors have found, and even outstanding leaders can turn dissonant under the pressure of chronic business stress. When that happens, they say, "rest and relaxation" aren't enough to restore a leader's emotional resilience. Drawing upon cognitive psychology, Buddhist philosophy and their own research, the authors propose a series of more effective remedies. Among them: cultivating "openness, curiosity and awareness" about oneself and others; visualizing a positive, realistic dream; and working to understand and improve the situations of others. Boyatzis and McKee argue convincingly that such practices can "favorably impact the bottom line while enabling leaders to sustain their effectiveness for longer periods of time." At a time when business leaders are under scrutiny for moral lapses on financial and social fronts, the exercises and arguments in this book can help executives learn to improve their interests by strengthening their ethics. 60,000-copy first printing. (Oct. 27)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press; 1 edition (October 27, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1591395631
• ISBN-13: 978-1591395638
• Product Dimensions: 6.4 x 1.3 x 9.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #16,844 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #23 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Politics & Government > Elections & Political Process > Leadership

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Important book! April 14, 2006

By California CEO

Format:Hardcover

I very much enjoyed Drs. Boyatzis and McKee initial offering with Daniel Goleman, "Primal Leadership", so I looked forward to learning more about resonnant leadership. I certainly wasn't disappointed. I very much appreciated the author's attention to citations and footnotes, indications of valid and solid research -- something that is becoming increasingly rare in these days of making-it-up-as-you-go writings.

Furthermore, I applaud the authors for having the courage to tackle the very important subject of burnout -- there are more leaders suffering from burnout than one would think. I have simply been amazed at how many burned out executives I have met in my time, and how few of them seemed to realize that they were burned out. Plus, the simple and effective perspectives of attending to Mindfulness, Hope and Compassion are very important indicators for workplace success.

While "Resonant Leadership" is an important book for leaders, the one criticism that I have of it is that it is a little light on practical application. For a book that holds a bit more practical applications for leaders, I would highly recommend "Leading People the Black Belt Way" from expert Tim Warneka -- a book that covers similiar territory in a similar "applied academics" fashion, but has the added benefit of offering a few more specific, hands on approaches for developing Mindfulness, Hope & Compassion.

Overall, I would highly recommend "Resonant Leadership".

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Bringing the theory into practice October 31, 2005

By Susan R. Meyer VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

Boyatzis and McKee have made it very easy for all of us who believe that leaders can create highly effective and productive organizations in a reflective, humane way. They've put their vast research base to excellent use in creating this easy to follow guide that helps leaders, OD and HR personnel and coaches create workplaces with open communication, compassion for others, and a low-stress environment, resilient in the face of today's complex business environment. This is a quick read, full of tools easily adaptible for practitioners and case examples. At last! A business case for doing business in an enlightened way.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A LEADERSHIP STYLE THAT USES EMOTIONS AND VALUES TO ENERGIZE & RENEW TEAMS & ORGANIZATIONS. December 13, 2005

By Yvette Borcia and Gerry Stern

Format:Hardcover

The resonant leader is inspirational, creates a positive emotional tone characterized by hope, experiences and demonstrates compassion, and is authentic-in tune with self, others, and the environment. Such leaders exude emotions that are contagious and affect all around them; top leaders can impact an entire organization. These leaders are consciously attuned to people, focus them on a common cause, build a sense of community, and create a climate that unleashes peoples' passion, energy, and unified spirit. The authors have studied such leaders and provide examples of how they sustain resonance through difficult times through a process of intentional change and self-renewal. The book is not only about resonant leaders but how they infuse their organizations with spirit and energy and change them. It provides insights, guidance and exercises that inspire reflection. Research underlying the book's concepts, ideas and practices is cited and explained. The authors have written an inspirational and insightful book with cases that bring the concept of resonant leadership to life. This is an important contribution with enduring value. Highly recommended.