Primal Leadership: Realizing the Power of Emotional Intelligence (Hardcover)

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Key Phrases: dissonant leaders, resonant leadership, pacesetting leader, Sister Mary, Lang Chen, Keki Dadiseth (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com 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

From Publishers Weekly

"The fundamental task of leaders... is to prime good feeling in those they lead. That occurs when a leader creates resonance a reservoir of positivity that unleashes the best in people. At its root, then, the primal job of leadership is emotional." So argue Goleman (Emotional Intelligence) and EI (emotional intelligence) experts Boyatzis and McKee. They use the word "primal" not only in its original sense, but also to stress that making employees feel good (i.e., inspired and empowered) is the job a leader should do first. To prove that the need to lead and to respond to leadership is innate, the authors cite numerous biological studies of how people learn and react to situations (e.g., an executive's use of innate self-awareness helps her to be open to criticism). And to demonstrate the importance of emotion to leadership, they note countless examples of different types of leaders in similar situations, and point out that the ones who get their employees emotionally engaged accomplish far more. Perhaps most intriguing is the brief appendix, where the authors compare the importance of IQ and EI in determining a leader's effectiveness. Their conclusion that EI is more important isn't surprising, but their reasoning is. Since one has to be fairly smart to be a senior manager, IQ among top managers doesn't vary widely. However, EI does. Thus, the authors argue, those managers with higher EI will be more successful. (Mar. 11)Forecast: Goleman already has a legion of fans from his early books on EI. His publisher is banking on his fame; the house has planned a $250,000 campaign and a 100,000 first printing.

Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Harvard Business Press; 1 edition (March 15, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 157851486X
• ISBN-13: 978-1578514861
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (94 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #42,457 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

476 of 496 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Intellectual Cherries Jubilee, May 26, 2002

By	Don Blohowiak "Lead Well® Institute" (Charlottesville, VA) - See all my reviews

"Primal Leadership" is the latest best-seller in the "emotional intelligence" business book series that has become a franchise for psychologist and former New York Times writer Daniel Goleman.

It might be accurately subtitled: "Three Ph.D.s Cite Tons of Research to Convince Business Executives (Yet Again) that Feelings Matter to People at Work."

The research underlying the authors' assertions about the importance of improving one's emotional control and quality of interpersonal relationships is chronicled in end notes that run 34 pages in relatively small point type.

If you aren't an end note reader, you may not notice that the otherwise credible trio of Goleman, Boyatzis and McKee often give no credit whatsoever in the book's very readable main narrative to the scientists whose work they unabashedly appropriate or reference only in passing. This is especially surprising and disappointing given Dr. Boyatzis's own substantial and distinguished history of contributions to the academic and practical literature.

The "Primal Leadership" authors' well-documented case boils down to this: 1) People respond to their leaders either positively or negatively. And therefore, 2) Leaders need to work on developing an effective leadership style by A. Knowing themselves, B. Controlling their emotional impulses, C. Relating better to others, D. Influencing others to further the organization's work.

Hard to argue with that, even without a truckload of citations.

Now the critical question: Will reading this book give you the tools to improve your own "emotional intelligence"?

In a word, an emphatic and disappointing, no.

You may find yourself jumping up and down screaming, "Yes! Yes! Yes!," to the book's persuasive demand for better leaders, but you're inevitably left whimpering, "Now what?"

For example, the authors tell us we need to "reconfigure" our brains but offer scant help in defining a useful process for accomplishing that. In fact, that is the recurring fatal flaw for this occasionally impressive work--calling for action but specifying little but tired, overly-familiar generalities.

Its recommendations should be familiar to anyone who has ever taken the most basic leadership course (or heard even a mediocre professional speaker at a conference in the past 30 years):
1. Picture your ideal self.
2. Assess your current self.
3. Develop a learning agenda.
4. Experiment with new practices.

5. Develop supportive relationships.

To flesh out these familiar themes, "Primal Leadership" offers vague approaches such as "stealth learning"--code, apparently, for accidental learning by, uh, living.

And it points to old standbys such as using mental rehearsal and actual practice to break old habits. On what should you focus your mental and physical rehearsals?

Well, the authors advise paying attention to your 360-degree feedback, and perhaps finding a mentor or hiring a coach to find out.

Hardly the stuff that one needs reams of doctorate-level research to conclude.

The same is true of the advice offered for "building emotionally intelligent organizations." The authors suggest creating "process norms" and ground rules for teams, and holding honest conversations about the culture that people work in.

Does any of that strike you as new or even particularly insightful? Okay, how about this one. The authors urge: Have a vision.

A busy executive simply won't find much here for undertaking the self-improvement for which Dr. Goleman and his colleagues incessantly lobby. In fact, you could capture all the book's useful advice in a one-page outline. But it will take you many hours to tease it out of the lengthy prose. And once you have, it won't impress you as new or novel.

In the final analysis, this sizeable and serious-sounding book is neither scholarly nor practical. It is a resounding success in making a compelling case for action but then fails just as miserably in offering nothing but the vaguest and most uninspired plan for action.

Strip away the research citations and Daniel Goleman and his erstwhile colleagues have delivered the same old plea for better leaders with the same old solutions for creating them--all dressed up in a new best-seller.

So, unfortunately, for the intended business manager reader this well-documented work amounts to intellectual cherries jubilee: tantalizing, sophisticated, carefully prepared, but devoid of useful nutrients.

72 of 77 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Discovering a new leadership paradigm, April 27, 2002

By	Harold McFarland (Florida) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Daniel Goleman has written two previous books on Emotional Intelligence and why it is more important than IQ over a person's lifetime. This book takes those concepts of Emotional Intelligence (EI) and applies them to successful leadership roles. In doing so it moves leadership from an art form to science.

While it is not difficult to follow this book even if you are not familiar with his prior works, familiarity with the concepts would make the reading flow much smoother. For this text he is joined by EI experts and co-authors Richard Boyatzis and Annie McKee as they unravel the use of EI in the workplace.

The bottom line of Primal Leadership is that one of the most important tasks of a leader is to create good feelings in the people they lead. They do this by maintaining those same positive feelings in themselves. In addition they have to create change, sustain change, and build an EI competent organization.

The book introduces the concept of "resonant leadership". This is the tendency of employees to perceive the business environment in the same manner that their leaders do. The moods, opinions, and actions of the leaders resonate to their employees and create the same feelings in them.

The top leaders develop four leadership styles and have the ability to easily change between them as needed. The book not only defines primal leadership but details how to develop and use these leadership qualities to make your business excel when others flounder. A great read with a thought-provoking analysis, this book is required reading for those seeking to excel as leaders in their organization.

31 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Opens up another dimension for leadership, June 5, 2004

By A Customer

Emotionally intelligent leaders connect with their people. This leadership quality speaks for itself, unites employees behind the leader's mission, encouraging them to be more productive. This book is uniquely valuable in that it explains the value of different types of repertoire -- visionary, coaching, affiliative, and democratic -- and when to apply them. Daniel Goleman should be applauded for restoring humanity into the workplace with his concept of Emotional Intelligence. Personally, I achieved emotional intelligence with a practical how-to book called "Optimal Thinking: How To Be Your Best Self." Optimal Thinking explains the message behind each emotion and provides the best questions to ask ourselves and others to obtain emotional resolution and optimal results.