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Title: Primal Leadership: Realizing the Power of Emotional Intelligence [ABRIDGED] by Daniel P. Goleman, Annie McKee, Richard E. Boyatzis ISBN: 1559277440 Publisher: Audio Renaissance Pub. Date: March, 2002 Format: Audio CD Volumes: 3 List Price(USD): $20.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.24
Rating: 3
Summary: Intellectual Cherries Jubilee
Comment: "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.
Rating: 4
Summary: Discovering a new leadership paradigm
Comment: 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.
Rating: 5
Summary: Great Book, Title [Stinks]
Comment: First off, I really hate the title "Primal Leadership." I picture a gorilla beating the ground with a branch to show he's dominant, which isn't quite what this book is about. The authors use 'primal' to mean primary, as in first and most basic. The basic underpinning of great leadership is emotional intelligence.
"Primal Leadership" is written to help leaders become better leaders by improving their emotional intelligence. The book gives insight into the collective feeling of an organization, or its emotional climate, and how this is influenced by the people at the top of the organization and the leadership methods adopted by the organization.
The authors identify four key aspects of personal competency in emotional intelligence:
* Self-Awareness
* Self-Management
* Social Awareness
* Relationship Management
The stronger a person is in these, the better leader he or she will become. Unless we are aware of our own emotions, we won't know how to control them. For example, if you make a unintentional, snide remark to an employee, because you're frustrated with the employee, the employee will probably not benefit, nor will the work environment. But, to prevent such a remark means you first must accept that you're feeling frustrated and, secondly, control that emotion.
Being socially aware means that you understand the power structure of the organization and it means you have empathy. As an extreme case of lack of empathy, suppose an employee's wife just dumped him and you enter his office and say, "Hey, Jack. Won't ask about the wife. Ha, ha. Just kidding. But, I need that report today, so focus. Don't worry about your personal, little life."
Obviously, that wouldn't go over too well! A great film of unmotivating leadership is "Office Space." The CEO is too funny. He walks around talking in monotone and he doesn't hear what the employees are saying. Again, an extreme case.
A leader must understand the emotional state of his/her employees and take it into consideration. That doesn't, of course, mean you must agree or tolerate unacceptable behavior.
After discussing these core competencies, the authors discuss different leadership styles, including:
* Visionary
* Coaching
* Pacesetting
* Democratic
* Commanding
The authors argue that visionary, coaching, and democratic leadership styles are beneficial to an organization. But, many leaders rely upon the more tenuous pacesetting and commanding methods of leadership, which can backfire or be overdone. For example, a pacesetting, commanding leader often makes people feel irrelevant and stressed out. That makes them less effective and motivated.
And, stress isn't good personally. Quoting the authors: "When stress is high and sustained, the brain reacts with sustained cortisol secretion, which actually hampers learning by killing off brain cells in the hippocampus that are essential for new learning." (Well that [stinks]!)
However, there is hope for stressed-out leaders or followers. Quoting the authors again: "Human brains can create new neural tissue as well as new neural connections and pathways throughout adulthood."
The authors argue that most leadership training fails because it teaches the neocortex brain or the learning brain. But, leadership skills require more limbic learning. The limbic part of the brain is the more emotional part that learns via repetition and personal experience. The authors compare learning leadership to learning to play the slide guitar. You must practice good habits.
To motivate oneself to improve as a leader, the authors suggest forming an image of your ideal self, acquiring a realistic image of your present self, and then practicing behaviors (until they become automatic) that have you act more like your ideal self.
The authors argue that this is the best way to improve, because it's a positive way of seeing yourself in the future and seeing a positive goal. Plus, as you improve your EI skills, not only will your leadership skills be enhanced, but so too will your personal relationships. Don't look at your weaknesses as 'gaps' that need to be improved.
The authors write: "Emphasis on gaps often arouses the right prefrontal cortex--that is, feelings of anxiety and defensiveness. Once defensiveness sets in, it typically demotivates rather than motivates, thereby interrupting, even stopping, self-directed learning and the likelihood of change."
Focusing upon how good you can become versus fixing gaps seems akin to looking at the glass half full versus half empty, but apparently that makes all the difference.
Peter Hupalo, Author of "Thinking Like An Entrepreneur."
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Title: Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't by Jim Collins ISBN: 0066620996 Publisher: HarperCollins Pub. Date: 16 October, 2001 List Price(USD): $27.50 |
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Title: Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done by Larry Bossidy, Ram Charan, Charles Burck ISBN: 0609610570 Publisher: Crown Pub Pub. Date: 11 June, 2002 List Price(USD): $27.50 |
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Title: Leading Quietly by Joseph L. Badaracco Jr. ISBN: 1578514878 Publisher: Harvard Business School Press Pub. Date: 11 February, 2002 List Price(USD): $26.95 |
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Title: Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman ISBN: 0553375067 Publisher: Bantam Books Pub. Date: July, 1997 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: Working With Emotional Intelligence by Daniel P. Goleman ISBN: 0553378589 Publisher: Bantam Doubleday Dell Pub (Trd Pap) Pub. Date: 04 January, 2000 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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