Rating: 
Summary: Great Book, Title [Stinks]
Review: 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."
Rating: 
Summary: Great Subject
Review: Goleman uses "Primal Leadership" as a practical outlet for his thoughts on emotional intelligence. My recomendation is to purchase the articles on these subjects from the Harvard Business Review. The subject is important and the articles are much more to the point. There is a collection of three or you can get their "On Point" collection on leadership.
There are various aspects to leadership so don't just stop here. John P. Kotter is a great student of leadership and has written several books and articles on the subject. Spend some time studying great leaders as well.
Rating:
Summary: Emotional Intelligence: A New Look at Leadership
Review: Goleman, Boyatzis, and McKee make excellent use of decades of organizational research. Insightful and well written. The authors provide a unique perspective on leadership and how emotional intelligence influences a leader's ability to relate with others. Easy to read and understand, the authors maintain that emotional intelligence can make the difference between organizational success and failure. Simply put, emotional intelligence impacts the bottom-line. Human emotion is an open-looped system influenced by rational thought and emotional stimuli. The nature of human emotion is carefully examined by the authors and shown to be a primary component in human relationships. The authors proclaim that Emotional Intelligence (EI) can be learned and practiced and when used as a leadership attribute can provide the aspiring leader with emotional competencies necessary to create lasting and productive relationships. The authors illuminate the importance of emotional intelligence and provide scientific evidence of its benefit; emotional intelligence bridges the relational gap between the leader and the led and provides a means to create healthy, functional, and productive relationships. Goleman, Boyatzis, and McKee use their research and the research of others to skillfully demonstrate the importance of interpersonal relationships within an organizational context. The authors maintain that leaders create either "Resonance" or "Dissonance" when they interact with others. The authors provide ample evidence that leaders and those who aspire to lead do well to understanding and empathize with those they seek to influence on an emotional level and create "resonance", a connection on a profound emotional and intellectual level. Leadership within an organizational context is concerned mainly with increased productivity; which the authors maintain occurs when the quality of human interaction in increased and "Dissonance" is decreased. The authors provide many examples of how emotionally intelligent leaders cultivate relationships, create positive cultures, and increase bottom-line performance.
Rating:
Summary: It doesn't stand alone
Review: Having read Goleman's "Emotional Intelligence" before reading "Primal Leadership", it is clear that EI is a prerequisite for PL. There are plenty of references to the former book that assume the reader is already familiar with the work. Primal Leadership is not just about emotional intelligence, but about implementing emotionally intelligent leadership. The book aims very high, but succeeds in that a well-grounded leadership philosophy is shown to be practiceable.
Rating:
Summary: ThereÕs More Here Than Cherries Jubilee
Review: I agree with most of what has been said by reviewers who have given very positive ratings to this work. There has been the occasional comment that the only flaw in the message was that a method of developing these skills was not clearly laid out in the book. This point was most strongly drawn in the review titled ÔIntellectual Cherries Jubilee.Õ I would like to address this point briefly, and suggest a solution. The ability to detect characteristics which are necessary for success in an organization does in no way imply that a technique for developing these characteristics is either suggested, available or even known by the authors. Looking at the list of skills associated with successful leadership, it is fairly apparent that what we are seeking as to self-enriching behavior will not be described in a business journal to any great extent. It is rather within the realm of the philosophical/religious/spiritual/psychological where one can profitably seek. The inner meaning within many of the worldÕs spiritual traditions are a useful place to seek this information. I have found Sufi teachings to be the most useful contemporary expression of these skills, which are the foundation not only of success in business but, not surprisingly, success in life. If you are the so-called practical type, hold your scepticism in abeyance for a bit and just read Idries ShahÕs Learning How to Learn. You will begin to get an inkling of how defining an accurate sense of Self is a serious effort quite apart from -and preceding- any organizational work. When you come back to Primal Leadership, you will be better equipped to utilize its valuable message. There is also the distinct possibility you will want to further your studies in Sufi psychology.
Rating: 
Summary: Falls short on what it could have been.
Review: I had high hopes for this book. I do believe in primal leadership, that there is a real, biological basis to what does and doesn't work in leadership. Basically leadership is going from an art to a science, and it's this biologically based approach which will get us there. The problem with this book is that it's way too fluffy. There are lots of "case studies" with quite frankly poor science in them. I just got really discouraged to see the text stay so high level, and make grand statements without backing them up. What I was left with was a number of "you should do this" type things, but without enough specifics on why or how to be useful. It's too bad because the concept of primal leadership is great. For some reason Goleman didn't deliver. Where to go? Maybe check out "Working with Emotional Intelligence" by Goleman, which is pretty good. Or check out "Generation to Generation" by Edwin Friedman, which I see as the "Rosetta stone" work between high level leadership and the biology underneath. Even better would be "A Failure of Nerve--Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix" also by Friedman, except that you can only order it directly from his estate.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant Deduction
Review: I have been reading for over thirty years, the trend I see in new releases is to keep it all to simple. This is a simple book with a simple message behind all the rhetoric. Complicated no, higher level wording yes. Here is the real core of this book, "We know our workers have emotions, let's make them feel good emotionally and they will work their tails off for us". This book is a mass market item for the much less numbering persons in charge to be able to apply the principles. However the book is good for the current generation reader to help them be a part of it all. That's why I rate it super, an average person can benefit from this. Another book advertised and recommended here that I bought, which helped me much more, especially concerning moving ahead with emotional intelligence, SB 1 or God, Karl Mark Maddox, missing out on a great aid without this book.
Rating:
Summary: This book is excellent!
Review: I have read a couple of books on emotional intelligence, but this one is, by far, the best. The depth of insight, the way concepts are explained and the examples that are given make it easy to understand, relate to and apply what you learn. I got a great deal from this book. It was especially encouraging to me because it validates many of the things I believe in and that we are working to build into the culture of our organization. I will read this book many times. To me, it is a treasure chest of valuable information.
Rating:
Summary: Highly recommended for leadership development
Review: I have to admit, I enjoyed the first half of the book (devoted to personal leadership styles, competencies, and learning) more than the second half (which focuses on organizational development). I've assigned this book and related exercises to a number of my executive coaching clients. Even if they only breeze through emotional intelligence domains and associated competencies (page 39) and the styles of leadership (summarized on page 55), we have plenty to work with. Clients come back amazed at how often they employ non-resonant styles (and begin to notice the consequences), at how transparent their moods are to others, etc. One client, hugely successful in prior businesses, wondered aloud if he should "go back" to his former hard-driving (Pace-Setting) style, given his lackluster experience in his current tech start-up using a softer approach. It helped him to distinguish between his former endeavors (where his teams were highly self-motivated, competent, and connected to one another) and his current endeavor (where there was less intrinsic trust and some questions about competencies on the team). Rather than the often dissonant Pace-Setting style, he realized the need to emphasize more resonant styles, especially some very specific Coaching style interventions to address competency issues. After working together, it wasn't just about "hard" or "soft" styles in business, but about appropriate styles for different situations. If you're interested in "integral theory" then this is one of of the ones that counts. Here's a quick mapping of models that Primal Leadership explores and how they relate to the the domains of integral theory: * Self-awareness and self-management map to the subjective world, my world, the world of "I." While "mood" is covered, I would have liked to see more of a distinction between mood (a person's ongoing "climate") and emotions (a person's current reactions or "weather"). * Social awareness and relationship management map to the intersubjective world; the world of business, culture, and relationships, where many rules are unwritten and must be sensed. Social competence is the world of "We." * The "neuroanatomy of leadership," with its focus on how the brain works and learns, maps to the objective world, the world of physical phenomena and measurements, the world of "It." Primal Leadership is an easy read, but it's also a great reference, with models that people "get." Highly recommended!
Rating:
Summary: He is right
Review: I read his book,"Emotional Intelligence" and I think he is right about people having different levels of intellect. If only those in academic institutions of learning who create curriclums knew this and utilized this wisdom. Thomas Edison stunk at Math and dropped out. Was he stupid? No. We all have things we are good and and things we stink at. The point is we should build up what we are good at. I also would like to recommend the book, The Little Guide To Happiness. It's tiny thing, but it is designed to make you smile, so I thought I'd mention it.
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