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Summary: Leading through Emotions, Intellect and Cognitive Skills
Review: Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyatzis, and Annie McKee first correctly remind us about the importance of dealing with emotions in the workplace. To their credit, Goleman, Boyatzis, and McKee do not downplay the dramatic impact of both intellect and cognitive skills in building a company to last. Goleman, Boyatzis, and McKee then explore the four emotional intelligence dimensions and their associated competencies: Self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management. Those capabilities are key to managing others successfully. After exploring each of these four concepts of emotionally intelligent leadership, Goleman, Boyatzis, and McKee apply them to the six types of leadership styles: Visionary, coaching, affiliative, democratic, pacesetting, and commanding. The authors convincingly demonstrate that emotionally intelligent leaders are flexible in their use of leadership styles because some styles are more appropriate than others in specific situations. Emotionally sub-optimal leaders who are willing to improve themselves can learn through self-directed learning and with the help of others how to fill the gaps that separate them from emotionally intelligent leaders. Goleman, Boyatzis, and McKee also explore how to build emotionally intelligent organizations. Ignoring how to deal with the realities of team norms and organizational culture often is a recipe for disaster as Goleman, Boyatzis, and McKee clearly show us. The result is indeed a toxic and rebellious environment that will have a negative impact on both customer and investor loyalty. Finally, Goleman, Boyatzis, and McKee examine the process for sustaining emotionally intelligent leadership over time. To summarize, "Primal Leadership" is a good read that brings an additional dimension of leadership to our attention.
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Summary: Discovering a new leadership paradigm
Review: 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.
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Summary: Read this book if you are a leader (or planning to be one).
Review: I think a few clarifying questions should be answered here. Is this a useful book about identifying and improving critical leadership traits/competencies? Yes. About emotional traits? Yes. About "gushing"? Absolutely not. Is it useful for self-improvement? Yes (strongly). Helping others in their self-improvement? Yes. Does this book clear away the "mythology" of leadership? Yes. The authors assert that leadership traits can be trained, and that there isn't an upper age limit to retrain. It also asserts many things that you will know in your gut to be true. What is important is not the individual facts that are highlighted, it is the connections between those observations and their implications. Yes, the book often restates material but there is a reason. Buy the book and read it. Digest it slowly. Why? Because improving leadership competencies requires much more repetition than is required for cognitive tasks - it involves the reprogramming the basal ganglia, or emotive brain, which much different than the neocortex, or the thinking brain, that is used most heavily in academic learning. What is important is the "why" (i.e., the sustainability and effectiveness of leadership improvement) and the "how" (the technique). Does this book answer all your questions on this subject. Probably not. It will show you the basic leadership competencies, and that an effective leader must have strengths in each of the 4 base competency areas: this last point is of some utility in my leadership coaching role. It will also tell you about the basic leadership styles, their pros/cons, and how to facilitate each style and their blends. It will drive home the need for sustained learning (...those one week leadership effectivess classes you have attended statistically don't work, but you probably already knew that), and the importance of setting your own goals and plans (...no one really ever causes you to change your style, rather you identify the improvement areas that you are willing to change, and use a learning approach that you adopt). The book will help you identify leadership styles in others. It tells you why stressful environments physiologically defeat your ability to improve, and what you can do to mitigate this effect. It gives underlying rationale for advice in Drucker's "Management Challenges of the 21st Century" (Chap. 6 Managing Oneself) , Collins' "Built to Last", and Buckingham's "First, Break All the Rules". It this all you need for leadership improvement? Probably not, but I'll add this one for the record: your chances for success are very much diminished without understanding the deeper principles found in this book...
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Summary: Excellent, Though Missing One Important Thing
Review: "Primal Leadership" by Daniel Goleman is intellectually well done, from its presentation to its supporting examples. Though I agree with everything in the book, one important thing is missing that anyone really serious about all of this will absolutely need. That is, a basic philosophical understanding of the morals, ethics, and character required for GOOD leadership. I recommend the book "West Point: Character, Leadership,..." by Norman Thomas Remick for that.
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Summary: IQ or EQ? New thoughts on measuring a leader.
Review: Think of the leaders you admire. Think of the leaders you hold in disdain. What are the comparisons and contrasts? What MAKES a good leader? Integrity, commitment, intelligence, flexibility, sensitivity and a variety of other attributes? History has manifested the stereotypical successful leader as highly intelligent with a backbone of steel. In addition, they are calm in the face of diversity, consistent with praise and criticism (a/k/a One Minute Manager), rational relative to decisionmaking, dispassionate toward inefficiences and, perhaps above all, outstanding listeners. They don't play office politics or change their personal management style to build the necessary relationships with their management team. Hold the presses! According to Daniel Goleman, intelligence, experience and being blessed with a strong skill set are no longer considered THE poignant indicators of a successful leader. Emotional intelligence or "EQ" is the ability to understand and manage oneself as well as a variety of interpersonal relationships. Mr. Goleman espouses that EQ is considered a better leadership differentiator than raw talent, a soaring IQ, or technical mastery. With his arguably breakthrough book EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE, Goleman has solidly established his place in history as the authority on EQ. He makes the case that sensitivity to emotions in the workplace and mastering interpersonal communication skills are the essential competencies for a leader's success. However, Mr. Goleman warns that EQ doesn't mean that one acts or becomes more emotional. Rather, he describes it as the ability to combine rational and subjective factors to perceptions and actions. In PRIMAL LEADERSHIP, Mr. Goleman teams with Richard Boyatzis and Annie McKee, acknowledged experts in the EI (or EQ) research field, to investigate and report upon the positive and negative attributes of EQ relative to today's leaders. PRIMAL LEADERSHIP establishes the premise that a leader's emotions are a primary factor to the motivational generation of energy and enthusiasm in any organization. Further, the authors warn the reader that this type of "emotion gushing" is a must for any organization to thrive, much less, survive. While this basic concept flys in the face of conventional wisdom regarding most learned students of leadership, it will get your attention and send you into immediate introspection (at least, that was my reaction). Goleman et al contend that a leader's emotional makeup (read: "mood") have a direct correlation to the health of a company's finances. Quite a new concept indeed. PRIMAL LEADERSHIP is framed around the concepts and discussions relative to the "dimensions" of EI, the different types of leadership styles, the steps toward becoming a positive (well-rounded EQ) leader, and, of course, a "how-to" on establishing EQ as the mantra to building a better business. Be prepared to think in the abstract, a concept many leaders may struggle with. Entrepreneurs deal with this type of "outside-the box" thinking every day. Most managers do not. This book will challenge the entrepreneur to strive for a humanistic touch within their vision. On the other hand, PRIMAL LEADERSHIP will assist the manager/executive in reaching new levels of introspection and thought-provocation. The concepts presented here should not be dismissed. RECOMMENDED.
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Summary: No need for warm and fuzzies for needed leadership
Review: The premise of Primal Leadership, based on Goleman's popular "Emotional Intelligence", is that people need to be made to feel good to be lead. Actually, this is not true: often times leadership is getting what needs to be done when people feel awful. Those being lead need just to believe in their contribution to the endeavor, and they can act accordingly. For a superior, much briefer description of leadership, see the Harvard Business Review's recent article "The Work of Leadership", or the work of ISVORDilts. Whereas Goleman was quite good in Emotional Intelligence, "Primal Leadership" misses the mark.
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Summary: Emotionally Sound Bytes
Review: The control board 'Emotion' requires balanced computerised system programming of Thoughts and Actions. How Powerful are emotions that override circumstances with ease! The author focus on four domains of emotional intelligence - self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management. At a workplace, Management always stands at cross roads and is hard to understand but you got to slowly convince coz they too need to be Savvy in some areas too. In Primal Leadership, the author emphasis on 'smart leaderships' to cultivate emotionally intelligent savvy leaders.
The development of the four EI competencies initiate leadership qualities that call attention to vision for their organization restricting the commanding and authority style which hinders pace setting reach. The author Daniel Goleman discuss on the research done with Executives who render real life examples. The leaders do need to nurture good feelings and develop human relations in those people whom they lead. Though the concept remains the same like in 'Emotional Intelligence', Daniel Goleman implies to repeat the same rule. Most successful leaders are emotionally intelligent but yet remains problems to tackle with new ideas, diversed fields and more and over, Emotionally being stable to balance to lead the organization to par excellence. Communication is the key to success and that is also one factor that misleads many Leaders to stumble the blocks with the correlated managers and staff. Leaders get 'stalled' and hooked off emotionally knocking off the tolerance of the Executives who no longer stick to the rule of 'grudge & grumbles' - No way, flying them off to check out for better prospects elsewhere as we see these days. Daniel's book is an insight to be Emotionally sound and so if you haven't read his earlier book, sure this is the pick! Go ahead, adopt the Leadership styles!
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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.
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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.
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Summary: A thought provoking book worth reading!
Review: Primal Leadership; Realizing the Power of Emptional Intelligence by bestselling author Daniel Goleman and his coauthors theorize on emotional intelligence suggesting a logical premise for creating emotionally intelligent leaders. Daniel Goleman and his coauthors emphathize the importance of developing what they term (resonant leadership) focusing on the four domains of emotional intelligence -- (self awarness, self management, social awarness, and relationship management). The over-all idea of the author insists the fundamental task of leaders...is to prime positive feelings in those they lead. Primal Leadership is a thought provoking book worth reading!
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