Primal Leadership: The Hidden Driver of Great Performance (HBR OnPoint Enhanced Edition)

Goleman, Boyatzis, and McKee carefully organize their material within Three Parts: The Power of Emotional Intelligence, Making Leaders, and Building Emotional Intelligent Organizations. The insights, strategies, and tactics provided are all based on the authors' several decades of real-world experience with all manner of organizations as well as on insights gained through direct and extensive contact with various leaders. In the final chapter, the authors observe: "In sum, the best leadership programs [ones which focus on the process of talent development] are designed for culture, competencies, and even spirit. They adhere to the principles of self-directed change and use a multifaceted approach to the learning and development process itself that focuses on the individual, team, and organization." I am reminded of what the Mahatma Gandhi once asserted: "You must be the change you wish to see in the world." What should be the defining values throughout the inevitably difficult change process?

Goleman, Boyatzis, and McKee are absolutely certain that the most effective leaders "are more values-driven, more flexible and informal, and more open and frank than leaders of old. They are more connected to people and to networks. More especially, they exude resonance: They have genuine passion for their mission, and that passion is contagious. Their enthusiasm and excitement spread spontaneously, invigorating those they lead. And resonance is the key to primal leadership." Does all this describe the kind of person you wish to follow? If so, then become the same kind of leader for others to follow.

Those who share my high regard for this book are urged to check out James O'Toole's The Executive Compass, David Maister's Practice What You Preach, David Whyte's The Heart Aroused, and Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan's Execution: The Discipline of Getting Results.


The impact of emotional leadership on performance   January 24, 2002
Gerard Kroese (The Netherlands)
51 out of 52 found this review helpful

Daniel Goleman is co-chairman of the Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations, based at Rutgers University; Richard Boyatzis is Chair of the Department of Organizational Behavior at the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University; and Annie McKee is on the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania, Graduate School of Education. This Harvard Business Review article, published in the December 2001 issue, builds on Goleman's research into emotional intelligence ('Emotional Intelligence', 1995 and 'Working with Emotional Intelligence', 1998).

The authors research how emotional intelligence drives performance - "in particular, as how it travels from the leader through the organization to bottom-line results." Their research showed that emotional intelligence is carried through an organization like electricity through wires. The leader's mood spreads quickly and inexorably throughout the business. And if a leader's mood and behavior is "such a potent driver of business success, then a leader's premier task - primal task - is emotional leadership." So the leader's mood had better be a good one, right? Yes, but the mood has to be in tune with those around him. The authors refer to this as dynamic resonance. And that's why emotional intelligence matters so much for a leader. "An emotionally intelligent leader can monitor his or her moods through self-awareness, change them for the better through self-management, understand their impact through empathy, and act in ways that boost others' moods through relationship management." The authors recommend a five-step process, for self-discovery and personal reinvention, "... designed to rewire the brain toward more emotionally intelligent behaviors." The authors conclude that emotional leadership is the spark that ignites a company's performance, creating a bonfire of success or a landscape of ashes.

Daniel Goleman produces another great article on leadership. This article builds on the HBR-articles 'What Makes a Leader?' (1998) and 'Leadership that Gets Results' (2000). In those articles he discusses respectively the impact of emotional intelligence on leadership, and the impact of six different leadership styles on organizational climate. In this article he shows the impact of emotional leadership on business performance. Leaders, managers and MBA-students better get his new book 'Primal Leadership' (2002) into their shopping cart! Highly recommended. The author uses simple US-English.