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Primal Leadership: Realizing the Power of Emotional Intelligence Daniel Coleman, Richard Boyatzis and Annie McKee Harvard Business School Press Boston, MA 2002 ISBN: 1-57851-486 US$26.95
As organizations increase in complexity and feel threatened by competitors, the need for effective leadership increases exponentially. Primal Leadership offers a possible solution to the current leadership dilemma. It attempts to show how leaders can behave in a way that: optimizes follower performance; increases commitment; creates an environment that nurtures organizational citizenship; and "generate[s] the emotional resonance that lets people flourish" (p. xi).
While I believe that the authors wrote this as a guide for the practitioner, scholars will find many examples of leadership successes and failures.
This book is a sequel to Daniel Goleman's seminal works Emotional Intelligence (Goleman, 1995) and Working With Emotional Intelligence (Coleman, 1997). Similar to the original works, this book includes a discussion of what emotional intelligence means and the role the brain plays in behavior. The book is divided into three sections.
The first section, entitled "The power of emotional intelligence", introduces the reader to the underlying principal of "primal leadership" and an overview of the dimensions of emotional intelligence. "Great leadership works through the emotions" (p. 3), claim the authors. A failure to understand and work within this framework will doom performance to less than optimal results. The positional power of leaders vest them with an emotional grip over their follower, and provides an opportunity to cause either exemplary or disastrous performance. When "leaders drive emotions positively" (p. 5), everyone will operate at their best. Alternatively, if the leader drives negative emotions, the "leader spawns dissonance, undermining the emotional foundations that let people shine" (p. 6). Dissonance has the ability to "emotionally hijack" (p. 13) the follower, which means that leaders, through their behavior, can divert followers' attention away from the important work of the organization. "The emotional art of leadership includes pressing the reality of work demands without unduly upsetting people" (p. 13). Therefore, the authors argue that leaders must avoid dissonance and strive for resonance.
The authors propose that one can create resonance through the use of EI competencies, defined as self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship management Our brains are "wired" to respond to emotionally intelligent behavior. People tend to...