Primal Leadership: Realizing the Power of Emotional Intelligence [ABRIDGED]

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Summary: Manage By Touching People
Review: This book is great... If you believe in managing by touching people and caring them... This book is great...

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Summary: Primal Leadership takes emotions into account
Review: This book is unique because it recognizes the value of feeling good about ourselves in the workplace. The author is a courageous pioneer in this field. I also believe that personal leadership is the foundation for leading others, so I suggest that Optimal Thinking: How to Be Your Best Self to learn how to make the most of oneself and then bring out the best from others.

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Summary: More connections of "Primal Leadership" and Neuroscience
Review: This is a very interesting and substantial book and I recommend it highly. It illustrates one thing that'd probably be too trivial in the context of child development, yet is very surprising when applied in the context of leadership: a leader would probably be considered autistic if he/she leads by being just intellectually or analytically superior - the leader must connect affectively with troops to be effective, explicitly or implicitly. Having said that, I think the main points can be further elucidated if it spends a bit more time in incorporating more findings from neuroscience. In particular, I find its arguments for the main themes inadequate by just employing brain¡¯s cognitive and emotional functions. In fact, there are two other brain functions that are orthogonal to the fore-mentioned functions, but nonetheless play key roles in the leadership as well: the automatic and controlled function of the brain. Some of leadership behavior can probably be better explained by the following framework: cognitive and controlled, cognitive and automatic, emotional and controlled, and finally emotional and automatic.

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Summary: For Every Manager and Consultant!
Review: This is one of the most important books I have read in years. Every manager and management consultant should read this book. If you have not read it, put it at the top of your reading list. Very Insightful! I am recommending it to all of my clients!

Michael Beitler, Ph.D.
Author of "Strategic Organizational Change"

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Summary: Forest or The Trees?
Review: TITLE: Forest or The Trees?

REVIEW: I agreed with a lot of what Goleman has to say in Primal Leadership and I'm fairly sympathetic to his general theme that much existing management theory and teachings lie too much on the analytical/reasoning side and do not put enough emphasis on the "softer"/psychological issues. However, while many of Goleman's statements and cited research make sense (the "trees") they often don't seem to fit well within his model/theory (the "forest"), which is overly one-dimensional in stating basically that "emotional intelligence" (EI) competencies are the be all and end all of leadership.

Goleman's theory, which seems to be based on his statement that "the emotional task is the original and most important", swings the pendulum too far in the anti-analytical direction. He makes the same mistake as many of his analytical colleagues do/did in assuming that there is one ideal leadership mold to which everyone should be shaped into. The purpose of the book is to get the reader to understand Goleman's emotional intelligence (EI) mold for the ideal leader and how to fit this mold.

Goleman lists 19 EI competencies that the ideal leader should have. First, note that many of the competencies are not simply emotional, but require reasoning skills/abilities. Second, while it is true that these competencies are good to have, it is folly to expect one individual to try to obtain all of these. This is a throwback to the myth of the well-rounded organizational man of the 1950s IBM which has been discredited. One should focus on their strengths and manage their weaknesses, not become a well rounded person in all these competencies.

The other major disappointment I have with Primal Leadership is the same that I have with most books on "leadership". As Peter Drucker has taught, the only definition of a leader is someone who has followers. This definition includes Hitler, Jim Jones, David Koresh and all con artists who all knew/know how to appeal to human emotions to get people to do what they want. Books on "leadership" assume that leadership equates to management. While this difference may seem trivial and harmless it isn't upon deeper reflection. The primary goal of managers isn't simply to be a leader, that is to have followers, but rather to do the right things, make the organization effective/produce results, and assist employees in being productive. Goleman does succeed to some extent in identifying what is helpful in creating followers, but it's the wrong focus.

STRENGTHS: The book is fairly well written, well organized, and easy to read as one would expect of a mass market Harvard Business School Press book. Also, I especially enjoyed the discussion of the importance of organizational vision and the importance of the culture of groups.

WEAKNESSES: One-sided focus on emotional tasks. Tries to teach the reader how to be the ideal leader (i.e. the Tiger Woods of Leadership) instead of giving the tools and information needed to help average people (which most of us are) become more effective. Most example come from dysfunctional, rather than typical, situations.

ALSO CONSIDER: Peter Drucker for effective management teachings. Marcus Buckingham for the opposite of the "one-size-fits-all" management theory.

Rating:
Summary: Catchy title, terrible book
Review: Well, as a reference book in a medical library this would be a great fit, but for leaders looking to do more this book is off topic. The scientific nature of this book provides great bits of info, but it also makes the 350 pages feel more like 3,000. If you are looking for a way to reach people emotionally try Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends & Influence People. If you want to know how those techniques affect the neurological system this might work for you.

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Summary: Read, if your a leader desiring increased trust and power
Review: Where there is no vision the people perish. Leaders from the most profitable businesses don't need to inflate their emotional competencies ratings because the people supporting and working for them will provide an accurate rating. Visionary leaders paint a larger picture illustrating the purpose for the organization. Visionary leaders have the ability to increase corporate focus and enthusiam. The leader is the focal point of the organization. Everyone looks to the leader during a crisis. Leaders who are empathic and understanding impact people both personally and professionally. Workers measure their performance based on expectations and feedback provided by their leaders. The book "Primal Leadership" describes a perception and behavioral model for to help leaders change behavior and significantly improve their organizations.

"Primal Leadership" attempts to gain the readers focus by illustrating a new leadership model, a leadership model centered on emotional perception where increased trust is transferred to the leader through iterative improvement. Elements to the model are ideal self, realistic self, planning agenda, and behavior modification. The authors authors original emotional competencies remain: Self-Awareness, Self-Management, Social Awareness, and Relationship Management with these competencies helped us measure the quality of leader, but does not necessary describe how to improve a leader. "Primal Leadership" goes to the next step by providing an leadership model designed to strengthen an leader by empowering for greater impact through greater levels of trust. The organization improves as the result of leadership improvement.

The leader looks first at the ideal condition. "Describe what you want to be doing in fifteen years". The ideal condition describes the future and drops the barriers of reject and fear. The interesting observation is that 80 percent of the ideal has nothing to do with work. The ideal condition feeds into planned agenda. The planned agenda conceptualizes a course of action to achieve the ideal.
The ideal self plans for and builds the future of the company. Without an vision new product lines and service centers would not likely be created. The ideal self has the potential to energize the company.

The realistic self narrows the focus to the leaders strengths. Diversity is the enemy with increased product and service not leading to increased profits. Diversity is often viewed as method to improve profit, but more often a long term drain on the company. The key is to narrow the range of products and services to those where the strongest core competencies exist. The realistic self helps center the leader back to the areas where clients are willing to pay the most money. The realistic self keeps the company from engaging in activities that lose money.

Faith, hard work, and practice facilitate behavior modification. The paradim "You can't teaching a old dog new tricks" is not true. Leaders are expected to improve behavior. The authors go to great lengths to explain when command , coaching, and democratic styles of leadership work; but fall back to the visionary leader as having the greatest long term impact on an organization. Behavior modification can dramatically change the organization culture.

The model works to gain the trust of all members in the organization. It works to gain an deeper understanding of "how well the leader is doing" and "how to improve behavior". I think "Primal Leadership" is an excellent book.