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.

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