Primal leadership is the application of emotional intelligence to leadership. According to Goleman, one of the most important jobs of a leader is to regulate the emotional atmosphere of their team. The first few chapters lay out a few frameworks to go into more detail about what emotional intelligence means for managers. After that, Primal Leadership swaps authors and topics and goes into self-directed learning and tips on creating an emotionally resonant organization. The useful frameworks are below, most of the rest of the book is fluff.

Emotional intelligence for leaders consists of the following:

  1. Awareness of emotions in self
  2. Ability to control emotions
  3. Awareness of emotions in others
  4. Relationship management

Based on this, there are 6 leadership styles, 2 bad and 4 good:

Bad:

  1. Pace-Setting: This really isn’t a leadership style, it’s how an IC can have impact in the org. An obvious antipattern.
  2. Command: Perhaps useful as a means to specific objectives, but grating over the long term and generally takes away from the emotional commitment of team members.

Good: 3. Visionary: The leader sets the goal for where the team can go, and rallies the team behind this cause. 4. Diplomatic: Leader acts as a facilitator of multiple opinions on the team. 5. Affiliative: Leadre focuses on making sure that people feel heard and supported in the organization. 6. Coaching: helping others achieve success.

Useful concepts: CEO disease: information distortion around leaders created when people withhold unpleasant and usually important information.