Life
Daniel Goleman was born in 1946 in Stockton, California. He earned a doctorate in psychology at Harvard University. For many years he wrote about psychology and brain science for The New York Times. He co-founded CASEL, which promotes social and emotional learning in schools.
Works
- Emotional Intelligence (1995) - popularised the concept introduced by Salovey and Mayer; see emotional intelligence.
- Working with Emotional Intelligence (1998) and the article What Makes a Leader? (HBR 1998) - emotional intelligence in the leader's work.
- Leadership That Gets Results (HBR 2000) - six leadership styles; see Goleman's leadership styles.
- Primal Leadership (2002, with Richard Boyatzis and Annie McKee) - resonant leadership based on the leader's emotional attunement to people.
- Focus (2013) - on attention as the hidden driver of excellence.
Significance and criticism
Goleman made emotional and social competencies a standard part of leadership development programmes. Scientists, however, criticise some popular claims in his books as exaggerated, as well as the broad “mixed” model of EI that combines abilities with personality traits. Even so, the basic observation - that a leader's effectiveness depends on understanding oneself and others - is well established.
Sources
D. Goleman, Emotional Intelligence, Bantam 1995 D. Goleman, Working with Emotional Intelligence, Bantam 1998 D. Goleman, Leadership That Gets Results, Harvard Business Review 2000 D. Goleman, R. Boyatzis, A. McKee, Primal Leadership, Harvard Business School Press 2002 CASEL, casel.org