Leadership – who is a leader, how one becomes a leader, how one learns to be a better leader – is an ongoing topic of discussion at my college, with colleagues, and across higher education. Institutions of higher education only improve through effective leadership. There simply aren’t enough generalized organizing factors that can promote institutional strength without good leaders.
On the journey to discover more about leadership and leaders, I am exploring many option. I encourage colleagues in higher education to look to the voluminous world of business books on leadership for insight, inspiration and caution. Read and consider them neither as monographs or scholarly studies, but as possible tools. Utility is the aim. I’m extremely flexible when it comes to finding what might help. No one is checking sources.
One business self-help leadership popular book that might helpful is Primal Leadership: Realizing the Power of Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyatzis and Annie McKee. Bracketing the scientific rigor and replicability of EI (emotional intelligence), the book posits four key domains of EI: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management. Digging into each of these, the authors spell out subcategory competencies in each. The strengths and weaknesses of these collectively help to understand what kind of leader, and leadership, is exercised. These are expained to be visionary, coaching, affiliative and democratic.
From this foundation, the book encourages a model of leadership development that seeks five “discoveries.” They are:
- What is my ideal self?
- What is my real self?
- What is my learning agenda?
- Experimenting and practicing new behaviors
- Developing and supporting trust in relationships
Emotionally intelligent leaders can develop and sustain emotionally intelligent organizations, which are more effective, more supportive and – importantly – good places to work and grow.
Written for the world of business and self-help, Primal Leadership is accessible, practical, and useful. Despite the complicated taxonomies and elaborate processes, there is much solid common sense advice in its pages, suggestions that could have traction at a college. That said, it is also lengthy and unduly concerned with structure, so I would not recommend for a higher education group read.
More to follow.
David Potash