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Primal Leadership  By  cover art

Primal Leadership

By: Daniel Goleman,Richard Boyatzis,Annie McKee
Narrated by: Arthur Morey
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Publisher's summary

Daniel Goleman's international best seller Emotional Intelligence forever changed our concept of "being smart," showing how emotional intelligence (EI) - how we handle ourselves and our relationships - can determine life success more than IQ. Then, Working with Emotional Intelligence revealed how stellar career performance also depends on EI.

Now, Goleman teams with renowned EI researchers Richard Boyatzis and Annie McKee to explore the role of emotional intelligence in leadership. Unveiling neuroscientific links between organizational success or failure and "primal leadership," the authors argue that a leader's emotions are contagious. If a leader resonates energy and enthusiasm, an organization thrives; if a leader spreads negativity and dissonance, it flounders.

Drawing from decades of analysis, the authors show that resonant leaders excel not just through skill and smarts but also by connecting with others, using EI competencies such as empathy and self-awareness. And they employ up to six leadership styles - from visionary to coach to pacesetter - fluidly interchanging them as the situation demands. The program no leader in any walk of life can afford to miss, this unforgettable work transforms the art of leadership into the science of results.

©2002 Daniel Goleman (P)2002 Audio Renaissance, a Division of Holtzbrinck Publishers LLC

Featured Article: 55+ Powerful and Inspiring Quotes to Guide Your Leadership Journey


What makes a great leader? While leadership styles vary, most experts agree that the best leaders have key characteristics in common. Gathered from a wide range of audiobooks—classic novels, management guides, sci-fi thrillers, political memoirs, and more—this collection of quotes reinforces and reflects on seven hallmarks of every great leader. These quotes offer insights to help you develop core leadership qualities and rise to the calling.

What listeners say about Primal Leadership

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

This opened my eyes

I started listening to this book one weekend, while I was hanging suspended ceiling in my basement. There were several times, that afternoon, that I found myself just standing there listening instead of working on my project.

The author helped me realize that my management style had evolved over the years and I had become the manager that I would not want to work for. His analogy of the frog boiling in water was me.

I have since made a conscious effort to become the manager that I was when I began my career. I revisit this book occasionally, to remind myself.

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24 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars

A must read

I will start with a caveat: This is long - and at times the focus on the actual functioning of the brain is a bit to indepth - so buckle down because it is a must read. It provides a data based approach to management and leadership, and should be a key reading of all new managers, executives and leaders. Too often, the market is filled with 'how I did it' books, which neglect to note that how the author did it is not universally applicable. By understanding all of the different style, you will learn to pick the styles that are appropriate for your situation and personality

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15 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Buy this one...

This offers several very intersting points of view. It confirms the belief that it takes more than IQ to really excel and clearly points out the strengths and gaps in several different styles of leadership. It challenges you to think about and evaluate your style of leadership to see where you might improve. I highly recommend this book!!

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10 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars

Good content, hard to listen to

I think that the book has a lot of good content, but I found it hard to get into--the first 3 chapters didn't seem to say much, the next few were excellent, but after a few hours it seemed to get repetitive. If I lost my place it was very difficult to find it again because I felt like I'd heard all of it before.

I plan on listening to it again, only this time I'm going to break it down into smaller pieces which I'll listen to over a period of a month or two. The content is good, the narrator is fine, but the book seemed a repetitive and drawn out to me.

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8 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars

Good book, Hard to listen to.

This is a good book. Very valuable and important information. But it's tough to listen to. I think it would make a better read.

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5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars

A little too lenghty

If you have read about emotional intelligence before, this book doesn't give you lots of new insights. But it's an excellent introduction on today's leadership skill requirements.

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5 people found this helpful

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    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Academic Presentation

Great information. presented very academically. Reads like a thesis. Presentation was pretty dry - likely because of the way the book was written. I'll be purchasing in book form for reference, and I may have been better off reading than listening to this one .

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

I was hoping for guidance not statistics

I have read the book Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman and was hoping this book would build upon the knowledge gleaned from that book to help me be a better leader in my business. Perhaps I am not patient enough, but 5 hours into this book I am learning a lot of statistics, but not a lot of application of the principles that can help translate into skills I can use through EI. Apparently I am not ready for Primal Leadership because I need more "how to's".

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

???

seemed to be all over the map, or maybe I just lost focus. Kept repeating in areas.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

Get to the point already!

What disappointed you about Primal Leadership?

I couldn't even finish this book because the it is extremely repetitive and never got to the point. If it ever did get to the point, I had lost interest long before that. It's like one of those infomercials that keeps telling you WHY you need this product, but never actually tells you anything about the product itself! Very frustrating.

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

Very disappointed.

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2 people found this helpful

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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  • Amazon Customer
  • 04-13-13

Well recommended

I would like to recommend this book to anyone who is looking to improve their knowledge of management techniques. It is simple to read and therefore understand and presents some challenging concepts that need to be understood. These can easily be applied to the working enviroment without any considerable challenges.

I hope you enjoy this book as much as I did and look forward to seeing your own reviews of this book at a later date.

Enjoy!

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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  • Rude K.
  • 08-14-18

Wow! They should teach this in schools

Simply brilliant!!!
I've been à manager fort 14 years and this is probably the most useful reading I have done.
It's clear, it makes sense and it blows your mind.
I feel so much stronger already and my mind is clearer on where I want to take my team and what I need to do to get there

Thank you

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1 person found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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  • Uasmat
  • 12-31-17

Great book on leadership

This is a great book on leadership, I have read three books from D. Goleman and really enjoyed them all.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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  • A.I.Pegan
  • 05-26-17

Good book however too long winded

Now that I have listened to this whole book I feel it could have been summarised better. Each chapter was based on a number of different stories with no summary near the end.

One would have to go through the book repeatedly and pick out their own parts that would resonate with them. The problem here lies with Audible chapter summary which has no index only chapter numbers hence making it near impossible to find the right area you would need

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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  • Garyfallia
  • 09-18-14

Leadership seen as a relationship

Would you listen to Primal Leadership again? Why?

I will definetely listen to it many more times . It has so many practical daily applications.
A must for all people. We all deal with humans. The tips given in this book make us more effective and happy.

Did you have an emotional reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

This book is a handbook and makes you reflect on dialy issues

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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  • Lauren Packham
  • 12-18-22

wish i coulg return it

badly read by narrator. concepts are basic and obvious. not worth it. why cant audible books be returned

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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  • Daniel Blair
  • 09-16-22

Well worth the time and cost!

This was an excellent book/presentation of the material. Tone and pace were spot on. Provides some essential and constructive insights for anyone wishing to be a good manager but also those wishing to move beyond being a manager to a coaching manager or transformational leader. I've recommended this others. Will be returning to specific chapters for refresh every now and then.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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  • Olga
  • 12-05-19

Not for a beginner manager

Not recommended for first time managers, not enough actionable tips. Most of the examples are about executive level managers.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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  • George
  • 07-05-18

Actually useful

Contrary to many other EI books this one is actually very useful and the ideas and mindsets in the book can easily be applicable in the workplace

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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  • MikeY
  • 01-18-17

50/50

50% covered in other books but worth a listen for the other 50%. highlights the more human dynamics of change and leadership.

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  • Simone
  • 01-04-20

Valuable Wisdom

Really enjoyed the content of this book. It resonated with my experience. Looking forward to putting it into practice. Will have to get a hard copy of the book and read it a few times to absorb all the great advice to action. Thank you for this work. This book, Dare to Lead by Brene Brown and The Advantage by Patrick Lencioni are the best books I've read and implemented from relating to leadership and organisational health and success.

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3 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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  • Luke
  • 07-20-19

one of the best leadership books I've read

A great book with practical application and a structured process for improving organisational leadership capabilities and culture.

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1 person found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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  • Giles
  • 08-31-17

Thought provoking

Excellent book with slots of relevant real world examples where leaders have won. Covers many different thoughts on effective leadership

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1 person found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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  • Anonymous User
  • 11-11-22

EQ in leadership

Love Daniel Golemans work. So interesting and useful examples given to put into action. We’ll recommended

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    5 out of 5 stars
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  • Colin Grigg
  • 06-09-15

Life Changing

Great hearing about these new concepts and see how well they fit into many areas in need of change in our own organisation where an answer to our problems just didn't seem to exist. Just found some ideas a little hard to grasp, but overall a great book.

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