Primal leadership - The hidden driver of great performance

You've heard about the importance of emotional intelligence in the workplac e - that there's an incontrovertible link between executives' emotional mat urity, exemplified by such capabilities as self-awareness and empathy, and their financial performance. Now, new research extends that base. Drawing on two years of research, the authors contend that the leader's moo d and his or her attendant behaviors have enormous effects on bottom line p erformance. Moods are, quite literally, contagious: A cranky and ruthless b oss creates a toxic organization of negative underachievers; an upbeat and inspirational leader spawns acolytes for whom any challenge is surmountable . And the final link in the chain is performance: profit and loss. Since leaders' moods and behaviors are such potent drivers of business succ ess, top executives' premier job - their primal task, even - is emotional l eadership. in other words, before leaders can turn to setting strategy, fix ing budgets, or hiring staff, they must first attend to the impact of their moods and behaviors. To help them do that, the authors introduce a five-st ep process of self-reflection and planning. Executives should ask themselve s: Who do I want to be? Who am I now? How do I get from here to there? How do I make change stick? And who can help me? Working through this process w ill help leaders determine how their emotional leadership is driving the mo ods and actions of their organizations, and how to adjust their behavior ac cordingly. That's not to say, the authors point out, that a leader's actions aren't cr itical. But the message sent by neurological, psychological, and organizati onal research is startling in its clarity. Emotional leadership is the spar k that ignites a company's performance.