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EQ for Leaders E-ZINE - ISSUE NO.39/ NOVEMBER 2009

Dear Reader,

A year which was rather challenging for most businesses is drawing to an end.

Nonetheless, the good news is that we were able to achieve significant growth and found that successful companies still invest in developing their people even when the going gets tough.

Though most companies were more careful and selective with such investments, a stronger focus seemed to be on upgrading sales people, working on the corporate culture and developing a higher EQ.

Today, Sebastien will share with you a book review of a classic on EQ. Of course, I trust that his own book on Emotional Intelligence for Leaders in Asia, which he's in the process to complete shortly, will become a classic, too.

Let's keep progressing!

Charlie Lang
Executive Coach and Founder of Progress-U Ltd.
Author of The Groupness Factor

Book Review: "Executive EQ"
Emotional Intelligence in Leadership and Organizations
By Sebastien Henry

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My clients always ask me to recommend books on Emotional Intelligence.

As you can imagine, EQ being my area of expertise, I set it as a duty (but actually it is a passion, of course!) to read pretty much any new book that gets released. As a result, I have accumulated several dozens of books. The tricky part is in knowing which one to recommend if I had to recommend only one.

“Emotional Intelligence” by Daniel Goleman, opened the field and remains an important piece of work. But there is a very important dimension missing for my clients, who are leaders in corporations: how to develop EQ, and how to apply it in their job.

“Becoming a a Resonant Leader”, by Richard Boyatzis, Annie Mc Kee and Frances Johnston fills this gap, but doesn't give an overview of the key concepts and principles of Emotional Intelligence. Therefore, I can hardly recommend it as a first read in the field.

Confronted so many times with this question, I kept thinking about it, and finally went back to one of the oldest books published on Emotional Intelligence. I had read it probably 5 years ago. I read it again recently and it became obvious to me that this is the one that I should recommend together with “Emotional Intelligence” and “Becoming a Resonant Leader”.

“Executive EQ – Emotional Intelligence in Leadership and Organizations”, by Robert K. Cooper and Ayman Sawaf, published in 1997, has many merits that most books published afterwards don't have.

First of all, I found that most of the “exercises” suggested to put EQ into action are meaningful and relevant for leaders, which is very crucial, of course, as many books on EQ give exercises that are too disconnected from a corporate environment. It is probably the influence of one of the co-authors, Ayman Sawaf, himself an executive and entrepreneur.

Secondly, it provides a lot of examples from the corporate world. Again, this is not so common, and it contributes to bring value to the reading chapter after chapter.

Thirdly, it gives a very clear presentation of what Emotional Intelligence is. Overall, you will have a very good idea of Emotional Intelligence after reading this book. Just be aware that the model that is presented is very different from the one built by Daniel Goleman, which has become the model adopted by most practitioners in the field (and most assessments). But I see this difference as very refreshing.

On the downside, not all the topics that authors included in it fit nicely under the topic of  Emotional Intelligence. For example, Chapters 10 and 11 are focus on “Commitment, Accountability and Conscience” and “Unique Potential and Purpose”. To me, these topics are certainly important for leaders, but I would not include them in Emotional Intelligence.

I think this book could have been written with less volume. Although good value can be found in each chapter, 250 pages of tightly packed content with few graphics will have good chances to scare away those leaders who don’t read a lot and want to go for a quick read.

But if you are in this category, don’t get discouraged too easily. Facing discouragement successfully is also part of EQ, so here is your chance to practice!

For this reason, I would not recommend this book as a first read. “Becoming a Resonant Leader” or “The New Leaders” would be a quicker way to have a good overview.

But this is definitely the book I would recommend as a second read, to go deeper and get appropriate support to get results.

I wish you a happy read!

Warmly

Sebastien

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