The renowned psychologist and Emotional

Intelligence pioneer describes the importance of focus

and self-mastery for leadership excellence.

Thought Leader Interview:

Daniel Goleman
Your latest book is about a skill that you call the hidden driver of excellence. Tell us about it.

My new book is about the power of focus, and the brain systems
involved in training our attention. I argue that leaders need to
be adept at three varieties of focus. The first is self-awareness,
and as a result of that, the ability to manage your own emotions;
the second is awareness of other people; and the third is an outer
focus, whether its an awareness of your organization as a whole
or a larger sense of the broader systems that affect your industry. The largest possible lens for our focus encompasses global
systems and considers the needs of everyone including the
powerless and the poor peering far ahead in time.
Leaders need all three types of focus in full strength and in
balance in order to perform optimally.

more science than ever and a greater understanding of it.

Focus encompasses a variety of skills, each of which is important in different circumstances. One well known type of focus
is concentration, which entails being able to pay attention here
while ignoring whats coming at you over there. Another form of
focus is open presence, which entails just being with the person
who is right in front of you and paying full attention in the moment. A third form is free association, which is a very different
kind of focus where you let your mind wander wherever it wants.
This is essential for creativity and innovation. In the book I talk
about lots of other forms of focus.
The key is to recognize which kind of focus you need in a
given situation, and to be able to achieve it. The data is showing
us that the ability to pay attention well in the right way at the
right time is absolutely critical to top performance.

How did you come to see focus as such an integral skill?

In a collective sense, our ability to focus is under siege. Our kids

are growing up in an environment with more distractions than
at any other time in human history; and for many adults, its not
even the noise around us that is the most powerful distractor,
its the chatter in our own minds. On the bright side, our understanding of focus and attention is now at a point where we have
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You are best known as a pioneer of the concept of Emotional

Intelligence (EI). What are the key elements of your model
of EI?

In my view there are four domains of Emotional Intelligence.

The first is self-awareness; knowing what drives you, how youre
feeling and why you are feeling that way. Basically, being able

ILLUSTRATION BY LISA SMITH

by Karen Christensen

You can get everything else right, but if you fail to drive peoples emotions
in the right direction, nothing will work as well as it could.

to think productively about your feelings. The second aspect

is self-management, which is built upon self-awareness. In the
business realm, this doesnt mean suppressing your emotions,
because its important to display evidence of passion and motivation in the workplace. Self-management means being able to
manage stress and anxiety and other emotional states that affect
your ability to think clearly; in other words, being able to handle
yourself . Particularly in times of crisis, people look to their leaders to see if they will be okay or not, and thats why the leaders
first act is leading himself or herself.
The third aspect of emotional intelligence is social awareness, or empathy, which means being able to understand someone elses perspective, to sense how theyre feeling and have
appropriate concern for them. This includes supporting people
and letting them know that its safe to take smart risks, for example. Finally, the fourth aspect is relationship management
skills. In the realm of management, things like negotiation,
managing conflict, cooperation and teamwork are more important than ever.
How does focus relate to EI?

Emotional intelligence demands focus as a prerequisite, because

paying attention within ourselves leads to self-awareness, and
paying attention to others builds empathy.
You have said that the best leadership is primal. How so?

When people talk about great leaders, words like strategy and
vision come up a lot, and the emotional impact of what a leader
says and does is overlooked. The reality is much more primal:
great leadership actually works through human emotions. You
can get everything else right hiring, strategy, innovation but
if you fail to drive peoples emotions in the right direction, nothing will work as well as it could.
The emotional task of the leader is primal in two ways:
it is both the original and the most important act of leadership.
Throughout history, the leader in any group has been the one
to whom others look for assurance and clarity when faced with
uncertainty or threat, or when theres a job to be done. In modern
organizations, this primordial emotional task is largely invisible, but driving collective emotions in a positive direction and
clearing away the smog of toxic emotions remains foremost
on the list of a leaders tasks. Understanding the powerful role
of emotions in the workplace is what sets the best leaders apart
from the rest. But all leadership contains this dimension for
better or for worse.
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When it comes to excelling on the job, which is more important, EI or IQ?

There is a widespread misconception that I favour emotional

intelligence above regular intelligence. To be clear, I dont; I
think theyre both extremely important. Every leader must
have a very high level of intelligence and business expertise.
But Ive talked to countless people who do C-level recruiting,
and they tell me that when executives fail, it is invariably the
case that they were hired for intelligence and expertise, but
fired for a lack of emotional intelligence. So the prerequisite
the threshold ability is high intelligence; but over and above
that, what distinguishes star leaders is their emotional intelligence skill set.
In your experience, which aspects of EI and focus do leaders
tend to have the most trouble with?

A colleague of mine, Cary Cherniss, who heads up the Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations, has analyzed competence models in a variety of organizations and has found that the domain that is most often left out
is self-awareness, which requires an inward focus on and attention
to the self. This is understandable because its the least-visible
of the four domains of EI; but as indicated, you cannot progress to self-management or empathy without a strong degree of
self-awareness.
When leaders are complained about behind their backs,
people often say things like, He just doesnt get it or He doesnt
understand us. In short, he doesnt empathize. There are three
different kinds of empathy. The first is cognitive empathy: I
know how you see things, and I can take your perspective. Managers who rate high on this kind of empathy are able to get better
than expected performance from employees, because they can
put things in terms that people can understand, and that motivates them. The way to improve on this is to talk to people about
how they see things, so you can get an idea of what their mental
models are.
The second type is emotional empathy: I feel with you. This
is the basis for rapport and chemistry between people. Those
who excel at emotional empathy make good counselors, teachers and group leaders because of their ability to sense, in the
moment, how others are reacting. And the third type of empathy is empathic concern: I sense that you need some help and
I am ready to give it. Those with empathic concern are the good
citizens in a group, organization or community who voluntarily
help out as needed.

THE TOP FIVE NEURAL HIJACK TRIGGERS

IN THE WORKPLACE
1. Condescension and lack of respect
2. Being treated unfairly
3. Feeling unappreciated
4. Feeling that youre not being listened to or heard
5. Being held to unrealistic deadlines

These three abilities give a leader an emotionally-secure

base, creating an environment where people feel supported, understood and trusted. In general, the more emotionally-demanding the work, the more empathic a leader needs to be.

This can be a very effective method for decompressing and getting into a relaxed and balanced state.

What is a neural hijack, and how common are they?

In the brains blueprint, the amygdala holds a privileged position: it is the brains radar for threat and the trigger point for emotional distress, anger, impulse and fear. If it detects a threat, in an
instant it can take over the rest of your brain, and you have whats
called an amygdala hijack.
Whenever someone gets upset at work, has an outburst or
loses their temper, it is a sign that their fight or flight response
has been triggered and basically, their brain has declared an
emergency when it really isnt an emergency situation. To manage any real crisis well, you need to manage your emotions well,
too. Amygdala hijacks are never helpful, particularly in leaders.
They can actually damage relationships and connections with
the people around you. Thats why self-management is so important for good leadership.
Unfortunately, in an economy with great uncertainty, there
is lots of free-floating fear in the air: people fear for their jobs and
for their financial security. In such an environment, many people
are operating day-to-day with what amounts to a chronic, lowgrade amygdala hijack.
What should we do when we get hijacked?

First, you have to realize its happening. Hijacks can last for seconds, minutes, days or weeks. For some people it may seem be
their normal state; they get used to always being angry or fearful, and this can lead to conditions like anxiety disorders or depression.
One way to get out of a hijack is to talk yourself out of it.
Reason with yourself and challenge what you are telling yourself.
If the trigger was something someone else did or said, you can
apply some empathy and imagine yourself in that persons position. Maybe he treated me that way because he is under a lot of
pressure. There are also biological interventions. You can use a
method like meditation or relaxation to calm yourself down. This
works best during a hijack when you have practiced it regularly,
even daily; you cant just invoke these methods out of the blue.
Another remedy is mindfulness. In the most popular form of
mindfulness, you cultivate a hovering presence to your experience in the moment an awareness that is non-judgmental and
non-reactive to whatever thoughts or feelings arise in your mind.

You have said that whether we know it or not, we are constantly impacting the brain states of other people. Describe
how this works.

This is due to the design of the human brain what scientists

have begun to call the open-loop nature of the limbic system.
Our circulatory system, by contrast, is closed-loop, in that it is
self-regulating: the circulatory system of other people doesnt affect us at all. But an open-loop system depends in large part on
external sources to manage itself. Put simply, we rely on connections with other people for our own emotional stability.
Scientists describe the open loop as interpersonal limbic
regulation, whereby one person transmits signals that can alter
another persons cardiovascular function, hormone levels and
even their immune functioning. This has been a winning design
in evolutionary terms: early on, it is what enabled mothers to
soothe crying babies or a lookout to signal a threat to his tribe.
While we have become more sophisticated in many ways, the
open-loop principle still holds today.
For example, research on intensive-care patients shows that
the very presence of another person lowers the patients blood
pressure. In another study, even more dramatically, researchers
studied men who experienced three highly-stressful events in
one year: divorce, getting fired, and having financial issues. What
they found is that the socially-isolated men in the study were
three times as likely to die, while the death rate of the men who
maintained close relationships showed no effect.
The open loop is also alive and well in offices, boardrooms
and shop floors. In all areas of social life, our physiologies are
intermingling and our emotions automatically shifting into the
register of the person were with. People in work groups catch
feelings from one another, sharing everything from jealousy and
angst to euphoria; and the more cohesive the group, the stronger
the sharing of moods.
Of all the aspects of business, customer service is perhaps
most affected by the open-loop aspect of the brain. Please
discuss the implications.

Customer service jobs are notoriously stressful, with high emotions flowing freely, not just from customers to the front lines but
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THE PERILS OF A FOCUS DEFICIT

In the spring of 2010, in the first weeks after the disastrous BP
oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, as countless sea animals and birds
were dying and residents of the Gulf were decrying the catastrophe, BP executives were a textbook example of how not to
manage a crisis. The height of their folly came when CEO Tony
Hayward infamously declared, Theres no one who wants this
thing over more than I do. Id like my life back.
Rather than showing concern for the spills victims, he
seemed annoyed by the inconvenience. He went on to claim
the disaster was not BPs fault, blamed their subcontractors
and took no responsibility. Widely circulated photos showed
him at the peak of the crisis blithely sailing on a yacht, taking
a vacation. As a BP media relations exec put it, The only time
Tony Hayward opened his mouth was to change feet. He didnt
understand the animal that is the media. He didnt understand
the publics perception.
Signe Spencer, co-author of one of the first books on
competence modeling, tells me there is a recently-identified
capability seen in some high-level leaders called managing
your impact on others by skillful leveraging of their visibility
and role to have a positive impact. Hayward blind to his
impact on others, let alone to public perception of his company set off a firestorm of antagonism, including front-page
articles demanding to know why he hadnt been fired. Even
President Obama declared that he would have fired him.
Haywards exit from BP was announced the following month.
The disaster has since cost BP up to $40 billion in liabilities, saw four executives charged with Negligence, and led to
the U.S. government forbidding BP further business including new oil leases in the Gulf because of a lack of business
integrity.
Tony Hayward offers a textbook case of the costs of a
leader with deficits in focus. To anticipate how people will react, you have to read peoples reactions to you, says Spencer.
That takes self-awareness and empathy in a self-reinforcing
cycle. You become more aware of how youre coming across
to other people. With high self-awareness, she adds, you can
more readily develop good self-management. If you manage
yourself better, you will influence others better.

also from workers to customers. From a business standpoint, bad

moods in people who serve customers are always bad news. First,
rudeness is contagious, creating dissatisfied, even angry customers; second, grumpy workers serve customers poorly, with
sometimes devastating results. In one study, cardiac care units
where the nurses general mood was depressed had a death rate
among patients four times higher than comparable units.
By contrast, upbeat moods on the front lines benefit a business. If customers enjoy their interaction with a worker, they
start to think of the store as a nice place to shop. That means
not only repeat visits, but also good word of mouth advertising. Moreover, when service people feel upbeat, they do more
to please customers: in a study of 32 stores in a U.S. retail chain,
outlets with positive salespeople showed the best sales results.
In all of those retail outlets, it was the store manager who created the emotional climate that drove salespeoples moods and
ultimately, sales in the right direction. When the managers
were peppy, confident and optimistic, their mood rubbed off on
the staff.
In many organizations, emotions are seen as too personal or
unquantifiable to talk about in a meaningful way. What first
step would you suggest for leaders who want to address the
emotions in their workplace?

I actually dont believe its necessary to talk about emotions

at work; it may not even be functional. What Im really talking
about is building an internal awareness of our own emotions
and dealing with those emotions in a smart way, so we are more
effective at dealing with others. Also, building an awareness
which doesnt have to be put into words of how other people
are reacting, and having the ability to fine-tune how you respond
to them.
The bottom line is that emotional intelligence gives us a
way to take emotions into account, rather than trying to suppress
them or sweep them under the rug. The fact is, emotions will
refuse to be suppressed. They are with us every moment of
every day.

-From Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence

(Harper 2013)
Daniel Goleman is a psychologist and science journalist. His latest book

is Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence (Harper, 2013). A two-time

Pulitzer Prize nominee, he has written 14 books and wrote for The New York
Times for 12 years. He is ranked in the top 40 on the Thinkers50 list of
the worlds leading management thinkers.
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