287 Quotes by Daniel Goleman

CEOs are hired for their intellect and business expertise – and fired for a lack of emotional intelligence.

Our emotional mind will harness the rational mind to its purposes, for our feelings and reactions – rationalizations – justifying them in terms of the present moment, without realizing the influence of our emotional memory.

Other research has shown that in the first few milliseconds of our perceiving something we not only unconsciously comprehend what it is, but decide whether we like it or not; the “cognitive unconscious” presents our awareness with not just the identity of what we see, but an opinion about it.7 Our emotions have a mind of their own, one which can hold views quite independently of our rational mind.

When it comes to exploring the mind in the framework of cognitive neuroscience, the maximal yield of data comes from integrating what a person experiences – the first person – with what the measurements show – the third person.

The best leaders don’t know just one style of leadership – they’re skilled at several, and have the flexibility to switch between styles as the circumstances dictate.

We transmit and catch moods from each other in what amounts to a subterranean economy of the psyche in which some encounters are toxic, some nourishing.

We should spend less time ranking children and more time helping them to identify their natural competencies and gifts, and cultivate those.

Empathy and social skills are social intelligence, the interpersonal part of emotional intelligence. That’s why they look alike.

Self-absorption in all its forms kills empathy, let alone compassion. When we focus on ourselves, our world contracts as our problems and preoccupations loom large. But when we focus on others, our world expands. Our own problems drift to the periphery of the mind and so seem smaller, and we increase our capacity for connection – or compassionate action.