Based on research data from 3,871 executives, Goleman et al. (2002), concentrate on certain leadership roles that have six distinct styles which affect leaders ability to relate to others in a work environment.

Primal Leadership points to style one called, “visionary.” This style focuses on the values that are deeply rooted into an individual and within a group. The ability to communicate the organizations long-term goals and mission in a compelling manner can win the support of those a leader leads. The second leadership style is the ability to coach. The coaching style of leadership depends on the ability to delegate responsibility and empower those a leader leads into success of their personal and vocational goals.

Goleman et al. (2002), explain, “affiliative leadership style is the third practice of situational leadership” (pg. 61). A leader that can be mindful of employees emotional needs can allow happiness and contentment to rise in the work place. The fourth style is democratic leadership which relies heavily on listening to others but the hindrance of this could be exhaustive amounts of meetings with little action.

The fifth style is a pacesetting leader who typically gets ahead of others in goals and productivity to make sure implementation is complete to the desired outcome. According to Goleman et al (2002), “Pacesetting makes sense, in particular, during the entrepreneurial phase of a company’s life cycle, when growth is all-important” (pg. 72).

The last style is a commanding style of leadership which sounds like, “Do it because I say so.” This leadership style takes the approach of not asking for input and just barking out orders, commanding. Often times, this style is most needed during a leadership crisis short term but not for the long haul.

A leader must work hard to achieve these emotional intelligence competencies and steps in order to rise to the core of primal leadership and become a resonant leader. A key toward becoming a resonant leader is building it into the culture by modeling emotional intelligence, which will permeate an organization. What style do you find hard to manage?

The following posts will be my thoughts and application of Goleman, Boyatzis, and McKee (2002), Primal Leadership. The vitality of organizations and leaders hinges on understanding the core ideology of self and organization. Operating without self-awareness would assert to be a train wreck and dangerous territory to lead organizations and people into without having connectivity of employees emotional needs. The heart of leadership is the ability to explain and move people toward the mission even if they don’t agree. The key behind moving people toward any decision is this principle of primal leadership thus emotional intelligence. 

Emotional Intelligence is a skill that centers on a leaders desire to want to grow self and their organization they are leading. How does one grow in self-leadership? Self-leadership is a practice every leader implements for the betterment of themselves and their organizations. 

Where do you start? Leadership revolves around emotional intelligence and the ability to motivate in a positive direction. When leaders focus on self-leadership there is a drastic improvement toward goal attainment, performance achievement, health, wellness, and a positive attitude. However, this is an area that leaders lack attending most of their attention toward. Leaders like focus results. However, individuals usually suffer because the leader is focused on task not people. 

Authors Goleman et al.  (2002), explain that leaders with the ability to read emotional cues resonate with other employees, self and organizational leaders (pg. 20). Having the ability to recognize others emotional cues is a skill and art that all leaders should grasp. However, a fast paced culture becomes a hurdle and an excuse in becoming distant to those we lead. It’s the responsibility of every leader to make discipline their ally. This will allow leaders to continue to practice the art of recognizing their emotions and others around them. 

The following post will explain tips from Primal Leadership on how to be an emotional intelligent leader. 

Ken Blanchard, co-author of Self Leadership and The One Minute Manager directs us and says, “Ultimately, it’s in your own best interest to accept responsibility for getting what you need to succeed. Self-leadership can be achieved by practicing three skills: challenge assumed constraints; celebrate your points of power; collaborate for success. Self leaders require different levels of direction and support as they consolidate their competence and commitment at each stage of their development.”

Jesus gives us the best example in Mark 1:35. We observe in previous verses that he focuses on mission, vision of goals and strategy in ministry. However, He immediately directs his time and attention toward reflection, mediations, prayer and solitude with God and himself after ministry interaction. Jesus understood the value of self reflection. He understood we would only be as good to lead others as we lead our self. How are you doing self reflection?

What do you think is the most pressing leadership issue of today? What areas of your life do you need to grow more attention to?

Luke 9:49-50 says, “John said to Jesus, ‘Master, we saw someone using your name to cast out demons, but we told him to stop because he isn’t in our group.’ But Jesus said, “Don’t stop him! Anyone who is not against you is for you.”

The disciples had a epic pride fail. They couldn’t swallow that someone else was being successful and not them. I imagine this made a big dent in their ego. Jesus had to redirect the disciples energy and remind them of the mission at hand ad not their own judgement without inquiring first the situation.

I believe we can fall into this trap in leadership too. We can find ourselves getting wrapped up in our goals and objectives and taking full credit and marginalize others success if its not us. Therefore, attaching our pride to it versus having a healthy ownership and big picture team win. Moreover, if we are not carful we can do this church to church in our communities. We can focus on the micro “c” and not the macro “c” in the kingdom of God.

What if we could have more of a selfless approach to life and ministry? What if we could celebrate wins across ministries and churches? What if the Church modeled servant leadership to the world?

Therefore, just share your opinions wherever you are without consequences. Either way, I have been thinking a lot about the kinds of environments and spaces we create to allow people to share their opinions freely without judgment. Is that possible? Can you imagine a place where you can confidently share your no-holds-bar opinion without someone jumping down your throat.

Now, imagine the Church becoming a place where people can come in without feeling judged to explore the claims of Christianity. Imagine your friends or neighbors that might have a left-field idea or perspective about God, the paranormal, evil or the afterlife. Imagine a place where they can rocket questions to those in the Church without condemnation. There is plenty of research and real stories of those outside the church feeling judged and hated from people inside the church because of their lifestyle preference without an opportunity to get to know someone first. What kind of environment does that create? It creates a hostile, guns blazing, wild wild west show down type of environment. By the way, this can be true of people outside of the church judging those inside the Church without getting to know them personally too.

Let’s take it a step further.

If we are honest, we can lift our selves up over people to make ourselves better than others. We can play the role of a Lord and not a servant. We can use our titles and leadership to keep people an arms-length away and probably further. That type of Christianity creates a un-healthy self-righteous person that Christ was not!The pharisees and saducees were masters of this type of cold-religous interaction. Some studies say the name pharisee means separate and set apart. Often times, that description was the type of relational encounters people of their time experienced. If you read Mark 7 you will see the attitudes and perspective of the pharisees Lord over other people to lift themselves above everyone else. They were attached to their title, leadership and power to give them a sense of fulfillment.

Contrary, Jesus has a different approach about the world and the people in it.

Matthew 23 4-10 says,

“Instead of giving you God’s Law as food and drink by which you can banquet on God, they package it in bundles of rules, loading you down like pack animals. They seem to take pleasure in watching you stagger under these loads, and wouldn’t think of lifting a finger to help. Their lives are perpetual fashion shows, embroidered prayer shawls one day and flowery prayers the next. They love to sit at the head table at church dinners, basking in the most prominent positions, preening in the radiance of public flattery, receiving honorary degrees, and getting called ‘Doctor’ and ‘Reverend.’

“Don’t let people do that to you, put you on a pedestal like that. You all have a single Teacher, and you are all classmates. Don’t set people up as experts over your life, letting them tell you what to do. Save that authority for God; let him tell you what to do. No one else should carry the title of ‘Father’; you have only one Father, and he’s in heaven. And don’t let people maneuver you into taking charge of them. There is only one Life-Leader for you and them—Christ.

In other words, don’t make your self bigger than other people. See your self at the same playing field. Yes, we may have different view points of God. However, let’s create environments and spaces for people to experience conversations of love, grace and truth. May we rely on the power and authority of Christ to help others and not our selfish plans. If we are in a position of authority and power; let’s use it to help lift others up and not down.

Moreover, let’s not confuse the Gospel being only truth or grace. The Gospel is full of truth and grace. It should be our responsibility to balance out showing people grace by sharing the truth of the Gospel message. My new friend James Choung says, “The gospel is good news. However, some of us Christians feel its not good news for some reason or we think others won’t think its good news.” Which in return causes us to not engage our friends in conversation on faith.

Are you a environment and conversation killer? Do you lord over other people to lift yourself up? Or, are you a servant to those exploring faith and Christianity? Are you a spiritual environmental architect allowing free flow conversation to be explored in a healthy space? What areas of your life are you like a Pharisee or like Christ?

I will be the first to confess my pharisaical tendencies and ask God to help renew me every day to be the presence of Christ in my neighborhood.

Often times, our brains are working just as fast as a roller coaster. An idea comes and goes as quickly as it entered your brain. However, there are other times your intentionally trying to brainstorm ideas and nothing comes to you. Just like waiting in line for a roller coaster anticipating the ride but not sure how long the wait is going to be. How do we live in the tension of idea over load and idea flatness? How do you capture and remember those ideas when the adrenaline kicks in and the roller coaster starts turning. How do you keep track of all the ideas good or bad that come to mind? It could be about work, family, finances, or even hobbies.

“I’ve got to develop nine prototypes that go nowhere to make one that goes to production for big money. Only the place that tolerates failure gives rise to the thinking that results in success. ”

— Burt Rutan, innovative aircraft designer

It may take 9 ideas to get to your best one that is productive. However, what do you do with those 9 ideas that lead you to that tenth grand idea? I have listed a few ideas on how to capture these ideas when they are in overload or fatigue.

Tips on Capturing Ideas

1. Create an idea log that allows you to capture every creative picture or idea. The truth is you won’t remember all of them. However, an old idea may be useful in the future.

2. Carry a notebook to write down your ideas or a cell to document the ideas.

3. Don’t shoot your own ideas down. Its easy to say or think that was a stupid idea. You need to allow yourself room to think outside of the box. In order to do reach people no one is reaching, you need to be doing what no one is doing. That tip is paraphrased from Craig Groschel and Andy Stanley.

4. Research new things or novel ideas. For example, spend time watching the Teds Conference, The Story Conference, The Q conferance, or trendhunter.com. The purpose is to push your thinking and learn from others to create innovative ideas in your brain.

What do you think? How have you learned to take captive your ideas?