The document summarizes an interview with Daniel Goleman about focus and emotional intelligence. Some key points: - Goleman discusses three types of focus important for leaders: self-awareness, awareness of others, and outer awareness of the organization/broader systems. - He argues focus is under threat due to increasing distractions, both external and internal thoughts. Different types of focus are needed in different situations. - Goleman's model of emotional intelligence has four domains: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management. - Focus and emotional intelligence are interrelated, as focus supports self-awareness and empathy. - Leaders often struggle most

1. 10 / Rotman Management Winter 2014
by Karen Christensen
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 driv-
er 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 it’s an awareness of your organization as a whole
or a larger sense of the broader systems that affect your indus-
try. 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.
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, it’s not
even the noise around us that is the most powerful distractor,
it’s the chatter in our own minds. On the bright side, our under-
standing of focus and attention is now at a point where we have
more science than ever and a greater understanding of it.
Focus encompasses a variety of skills, each of which is im-
portant in different circumstances. One well known type of focus
is concentration, which entails being able to pay attention here
while ignoring what’s 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 mo-
ment. 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.
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 you’re
feeling and why you are feeling that way. Basically, being able
ILLUSTRATIONBYLISASMITH

3. 12 / Rotman Management Winter 2014
When it comes to excelling on the job, which is more impor-
tant, EI or IQ?
There is a widespread misconception that I favour emotional
intelligence above regular intelligence. To be clear, I don’t; I
think they’re both extremely important. Every leader must
have a very high level of intelligence and business expertise.
But I’ve 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 intelli-
gence 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 Consor-
tium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organiza-
tions, has analyzed competence models in a variety of organiza-
tions 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 it’s the least-visible
of the four domains of EI; but as indicated, you cannot prog-
ress 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 doesn’t get it’ or ‘He doesn’t
understand us’. In short, he doesn’t 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. Man-
agers 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 moti-
vates 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, teach-
ers and group leaders because of their ability to sense, in the
moment, how others are reacting. And the third type of empa-
thy 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.
to think productively about your feelings. The second aspect
is self-management, which is built upon self-awareness. In the
business realm, this doesn’t mean suppressing your emotions,
because it’s important to display evidence of passion and moti-
vation 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 lead-
ers to see if they will be okay or not, and that’s why the leader’s
first act is leading himself or herself.
The third aspect of emotional intelligence is social aware-
ness, or empathy, which means being able to understand some-
one else’s perspective, to sense how they’re feeling and have
appropriate concern for them. This includes supporting people
and letting them know that it’s safe to take smart risks, for ex-
ample. Finally, the fourth aspect is relationship management
skills. In the realm of management, things like negotiation,
managing conflict, cooperation and teamwork are more impor-
tant 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, noth-
ing 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 there’s a job to be done. In modern
organizations, this ‘primordial’ emotional task is largely invis-
ible, but driving collective emotions in a positive direction — and
clearing away the ‘smog’ of toxic emotions — remains foremost
on the list of a leader’s 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.
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.

4. Rotman Management Winter 2014 / 13
These three abilities give a leader an emotionally-secure
base, creating an environment where people feel supported, un-
derstood and trusted. In general, the more emotionally-demand-
ing the work, the more empathic a leader needs to be.
What is a ‘neural hijack’, and how common are they?
In the brain’s ‘blueprint’, the amygdala holds a privileged posi-
tion: it is the brain’s radar for threat and the trigger point for emo-
tional 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 what’s
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 isn’t an emergency situation. To man-
age 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. That’s why self-management is so impor-
tant 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, low-
grade amygdala hijack.
What should we do when we get ‘hijacked’?
First, you have to realize it’s happening. Hijacks can last for sec-
onds, minutes, days or weeks. For some people it may seem be
their ‘normal’ state; they get used to always being angry or fear-
ful, and this can lead to conditions like anxiety disorders or de-
pression.
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 person’s posi-
tion. ‘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 can’t 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 experi-
ence in the moment — an awareness that is non-judgmental and
non-reactive to whatever thoughts or feelings arise in your mind.
This can be a very effective method for decompressing and get-
ting into a relaxed and balanced state.
You have said that whether we know it or not, we are con-
stantly 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 doesn’t af-
fect us at all. But an open-loop system depends in large part on
external sources to manage itself. Put simply, we rely on connec-
tions 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 person’s 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 patient’s 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 we’re 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 emo-
tions flowing freely, not just from customers to the front lines but
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 you’re not being listened to or heard
5. Being held to unrealistic deadlines

5. 14 / Rotman Management Winter 2014
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 cus-
tomers; 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 busi-
ness. 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 advertis-
ing. 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 creat-
ed the emotional climate that drove salespeople’s 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 don’t believe it’s necessary to talk about emotions
at work; it may not even be functional. What I’m 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 doesn’t 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.
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 world’s leading management thinkers.
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 catas-
trophe, 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, “There’s no one who wants this
thing over more than I do. I’d like my life back.”
Rather than showing concern for the spill’s victims, he
seemed annoyed by the inconvenience. He went on to claim
the disaster was not BP’s 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 didn’t
understand the animal that is the media. He didn’t understand
the public’s 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 com-
pany — set off a firestorm of antagonism, including front-page
articles demanding to know why he hadn’t been fired. Even
President Obama declared that he would have fired him.
Hayward’s exit from BP was announced the following month.
The disaster has since cost BP up to $40 billion in liabili-
ties, saw four executives charged with Negligence, and led to
the U.S. government forbidding BP further business — includ-
ing 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 re-
act, you have to read people’s reactions to you,” says Spencer.
“That takes self-awareness and empathy in a self-reinforcing
cycle. You become more aware of how you’re 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.”
-From Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence
(Harper 2013)