Scholars have numerous avenues to disseminate their knowledge and .docx

Scholars have numerous avenues to disseminate their knowledge
and influence practice. In this exercise, you will review and
compare some of these avenues. All the articles below have
been written by the same authors, aimed at different audiences.
1. Utilizing the included examples of research dissemination by
a single author, write a reflection on the different types of
research dissemination that are available to scholarly
practitioners, from popular articles to peer-reviewed journal
articles.
2. What type of dissemination makes the most sense to you as a
practitioner? When would a more scholarly method of
dissemination make sense for you?
NOTE-- these readings are provided for you to become familiar
with different types of research dissemination based around a
topic--
Author's personal copy
Developing resonant leaders through emotional
intelligence, vision and coaching
Richard E. Boyatzis, Melvin L. Smith, Ellen Van Oosten, Lauris
Woolford
THE IMPACT
Mary Tuuk was inspiring as she sang the National Anthem for
the opening of the Fifth Third Bank River Run in Grand Rapids
Michigan to nearly 20,000 runners and 40,000 spectators in
May 2012. She is not what people typically think of a 48-year-
old bank president and community leader. A year earlier, she

was highly respected as the chief risk officer of Fifth Third
BankCorp. She had helped steer the company through the
turmoil of the financial crisis and the repayment of the
Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) federal money. Mary’s
career in risk management was fulfilling, but she wanted
something else.
As part of the company’s leadership development program
in emotional intelligence, Mary had the opportunity to con-
template her ideal future life and work in 10—15 years. As she
peeled back the layers of others’ expectations, traditions,
and a siloed career remaining in the specialty of risk manage-
ment, she created an exciting image of herself as a line
executive responsible for profit and loss (P&L). The more she
discussed this with her executive coach in the program, the
more the idea developed and her enthusiasm grew.
The CEO (chief executive officer), Kevin Kabat, who had
encouraged executives to enroll in the program, listened as
she shared her dream with him. He promoted her to be
president of Fifth Third’s Western Michigan affiliate. Her
law degree and 16 years in banking prepared her for a major
functional role, but as a general manager and leader of a
major division with $6 billion in assets and $8 billion in
deposits, she would have to be a chief executive. Mary
needed to leverage her full talents and refine them as a
top executive. Kevin agreed that taking charge of the third
largest division of the bank would be a perfect experiment,
opportunity and challenge.
Fast forward to a year later and the results are dramatic.
Mary is propelling the bank to new revenues, profits, and
growth. As a bank president, she has commercial and retail
banking, consumer lending and investment advisory services
reporting to her. As a Michigan native, Mary embraced the

Western Michigan community. Mary now serves on numerous
community boards and sees her role as a community builder
as well as a bank executive. Her new role also enables her to
help advance women in business, which is another high
priority. She created a program at a Grand Rapids school,
Calvin College, to, as Mary says, ‘‘help young women envision
a career in business and dream big.’’ The program brings high
school students to campus and facilitates social networking
with business leaders in the community.
But the good news doesn’t stop there. Singing was some-
thing that Mary enjoyed doing, but struggled to find the
quality time to do in her previous role. Through the personal
vision she crafted in the leadership program, Mary created a
plan for her personal renewal that included her love of music
and singing. She began to sing regularly with several church
choirs. Mary also bought a condo on the lake in Western
Michigan which she visits frequently, if she can, to be close to
nature. In her words, this is where she ‘‘recharges her
batteries.’’
Kevin Kabat said, ‘‘She’s doing a good job and I think she’s
having a lot of fun; I think that shows in the results.’’
THE LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM
In the wake of the economic meltdown of the country’s
financial institutions, many organizations sliced training
and development activities as a visible and expected cost-
cutting measure. However, one Midwestern organization,
Fifth Third BankCorp, took a unique and courageous stand
and partnered with the faculty at Case Western Reserve
University to initiate an executive development program
for the Bank’s top 370 leaders. Through a program consisting
of classroom learning, supplemental executive coaching, and
action learning projects, senior executives have the oppor-

tunity to achieve deeper self-awareness of their leadership
Organizational Dynamics (2013) 42, 17—24
Available online at www.sciencedirect.com
j o u r n a l h o m e p a g e : w w w . e l s e v i e r . c o m / l o c
a t e / o r g d y n
0090-2616/$ — see front matter # 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights
reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.orgdyn.2012.12.003
behavior and enhance their capabilities to be more effective
change agents and relationship managers, considered key
business goals for Fifth Third. The program is anchored in the
principles of emotional intelligence, resonant leadership and
holistic balance and encourages participants to become more
mindful of their leadership behaviors.
Program Development
Prior to launching the program, the Organization Develop-
ment team at Fifth Third spent a year working with the
faculty at Case Western Reserve University to fully under-
stand their approach to leadership development and to
determine how it might best be applied to drive cultural
change within the bank. Through attending a series of Weath-
erhead Executive Education programs, the entire OD (orga-
nizational development) team (as well as a member of the
bank’s instructional design group) earned certificates in
emotionally intelligent leadership and coaching. This pre-

pared them to be internal advocates and champions of the
leadership development approach within the bank.
Next, members of the Weatherhead faculty team spent
time at the bank interviewing the CEO and each member of
the executive leadership team. The purpose of these inter-
views was to help them gain a better understanding of the
culture of the bank, as well as the bank’s key strategic
initiatives and leadership development opportunities. This
would enable them to customize and contextualize the
program in such a way that it was meaningful and relevant
to all participants. What followed was the development of a
series of programs structured as two-day learning experi-
ences designed to take leaders in the bank through a multi-
level change journey starting at the individual level and then
progressing to dyads, groups and teams, and ultimately
organizational level change.
Program 1 — Emotionally Intelligent Leadership
The first program was designed to set the stage for the
upcoming series of learning experiences and to create a
compelling desire for change from the individual to the
organizational level. Prior to start of the program, partici-
pants completed a set of exercises that required them to
reflect upon their core values, their passions, their life
purpose and what they would like their leadership legacy
to be. They would later draw on these reflections to draft a
personal vision statement. Participants also completed a 360-
degree feedback process, with the results to be delivered
during the program.
In this first program, participants learned what it means to
be a resonant leader, how and why emotionally intelligent
leaders are able to create resonant relationships with others,
and how the chronic stress of being in a leadership role can

impact one’s ability to sustain effectiveness over time. Par-
ticipants were also introduced to an intentional change
process that would serve as the framework for their devel-
opment throughout the series of programs. This process
included the receipt of the 360-degree feedback on their
demonstration of the emotional intelligence competencies,
as well as the completion of an assessment on their preferred
learning style.
After the program, participants received three one-on-
one executive coaching sessions. The first two coaching
sessions were conducted with an assigned coach from Weath-
erhead Executive Education. These first two sessions focused
primarily on their personal vision and their strengths and
development opportunities relative to that vision, as
informed by the results of the 360-degree feedback process.
The third coaching session focused on the creation of a plan
of action to learn and grow in new ways to facilitate the
attainment of their articulated vision. This third coaching
session was conducted by a member of the Fifth Third
Organization Development group, who also helped each
participant to link his or her personal learning plan to an
individual development plan within the bank.
Program 2 — Coaching for Intentional
Development
Approximately one year after completing the first program,
individuals then completed a second program. Whereas in the
first program participants were focused primarily on their
own personal development and growth, in the second pro-
gram the focus was on how they might most effectively coach
the personal development of others. This represented a shift
from the individual level to the dyadic level of change. Prior
to this second program, participants completed a series of
worksheets about two individuals they would be coaching

after the program. They also completed a second round of
the 360-degree feedback assessment to enable them to track
their development progress since the time of the first pro-
gram.
In this second program, participants shared stories of the
impact the first program had on them both personally and
professionally. They then learned the fundamentals of effec-
tive coaching conversations, as well as learning a coaching
framework based on the intentional change process that
they experienced personally in the first program. To ade-
quately prepare participants to effectively coach others
using this framework, the second program was largely
focused on skill building. Therefore, throughout the program
individuals engaged in a series of coaching exercises con-
ducted in trios. In these exercises, one individual would
coach another while the third person in the trio observed
and later provided feedback. The trios were also observed
and facilitated by a ‘‘master coach’’ from either the Weath-
erhead team or the Fifth Third OD team. The role of the
master coach was to provide direction and guidance as
needed as well as to provide in depth feedback and answer
any questions that participants had about the coaching
process.
After the second program, participants received two
additional one-on-one coaching sessions. The first session
was with their Weatherhead coach and included an update
on their personal vision, as well as a review of the second
round of 360-degree feedback and a discussion of the pro-
gress made over the past year. The Weatherhead coach also
discussed with the participants their preparation for the
homework assignment from the program, which was to prac-
tice coaching two individuals using the framework learned in
the program. The second session was with the Fifth Third
coach, who had an updated discussion with the participant

about the progress and evolution of their learning plan and
18 R.E. Boyatzis et al.
individual development plan. During this second session,
participants also discussed the results of their practice
coaching efforts and received additional feedback and gui-
dance related to their coaching of others.
Program 3 — The Future
During the third phase of the effort, a series of specialized
workshops will focus on specific competencies, like empathy,
adaptability, and mindfulness. During this period, it is hoped
to bring the earlier programs to the middle managers.
Meanwhile, an additional program will focus on manage-
ment teams and building resonant and emotionally intelli-
gent organizations. The objective of the work in this phase of
the effort will focus on building a culture of engagement and
compassion. Techniques will be explored to enable the bank
to be agile and adaptive and serve customers in new ways.
Between 2010 and 2012, 370 of the organization’s leaders
have completed the leadership development experience
with numerous stories of personal and professional transfor-
mation emerging. In this case study, we share some of these
stories and propose the merits of approaching leadership
development through a process grounded in fostering emo-
tional intelligence and holistic, intentional change.
RESONANT LEADERS INSPIRE PEOPLE

Mary Tuuk is a resonant leader. Being ‘‘resonant’’ means
being in tune or in sync with others around you. She engages
people around her, those reporting to her and others. She
talks to them about what is important in their lives and work
— their personal and professional vision. She listens to them
because she cares about them. They feel it and respond in
kind, sparking an environment of open dialogue, mutual
respect and trust!
Building relationships of shared vision and caring is
difficult in the easiest of times. But in an embattled
industry like banking, it is a major challenge. Imagine
trying to get people excited about the future, engaged
in renewal and sustainability of their performance and
energy when the world seems to be crashing around them.
In 2002, Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyatzis and Annie
McKee introduced us to ‘‘resonant relationships’’ through
emotional intelligence in their book Primal Leadership.
Richard and Annie expanded this in their 2005 book Reso-
nant Leadership, by showing how effective leaders use
their emotional intelligence to build shared hope, compas-
sion, mindfulness and playfulness in their relationships.
Just as Mary Tuuk engages her employees and community
leaders in knowing that they are building their bank and
communities together, she asks her direct reports about
their vision for a better future. They respond with enthu-
siasm as the conversations steer away from fixing current
problems to dreaming about a better life and engaging
work in the future. Then, as effective leaders do, she
brings them back to present challenges and goals, but this
discussion now takes on a different vibe. The discussion is
in service of the great image of what might ‘‘be’’ in the
future. The target of the effort is a set of possibilities,
something more than just goals — it is goals with a context
steeped in the bigger picture of their shared purpose.

OVERCOMING LEADERSHIP STRESS
Before the leadership development program, Mary did not
realize that the chronic stress so typical in day-to-day func-
tioning brings on cognitive, perceptual and emotional impair-
ment. Over time, people who may have been resonant with
others, lose touch and drift into dissonance. For others, they
never had it in the first place. The toll of this chronic stress on
each person is huge.
Emotions are contagious. People set off the stress in each
other in milliseconds and start a self-perpetuating cycle.
Mary learned that by paying attention to her own renewal
and engaging people in certain types of conversations, she
could help ameliorate the ravages of chronic stress and
actually help people rebuild their cognitive, emotional and
perceptual talent. They become sustainable in both their
commitment and effectiveness.
Resonant relationships, in which people feel in sync with
each other about their shared purpose (i.e., vision, mission
and values), their shared caring for each other (i.e., compas-
sion), tuning into and paying attention to yourself and others
(i.e., mindfulness), and being playful stimulate the neuroen-
docrine system called the Parasympathetic Nervous System.
Mary’s lake house is a place of renewal for her. This helps the
body, mind and then spirit rebuild itself. When she talks to
people after a weekend there, she is enthusiastic and eager.
After conversations with Mary, people feel optimistic,
engaged, challenged, and lifted — they feel inspired about
the future and its possibilities. In this state, people exceed
others’ expectations and even their own sense of what they
can do. And then they want to do more. Because of the
increased openness and higher functioning, people in this

state are more adaptive, innovative and creative, and are
more capable of learning and changing.
INTENTIONAL CHANGE THEORY
This desired process of change is described by Intentional
Change Theory (ICT), as shown in Fig. 1. As explained in
earlier work by Richard Boyatzis and his colleagues, ICT
suggests that sustained, desired change is most likely to
occur when five (5) discoveries are experienced. The activa-
tion of an individual’s Ideal Self is the first discovery and
includes one’s passion, purpose and core values. These com-
ponents are often integrated and expressed in a personal
vision statement. Once a person taps into his/her deepest
desires, he/she is ready to face the sometimes awkward
awareness of how he/she is coming across to others, in terms
of what is called the Real Self. Those areas in which the Real
Self and Ideal Self are in sync are considered strengths. Areas
where there is a gap could be considered weaknesses. Recog-
nition of these strengths and weaknesses becomes the second
discovery and is manifested in the creation of a Personal
Balance Sheet.
The third discovery in the change process is the develop-
ment of a learning agenda — a framing of learning goals and
actions that the individual enthusiastically looks forward to
trying. This is distinctive from a performance development
plan, which is often stressful and depresses one’s motivation
to learn and change. The fourth discovery is the actual
experimentation and practice with new behaviors, thoughts
Developing resonant leaders through emotional intelligence,
vision and coaching 19

and feelings that — when implemented — move a person
closer to his or her vision while leveraging top strengths and
shoring up weaker abilities. The fifth stage of the process is
focused on fostering and maintaining a set of trusting bonds
or relationships to offer support and help throughout the
change process. This five-stage discovery process served as
the overarching framework for the entire leadership devel-
opment experience.
REVITALIZED LEADERS ARE INSPIRED AND
SUSTAIN IT
Everything was going great as chief auditor and executive
vice president of Fifth Third Bank for Bob Shaffer, but some-
thing was still missing. Bob had personal changes he wanted
to make that were brought into focus during the program.
One of the experiential exercises asks a person to reflect on
mind-body-heart-spirit balance. In talking to his coach about
the reflective exercises, Bob said, ‘‘I’m out of balance on all
of them.’’ He could feel how this was dragging his energy
down and threatening his sustainability as a leader. He even
worried how it might have been affecting the people around
him. This often happens to leaders.
The approach to personal vision in the workshop was
surprising to him. Bob said, ‘‘It’s the first time in my career
where I’ve been to a program like this with a specific focus on
not only my job skills, but more importantly, on my personal
development as a leader. It was the first time that I felt it was
okay in the workplace to talk about me.’’
Separate exercises were used to elicit thoughts, feelings
and dreams of each of the components of the Ideal Self, as
shown in Fig. 2. The coach encourages the person to discuss

each exercise, look for patterns in their reflections, and to
consider possibilities.
The chronic stress of the day-to-day activities is multi-
plied by the power stress a leadership role. The chronic
stress, so typical of most executives, results in persistent
arousal of the Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS), the body’s
stress response. Not only does this result in decreased
immune system functioning, but it leads to cognitive, emo-
tional and perceptual impairment. Each challenge becomes
bigger and the innovative solutions elude your clouded state.
In their article on why leaders should be coaches, Boyatzis,
Smith and Blaize (2006) explained how these natural defense
processes of the body can become sources of even more
stress and reduce the sustainability of the leader’s effective-
ness. The one antidote is activation of the body’s Parasym-
pathetic Nervous System (PNS). This system ameliorates the
ravages of chronic stress and enables the body, mind, spirit
and heart to literally rebuild itself.
By asking Bob to reflect and develop a personal vision for
his ideal life (and work) 10—15 years in the future, the
program faculty invoked the PNS. As research has shown,
experiencing hope, mindfulness, compassion or playfulness
elicits the PNS. Then, the brain kicks into high gear and a
person is able to be more open to new ideas, emotions and
people — and to consider possibilities for the future.
On the desired balance issue, Bob’s coach said, ‘‘Just pick
an aspect.’’ The coach knew that to engage the personal
vision, it helps if the person can feel some feasible efficacy
about the future as shown in Fig. 2. Bob responded instantly
to the coach that he would commit to improving his physical
health. He explained that a couple of his good friends go to a
personal trainer, and are always talking about him. He called

the trainer the next day. Like the coach in the program, the
Discovery #1
Ideal Self: Who do I
want to be?
Discovery #2
Real Self:
Who am I?
Discovery #2
Strengths: where my
Ideal Self and Real Self
are similar
Discovery #2 Gaps:
where my Ideal Self
and Real Self are
different
Discovery #3 Learning
Agenda: building on my
strengths while
reducing gaps
Discovery #4
Experimenting with being
a leader
Discovery #4 Practicing
being a leader
Figure 1 Boyatzis’ Theory of Intentional Change (Richard
Boyatzis, 2001, used here with special permission).

trainer asked what he wanted to achieve. Bob said, ‘‘I want to
live a long healthy life with my wife and three daughters and
walk my daughters down the aisle. I want to run the Loveland
Amazing Race. My wife had been doing that and she had been
a runner and I missed that part of her life. . . I’d be standing at
the finish line waiting for her. I also want to be a positive role
model to my family. I want to lose 100 pounds!’’
Guided by a clear personal vision and the support of an
executive coach and a personal trainer, Bob reached some
amazing milestones. He lost 95 pounds and successfully
finished the Amazing Race with his wife and now works out
six days a week. Bob said, ‘‘It was a great feeling. She pushed
me hard and we had a great time and had a lot of fun.’’ His
new energy was evident to his employees and peers at work.
He was truly a changed person and it showed. The Case
Western and Fifth Third executive coaching which is part
of the program was a major source of support and reminder
for Bob. As he said, ‘‘I never had follow-up coaching after a
program. It really established the accountability. . .taking the
excitement and passion you have in the workshop itself and
sustaining it.’’
EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE IN RESONANT
RELATIONSHIPS
Emotional and social intelligence competencies have been
shown to predict effectiveness in leadership, management
and professional jobs in many countries of the world. They
can be said to be the behavioral level of emotional intelli-
gence (EI) and social intelligence (SI). In other words, to be an

effective leader, manager or professional, a person needs to
understand and skillfully manage his emotions appropriately
based on each person or situation and understand the emo-
tional cues of others in order to effectively interact with
others.
These competencies appear in three clusters: (1) Cogni-
tive intelligence (CI) competencies, such as systems thinking
and pattern recognition; (2) Emotional intelligence (EI) com-
petencies, such as adaptability, emotional self-control, emo-
tional self-awareness, positive outlook, and achievement
orientation; and (3) Social intelligence (SI) competencies,
such as empathy, organizational awareness, inspirational
leadership, influence, coaching and mentoring, conflict man-
agement, and teamwork. Other competencies appear to be
threshold competencies. That is, they are needed to be
adequate, but more use of them does not lead to effective-
ness. Given research to date, these would include: knowl-
edge (technical and functional), deductive reasoning, and
quantitative reasoning.
Emotional and social competencies represent the specific
behaviors that enable a person to generate a sense of shared
hope and vision with others, shared compassion and shared
mindfulness — the key components of resonant leadership
relationships.
In this program, EI and SI were assessed using a test called
the Emotional and Social Competency Inventory (ECI-2),
developed by Richard Boyatzis and Daniel Goleman and
distributed worldwide by The Hay Group. It is completed
by asking a program participant’s boss, 3—5 peers, 3—5
subordinates, spouse or partner, 3—5 friends, and 3—5 cus-
tomers to describe the frequency and nature of their specific
interactions. The participant also completes a self-assess-

ment version. All of these are taken on-line, compiled and
fed back to the executive in the program and later reviewed
with the executive coach.
POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE EMOTIONS IN
LEADERSHIP
The Positive and Negative Emotional Attractors pull indivi-
duals, dyads, teams and whole organizations toward them.
The Positive Emotional Attractor (PEA) occurs when the
parasympathetic nervous system is aroused and an emphasis
is placed on future possibilities, hope, individual and collec-
tive strengths in order to move the system toward a desired
end state. The Negative Emotional Attractor (NEA) is invoked
when the sympathetic nervous system is aroused and a focus
is anchored in problems, fear and apparent weaknesses in a
person, team or organization. The positive movement along
Intentional Change stages as shown in Fig. 1 occurs when a
PEA state is aroused sufficiently to ‘‘tip or trigger’’ the person
into the next discovery or stage of the process.
Once each executive at Fifth Third Bank engages his or her
own personal vision and hope for the future, the program
objectives shift toward how to engage others in these con-
versations and renewal processes. In other words, instead of
always relating to others within the Bank through problems,
the idea and methods help a person incorporate joy, hope,
possibility and other positive conditions on a frequent basis.
COACHING WITH COMPASSION
In traditional coaching, most managers or executives discuss
a person’s accomplishments and then quickly move to the
things they should do to improve. Since there is seldom
checking if the person wants to go in this direction, we call
this ‘‘coaching for compliance.’’ You are coaching the person

toward compliance with your or someone in authority’s image
of what they should be and how they should act. This
approach to coaching is common in many organizations.
While sometimes needed, coaching for compliance pulls
people into a defensive posture, the NEA. Instead of opening
them up to new possibilities, it typically results in a person
engaging in compliance-coping in the short-term, and then
eventually forgetting it all and returning to their old ways. In
the NEA state, people often feel pressured and are on the
Personal
Vision
or wh en
collec tive
views,
a Share d
Vision
Idea l
Self
Hop e
OptimismSelf-eff icac y
Ima ge of a
Des ired
Future
Core
Identity

Dreams,
Aspira tion s,
Fantas ies
Values &
Operating
Philosophy
Callin g,
Purpo sePass ion
Life/ca ree r
Stage or
Cyc le
Figure 2 Components of the Personal Vision from the Ideal Self
(Richard Boyatzis, 2007, used here with special permission).
defensive. In time, this and other forms of stress build and
the cognitive, emotional and perceptual impairment
becomes a limiting factor in their performance, their ability
to sustain performance or adapt, innovate and learn.
The benefits of coaching in the leadership program were
so widespread and so apparent, both to the coach as well as
the people being coached, that a second phase of the pro-

gram was developed to train each executive to be a better
coach and mentor. In this experience, executives learned and
practiced a different approach to coaching, one we call
‘‘coaching with compassion.’’ This form of coaching engages
the Positive Emotional Attractor during most conversations
and meetings. Coaching with compassion prioritizes the
establishment of a caring, trusting relationship between
the coach and the coachee and anchors the coaching con-
versation on positive emotions and the discovery of the Ideal
Self. A caring coaching relationship is characterized when the
coach is emotionally in sync with another and committed to
helping that individual. Goleman and colleagues propose that
successful leaders leverage emotional and social competen-
cies to foster caring relationships. Quick and Macik-Frey add
that authentic and deep interpersonal communication is
essential for supportive, positive relationships to thrive
within organizations. When coaching with compassion or to
the PEA become typical and widespread, then an organiza-
tion begins to change its culture in terms of its norms and
values.
This is where the multi-level aspect of Intentional Change
Theory becomes essential for system change, as shown in
Fig. 3. To help a person move toward his or her own desired
future, others in the person’s life system need to be involved.
If the relationship between any two people is to be renewed
and sustainable, then it is likely that not only does each
person have to engage in development and intentional
change, but so do the teams of which they are a part —
and the larger organization. In this way, 50 years of research
on sustained change shows that seldom does a desired change
‘‘stick’’ unless other levels in the system are also engaged in a
process of intentional change. Fifth Third Bank understood
this and designed the process to intentionally evolve to
include increasingly larger groups within the Bank.

Most observers would assume that multi-level work means
moving the training or intervention throughout the manage-
ment levels in the organization. That is also essential if the
Programs Working at Various Levels Level of Complex System
Culture Building
Workshops and
Projects
Emotionally
Intelligent Teams
Divisions and Affiliates
Fifth Third Bank
Industry
Management teams
Dyads: with coach, with
boss, with each
subordinate
Individual professional or
executive
Coaching for
Intentional Change;
Empathy Training
Developing Emotional
Intelligence in Leaders

Figure 3 Multi-Level Model of Leadership and Organizational
Development at Fifth Third BankCorp.
teams, business units, and whole organization are to change.
But that is not the only meaning of working at multiple levels.
Each level might have somewhat different shared vision,
shared real self (team or organization culture), different
shared learning agenda, and overlapping resonant relation-
ships to enable the process to continue.
EMERGING NEW LEADERS
Paul Moore was Fifth Third’s customer experience leader. It
gave him ample opportunity to work in all of the business of the
bank. His desire was to ‘‘move up’’ and lead a larger system of
the bank. He was working with his manager about this aspira-
tion and his personal development. Paul felt he was ready. As a
result of the two sets of workshops in this leadership devel-
opment program, Paul is now senior vice president and division
head of Central Operations. He directs operations for the
entire Bank! As a result, Fifth Third Bank has a new and excited
visible leader both within the bank and in the community.
Paul reflected on the coaching he had about his vision and
values. ‘‘I determined the two most important things to focus
on are my family and my career.’’ Along with his wife, Paul
continued his involvement in their church and its school.
Having one teenage daughter and an 11 year old son would
seem to be enough of a challenge, but Paul wanted more. He
talked to his coach about getting closer to his daughter as she

fully enters her teenage years. Now, he takes his daughter
and son skiing a couple times a year, and they invite their
cousins so it becomes an extended family event.
Paul joined the Madisonville Education and Assistance Cen-
ter Board, where the Cincinnati Operations Center is located.
This community is part of Greater Cincinnati. As the largest
employer in the community, Paul felt the bank should continue
to play a major role. The associates of the bank contribute
through food drives, wish trees, education tutoring and assis-
tance. Paul helped this community agency take a bigger role.
Paul was able to help MEAC become a United Way Agency.
Doing good work for the community is more important to
Paul than simply generating good PR for the Bank. He was
born and raised on the west side of Cincinnati. The dog fence
in his yard encircles his yard and his neighbors — who happen
to be his in-laws. As he says, ‘‘So when the dog goes out it
goes to Grandma’s.’’
For his career, Paul wanted to run operations for the bank,
an area that has about 2,100 employees, or 10 percent of the
workforce. Through working with his manager and then his
coach, he put together a compelling argument as to why this
major promotion should happen sooner rather than later. He
applied for it and was excited to learn that he got the job. As
one of his first moves, he decided to include coaching with
compassion or coaching to the PEA as a part of their day-to-
day way of doing business. Paul believes in the power of
coaching and wants the culture to become one where people
can talk about problems AND opportunities AND dreams AND
possibilities.
EFFECTING THE BOTTOM LINE
Are all of these program components helping Fifth Third

Bank? In the opinion of the CEO, Kevin Kabat, it is working
more than he ever thought it would. As he says, ‘‘Our business
is all about people. . ..it’s all about serving our custo-
mers. . .taking care of each other. . . working together colla-
boratively to create better solutions and to really understand
what our customers need and what they want.’’ As a result
after almost three years of these programs, he feels that
Fifth Third Bank has, ‘‘a far deeper dialogue today of what
the issues are, about what our concerns are, about what the
potential solutions are. . . it’s not just one or two people. . . it
is the entire team participating in a very, very different way,
in a great way. . .it really does show through. . . it really has
made a difference.’’ His commitment to development of the
human capital of the bank is dramatic.
Longitudinal research is underway to document the nature
and degree of change in EI and SI shown at the bank and
changes in engagement, as well as customer experience.
CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
Typical leadership training programs have little impact on
sustainably changing the person’s behavior, especially in
terms of the EI and SI competencies that predict effective-
ness as has been shown in numerous reviews. But a program
first developed in the early 1990s at the Weatherhead School
of Management at Case Western Reserve University has shown
dramatic improvements as far out as seven years after
participating in the program. Applying this program in a
regional bank, along with essential components at other
levels, like improving dyads, teams, the organizational units
and communities within which they operate, has shown
impressive changes in executives’ lives and work. Doing such
multi-level development is awkward and costly, and there-
fore, internal executives do not seek it nor do consultants
offer it often. But it is in the personal development of an

holistic vision, discussion of this with a coach using techni-
ques of pulling the person into the Positive Emotional Attrac-
tor, and working the same processes with others reporting to
the executive as well as in the organization and community
that prove most potent in their sustaining value. Of course,
longitudinal empirical research is needed to substantiate
these qualitative case illustrations. We offer this story as a
sign of hope that with the appropriate processes and meth-
ods, we can fulfill the dream of transformative, and positive
personal, professional, organization and community devel-
opment.
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
The intervention described in this article is based on Inten-
tional Change Theory explained in Richard E. Boyatzis, ‘‘Lea-
dership Development From a Complexity Perspective,’’
Consulting Psychology Journal, 2008, 60(4), 298—313. It
provides elaboration of the role of the Ideal Self, coaching
through resonant relationships, the movement between the
tipping point of the Positive and Negative Emotional Attrac-
tors, the multi-level fractals of sustained, desired change and
dramatic results in improving emotional intelligence and
social intelligence competencies that predict effective lea-
dership in over 25 longitudinal studies. The model of an
effective personal vision and ideal self is further explained
in Richard E. Boyatzis and Kleio Akrivou, ‘‘The Ideal Self as a
Driver of Change,’’ Journal of Management Development,
2006, 25, 624—642. Further reading on the Ideal Self and its

relation to the Real Self can be found in Tory Higgins, ‘‘Self-
Discrepancy: A Theory Relating Self and Effect,’’ Psycholo-
gical Review, 1987, 94, 319—340.
The relationship of emotional and social intelligence
competencies to effective leadership is examined in Daniel
Goleman, Richard Boyatzis and Annie McKee, Primal Leader-
ship: Realizing the Power of Emotional Intelligence (Harvard
Business School Press: Boston, Mass., 2002). Additional scien-
tific evidence is found in Richard Boyatzis, Angela Passarelli,
Katherine Koenig, Mark Lowe, Blessy Matthews, James Stol-
ler, and Michael Phillips, ‘‘Examination of the Neural Sub-
strates Activated in Experiences with Resonant & Dissonant
Leaders,’’ Leadership Quarterly, 2012, 23, 259—272. Theo-
retical and comparative explanations of EI and SI competen-
cies are found in Richard Boyatzis, ‘‘A Behavioral Approach to
Emotional Intelligence,’’ Journal of Management Develop-
ment, 2009, 28, 749—770.
A detailed explanation of the neuroendocrine dynamics as
to how coaching with compassion helps with renewal and
amelioration of the ravages of chronic stress in both the
coach and the person being coached, and why it is the
opposite of coaching others for compliance is Richard Boy-
atzis, Melvin Smith and Nancy Blaize, ‘‘Developing Sustain-
able Leaders Through Coaching and Compassion,’’ Academy
of Management Journal on Learning and Education, 2006, 5,
8—24. Data on how neural networks activate in coaching to
the PEA to cause this openness to change and the PNS is shown
in Richard Boyatzis, Anthony Jack, Regina Cesaro, Masud
Khawaja, and Angela Passarelli, ‘‘Coaching with Compassion:
An fMRI Study of Coaching to the Positive or Negative Emo-
tional Attractor,’’ 2010, Best Paper Award, Proceedings of the
Academy of Management Annual Meeting, Montreal, August.
Additional readings relevant to the change process

described here include Ellen Van Oosten, ‘‘Intentional
Change Theory at the Organizational Level: A Case Study,’’
Journal of Management Development, 2006, 25, 707—717.
The nature of resonant leadership and the role of vision
(hope), compassion, and mindfulness is Richard Boyatzis
and Annie McKee, Resonant Leadership: Renewing Yourself
and Connecting With Others Through Mindfulness, Hope, and
Compassion (Harvard Business School Press, Boston, Mass.,
2005). Detailed exploration of when arousing the PEA is
better, worse, or needed as compared to the NEA, and visa
versa, is explained in Richard Boyatzis, ‘‘When Pulling to the
Negative Emotional Attractor is Too Much or Not Enough to
Inspire and Sustain Outstanding Leadership,’’ in R. Burke, C.
Cooper, and G. Woods (eds), The Fulfilling Workplace: the
Organization’s Role in Achieving Individual and Organiza-
tional Health (Gower Publishing: London, in press).
Richard Boyatzis is Distinguished University Professor in
Organizational Behavior, Psychology, and Cognitive
Science at Case Western Reserve University. He has authored
150 articles and 7 books on leadership, competency
development and coaching (CWRU, 10900 Euclid Avenue,
Cleveland, OH 44106-7235, USA. Tel.: 216-368-2053; e-
mail: [email protected]).
Melvin Smith is an associate professor in organizational
behavior and faculty director of Weatherhead Executive
Education at CWRU. His research and publications have
focused on social capital, development of emotional
intelligence, and coaching (e-mail: [email protected]).
Ellen Van Oosten is an adjunct faculty in organizational
behavior, faculty and master coach in executive education
at CWRU. Her research and publications have centered on
executive coaching, emotional and social intelligence in
leadership development, positive psychology and the

intersection between individual and organization develop-
ment (e-mail: [email protected]).
Lauris Woolford is executive vice president of organizational
development and planning, Fifth Third Bank. Her
academic work has focused on innovations in organization and
leadership development (Fifth Third Bank, e-mail:
[email protected]).
This article is made available to you with compliments of
Professor Richard Boyatzis. Further
posting, copying, or distributing is copyright infringement. To
order more copies go to hbr.org.
www.hbr.org
Social Intelligence and
the Biology of
Leadership
by Daniel Goleman and Richard Boyatzis
Included with this full-text Harvard Business Review article:
The Idea in Brief—the core idea
The Idea in Practice—putting the idea to work

1
Article Summary
2
Social Intelligence and the Biology of Leadership
A list of related materials, with annotations to guide further
exploration of the article’s ideas and applications
8
Further Reading
New studies of the brain show
that leaders can improve
group performance by
understanding the biology of
empathy.
Reprint R0809E
http://www.hbr.org

http://harvardbusinessonline.hbsp.harvard.edu/relay.jhtml?name
=itemdetail&referral=4320&id=R0809E
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Your behavior can energize—or deflate—
your entire organization through mood
contagion. For example, if you laugh often
and set an easygoing tone, you’ll trigger
similar behaviors among your team mem-
bers. Shared behaviors unify a team, and
bonded groups perform better than frag-
mented ones.
Mood contagion stems from neurobiology.
Positive behaviors—such as exhibiting
empathy—create a chemical connection
between a leader’s and his or her followers’
brains. By managing those interconnec-
tions adroitly, leaders can deliver measur-
able business results. For example, after one
executive at a Fortune 500 company
worked with a coach and role model to im-
prove her behavior, employee retention and
emotional commitment in her unit soared.
And the unit’s annual sales jumped 6%.
How to foster the neurobiological changes

that create positive behaviors and emo-
tions in your employees? Goleman and
Boyatzis advise sharpening your social in-
telligence skills.
IDENTIFY SOCIAL STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES
Social intelligence skills include the following. Identify which
ones you’re good at—and which
ones need improvement.
CRAFT A PLAN FOR CHANGE
Now determine how you’ll strengthen your
social intelligence. Working with a coach—who
can debrief you about what she observes—
and learning directly from a role model are
particularly powerful ways to make needed
behavioral changes.
Example:
Janice was hired as a marketing manager
for her business expertise, strategic think-
ing powers, and ability to deal with obsta-
cles to crucial goals. But within her first six
months on the job, she was floundering.
Other executives saw her as aggressive and
opinionated—as well as careless about
what she said and to whom.
Her boss called in a coach, who administered
a 360-degree evaluation. Findings revealed

that Janice didn’t know how to establish
rapport with people, notice their reactions
to her, read social norms, or recognize oth-
ers’ emotional cues when she violated
those norms. Through coaching, Janice
learned to express her ideas with convic-
tion (instead of with pit bull–like determi-
nation) and to disagree with others without
damaging relationships.
By switching to a job where she reported
to a socially intelligent mentor, Janice fur-
ther strengthened her skills, including
learning how to critique others’ perfor-
mance in productive ways. She was pro-
moted to a position two levels up where,
with additional coaching, she mastered
reading cues from direct reports who were
still signaling frustration with her. Her
company’s investment in her (along with
her own commitment to change) paid big
dividends—in the form of lower turnover
and higher sales in Janice’s multibillion-
dollar unit.
Skill Do you…
Empathy Understand what motivates other people, even those
from diff erent
backgrounds? Are you sensitive to their needs?
Attunement Listen attentively and think about how others feel?
Are you attuned to others’
moods?

Organizational
Awareness
Appreciate your group’s or organization’s culture and values?
Understand social
networks and know their unspoken norms?
Infl uence Persuade others by engaging them in discussion,
appealing to their interests,
and getting support from key people?
Developing Others Coach and mentor others with compassion?
Do you personally invest time and
energy in mentoring and provide feedback that people fi nd
helpful for their
professional development?
Inspiration Articulate a compelling vision, build group pride,
foster a positive emotional
tone, and lead by bringing out the best in people?
Teamwork Encourage the participation of everyone on your
team, support all members,
and foster cooperation?
Social Intelligence and
the Biology of
Leadership

by Daniel Goleman and Richard Boyatzis
harvard business review • september 2008 page 2
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New studies of the brain show that leaders can improve group
performance by understanding the biology of empathy.
In 1998, one of us, Daniel Goleman, published
in these pages his first article on emotional
intelligence and leadership. The response to
“What Makes a Leader?” was enthusiastic.
People throughout and beyond the business
community started talking about the vital role
that empathy and self-knowledge play in effec-
tive leadership. The concept of emotional in-
telligence continues to occupy a prominent
space in the leadership literature and in every-
day coaching practices. But in the past five
years, research in the emerging field of social
neuroscience—the study of what happens in
the brain while people interact—is beginning
to reveal subtle new truths about what makes
a good leader.
The salient discovery is that certain things
leaders do—specifically, exhibit empathy and
become attuned to others’ moods—literally af-
fect both their own brain chemistry and that of
their followers. Indeed, researchers have found
that the leader-follower dynamic is not a case
of two (or more) independent brains reacting
consciously or unconsciously to each other.
Rather, the individual minds become, in a
sense, fused into a single system. We believe
that great leaders are those whose behavior

powerfully leverages the system of brain inter-
connectedness. We place them on the opposite
end of the neural continuum from people with
serious social disorders, such as autism or As-
perger’s syndrome, that are characterized by
underdevelopment in the areas of the brain as-
sociated with social interactions. If we are cor-
rect, it follows that a potent way of becoming a
better leader is to find authentic contexts in
which to learn the kinds of social behavior that
reinforce the brain’s social circuitry. Leading ef-
fectively is, in other words, less about master-
ing situations—or even mastering social skill
sets—than about developing a genuine inter-
est in and talent for fostering positive feelings
in the people whose cooperation and support
you need.
The notion that effective leadership is
about having powerful social circuits in the
brain has prompted us to extend our concept
of emotional intelligence, which we had

grounded in theories of individual psychol-
ogy. A more relationship-based construct for
assessing leadership is
social intelligence
,
which we define as a set of interpersonal com-
petencies built on specific neural circuits (and
related endocrine systems) that inspire oth-
ers to be effective.
The idea that leaders need social skills is not
new, of course. In 1920, Columbia University
psychologist Edward Thorndike pointed out
that “the best mechanic in a factory may fail as
a foreman for lack of social intelligence.” More
recently, our colleague Claudio Fernández-
Aráoz found in an analysis of new C-level exec-
utives that those who had been hired for their
self-discipline, drive, and intellect were some-
times later fired for lacking basic social skills.
In other words, the people Fernández-Aráoz
studied had smarts in spades, but their inabil-
ity to get along socially on the job was profes-
sionally self-defeating.
What’s new about our definition of social
intelligence is its biological underpinning,
which we will explore in the following pages.
Drawing on the work of neuroscientists, our
own research and consulting endeavors, and
the findings of researchers affiliated with the

Consortium for Research on Emotional Intel-
ligence in Organizations, we will show you
how to translate newly acquired knowledge
about mirror neurons, spindle cells, and oscil-
lators into practical, socially intelligent behav-
iors that can reinforce the neural links be-
tween you and your followers.
Followers Mirror Their Leaders—
Literally
Perhaps the most stunning recent discovery in
behavioral neuroscience is the identification
of mirror neurons in widely dispersed areas of
the brain. Italian neuroscientists found them
by accident while monitoring a particular cell
in a monkey’s brain that fired only when the
monkey raised its arm. One day a lab assistant
lifted an ice cream cone to his own mouth and
triggered a reaction in the monkey’s cell. It
was the first evidence that the brain is pep-
pered with neurons that mimic, or mirror,
what another being does. This previously un-
known class of brain cells operates as neural
Wi-Fi, allowing us to navigate our social world.
When we consciously or unconsciously detect
someone else’s emotions through their ac-
tions, our mirror neurons reproduce those
emotions. Collectively, these neurons create
an instant sense of shared experience.
Mirror neurons have particular importance
in organizations, because leaders’ emotions

and actions prompt followers to mirror those
feelings and deeds. The effects of activating
neural circuitry in followers’ brains can be very
powerful. In a recent study, our colleague
Marie Dasborough observed two groups: One
received negative performance feedback ac-
companied by positive emotional signals—
namely, nods and smiles; the other was given
positive feedback that was delivered critically,
with frowns and narrowed eyes. In subsequent
interviews conducted to compare the emo-
tional states of the two groups, the people who
had received positive feedback accompanied
by negative emotional signals reported feeling
worse about their performance than did the
participants who had received good-natured
negative feedback. In effect, the delivery was
more important than the message itself. And
everybody knows that when people feel better,
they perform better. So, if leaders hope to get
the best out of their people, they should con-
tinue to be demanding but in ways that foster
a positive mood in their teams. The old carrot-
and-stick approach alone doesn’t make neural
sense; traditional incentive systems are simply
not enough to get the best performance
from followers.
Here’s an example of what does work. It
turns out that there’s a subset of mirror neurons
whose only job is to detect other people’s
smiles and laughter, prompting smiles and
laughter in return. A boss who is self-controlled
and humorless will rarely engage those neu-
rons in his team members, but a boss who
laughs and sets an easygoing tone puts those

neurons to work, triggering spontaneous
laughter and knitting his team together in the
process. A bonded group is one that performs
well, as our colleague Fabio Sala has shown in
his research. He found that top-performing
leaders elicited laughter from their subordi-
nates three times as often, on average, as
did midperforming leaders. Being in a good
mood, other research finds, helps people take
in information effectively and respond nim-
bly and creatively. In other words, laughter is
serious business.
It certainly made a difference at one university-
based hospital in Boston. Two doctors we’ll
call Dr. Burke and Dr. Humboldt were in
Daniel Goleman
([email protected]
danielgoleman.info) is a cochairman of
the Consortium for Research on Emo-
tional Intelligence in Organizations,
which is based at Rutgers University’s
Graduate School of Applied and Pro-
fessional Psychology in Piscataway,
New Jersey. He is the author of Social
Intelligence: The New Science of Human
Relationships (Bantam, 2006).
Richard Boyatzis ([email protected]
case.edu) is the H.R. Horvitz Chair of
Family Business and a professor in the
departments of organizational behav-
ior, psychology, and cognitive science

at Case Western Reserve University in
Cleveland. He is a coauthor, with Annie
McKee and Frances Johnston, of Be-
coming a Resonant Leader (Harvard
Business Press, 2008).
mailto:[email protected]
contention for the post of CEO of the corpo-
ration that ran this hospital and others. Both
of them headed up departments, were superb
physicians, and had published many widely
cited research articles in prestigious medical
journals. But the two had very different
personalities. Burke was intense, task focused,
and impersonal. He was a relentless perfec-
tionist with a combative tone that kept his
staff continually on edge. Humboldt was no
less demanding, but he was very approachable,
even playful, in relating to staff, colleagues,

and patients. Observers noted that people
smiled and teased one another—and even
spoke their minds—more in Humboldt’s de-
partment than in Burke’s. Prized talent often
ended up leaving Burke’s department; in con-
trast, outstanding folks gravitated to Hum-
boldt’s warmer working climate. Recognizing
Humboldt’s socially intelligent leadership
style, the hospital corporation’s board picked
him as the new CEO.
The “Finely Attuned” Leader
Great executives often talk about leading
from the gut. Indeed, having good instincts is
widely recognized as an advantage for a leader
in any context, whether in reading the mood
of one’s organization or in conducting a deli-
cate negotiation with the competition. Leader-
ship scholars characterize this talent as an
ability to recognize patterns, usually born of
extensive experience. Their advice: Trust your
gut, but get lots of input as you make deci-
sions. That’s sound practice, of course, but
managers don’t always have the time to con-
sult dozens of people.
Findings in neuroscience suggest that this
approach is probably too cautious. Intuition,
too, is in the brain, produced in part by a class
of neurons called spindle cells because of their
shape. They have a body size about four times
that of other brain cells, with an extra-long
branch to make attaching to other cells easier

and transmitting thoughts and feelings to
them quicker. This ultrarapid connection of
emotions, beliefs, and judgments creates what
behavioral scientists call our social guidance
system. Spindle cells trigger neural networks
that come into play whenever we have to
choose the best response among many—even
for a task as routine as prioritizing a to-do list.
These cells also help us gauge whether some-
one is trustworthy and right (or wrong) for a
job. Within one-twentieth of a second, our
spindle cells fire with information about how
we feel about that person; such “thin-slice”
judgments can be very accurate, as follow-up
metrics reveal. Therefore, leaders should not
fear to act on those judgments, provided that
they are also attuned to others’ moods.
Such attunement is literally physical. Fol-
lowers of an effective leader experience rap-
port with her—or what we and our colleague
Annie McKee call “resonance.” Much of this
feeling arises unconsciously, thanks to mirror
neurons and spindle-cell circuitry. But another
class of neurons is also involved: Oscillators co-
ordinate people physically by regulating how
and when their bodies move together. You can
see oscillators in action when you watch peo-
ple about to kiss; their movements look like a
dance, one body responding to the other seam-
lessly. The same dynamic occurs when two cel-
lists play together. Not only do they hit their
notes in unison, but thanks to oscillators, the
two musicians’ right brain hemispheres are
more closely coordinated than are the left and

right sides of their individual brains.
Firing Up Your Social Neurons
The firing of social neurons is evident all
around us. We once analyzed a video of Herb
Kelleher, a cofounder and former CEO of
Southwest Airlines, strolling down the corridors
of Love Field in Dallas, the airline’s hub. We
could practically see him activate the mirror
neurons, oscillators, and other social circuitry
in each person he encountered. He offered
beaming smiles, shook hands with customers
as he told them how much he appreciated
their business, hugged employees as he
thanked them for their good work. And he got
back exactly what he gave. Typical was the
flight attendant whose face lit up when she un-
expectedly encountered her boss. “Oh, my
honey!” she blurted, brimming with warmth,
and gave him a big hug. She later explained,
“Everyone just feels like family with him.”
Unfortunately, it’s not easy to turn yourself
into a Herb Kelleher or a Dr. Humboldt if
you’re not one already. We know of no clear-
cut methods to strengthen mirror neurons,
spindle cells, and oscillators; they activate by
the thousands per second during any encoun-
ter, and their precise firing patterns remain
elusive. What’s more, self-conscious attempts
to display social intelligence can often backfire.

Do Women Have
Stronger Social
Circuits?
People often ask whether gender
differences factor into the social in-
telligence skills needed for outstand-
ing leadership. The answer is yes and
no. It’s true that women tend, on av-
erage, to be better than men at im-
mediately sensing other people’s
emotions, whereas men tend to have
more social confidence, at least in
work settings. However, gender dif-
ferences in social intelligence that
are dramatic in the general popula-
tion are all but absent among the
most successful leaders.
When the University of Toledo’s
Margaret Hopkins studied several
hundred executives from a major
bank, she found gender differences
in social intelligence in the overall
group but not between the most ef-
fective men and the most effective
women. Ruth Malloy of the Hay
Group uncovered a similar pattern in
her study of CEOs of international
companies. Gender, clearly, is not
neural destiny.

When you make an intentional effort to coor-
dinate movements with another person, it is
not only oscillators that fire. In such situations
the brain uses other, less adept circuitry to ini-
tiate and guide movements; as a result, the in-
teraction feels forced.
The only way to develop your social cir-
cuitry effectively is to undertake the hard
work of changing your behavior (see “Primal
Leadership: The Hidden Driver of Great Per-
formance,” our December 2001 HBR article
with Annie McKee). Companies interested in
leadership development need to begin by as-
sessing the willingness of individuals to enter
a change program. Eager candidates should
first develop a personal vision for change and
then undergo a thorough diagnostic assess-
ment, akin to a medical workup, to identify
areas of social weakness and strength. Armed
with the feedback, the aspiring leader can be
trained in specific areas where developing
better social skills will have the greatest pay-
off. The training can range from rehearsing
better ways of interacting and trying them

out at every opportunity, to being shadowed
by a coach and then debriefed about what he
observes, to learning directly from a role
model. The options are many, but the road to
success is always tough.
How to Become Socially Smarter
To see what social intelligence training in-
volves, consider the case of a top executive
we’ll call Janice. She had been hired as a mar-
keting manager by a Fortune 500 company be-
cause of her business expertise, outstanding
track record as a strategic thinker and planner,
reputation as a straight talker, and ability to
anticipate business issues that were crucial
for meeting goals. Within her first six months
on the job, however, Janice was floundering;
other executives saw her as aggressive and
opinionated, lacking in political astuteness,
and careless about what she said and to whom,
especially higher-ups.
To save this promising leader, Janice’s boss
called in Kathleen Cavallo, an organizational
psychologist and senior consultant with the
Hay Group, who immediately put Janice
through a 360-degree evaluation. Her direct
reports, peers, and managers gave Janice
low ratings on empathy, service orientation,
adaptability, and managing conflicts. Cavallo
learned more by having confidential conver-
sations with the people who worked most

closely with Janice. Their complaints focused
Are You a Socially Intelligent Leader?
To measure an executive’s social intelligence
and help him or her develop a plan for improv-
ing it, we have a specialist administer our be-
havioral assessment tool, the Emotional and
Social Competency Inventory. It is a 360-degree
evaluation instrument by which bosses, peers,
direct reports, clients, and sometimes even
family members assess a leader according to
seven social intelligence qualities.
We came up with these seven by integrating
our existing emotional intelligence framework
with data assembled by our colleagues at the
Hay Group, who used hard metrics to capture
the behavior of top-performing leaders at hun-
dreds of corporations over two decades. Listed
here are each of the qualities, followed by
some of the questions we use to assess them.
Empathy
• Do you understand
what motivates other
people, even those from different
backgrounds?

• Are you sensitive
to others’ needs?
Attunement
• Do you listen attentively
and think about
how others feel?
• Are you attuned
to others’ moods?
Organizational Awareness
• Do you appreciate
the culture and values
of the group or organization?
• Do you understand social networks

and
know their unspoken norms?
Influence
• Do you persuade others
by engaging
them in discussion and appealing to
their self-interests?
• Do you get support
from key people?
Developing Others
• Do you coach
and mentor others with
compassion and personally invest time
and energy in mentoring?
• Do you provide feedback
that people

find helpful for their professional
development?
Inspiration
• Do you articulate a compelling vision,
build group pride, and foster a positive
emotional tone?
• Do you lead
by bringing out the best
in people?
Teamwork
• Do you solicit input
from everyone on
the team?
• Do you support
all team members

and encourage cooperation?
on her failure to establish rapport with peo-
ple or even notice their reactions. The bottom
line: Janice was adept neither at reading the
social norms of a group nor at recognizing
people’s emotional cues when she violated
those norms. Even more dangerous, Janice did
not realize she was being too blunt in managing
upward. When she had a strong difference of
opinion with a manager, she did not sense
when to back off. Her “let’s get it all on the
table and mix it up” approach was threatening
her job; top management was getting fed up.
When Cavallo presented this performance
feedback as a wake-up call to Janice, she was
of course shaken to discover that her job
might be in danger. What upset her more,
though, was the realization that she was not
having her desired impact on other people.
Cavallo initiated coaching sessions in which

Janice would describe notable successes and
failures from her day. The more time Janice
spent reviewing these incidents, the better
she became at recognizing the difference
between expressing an idea with conviction
and acting like a pit bull. She began to antici-
pate how people might react to her in a meet-
ing or during a negative performance review;
she rehearsed more-astute ways to present
her opinions; and she developed a personal
vision for change. Such mental preparation
activates the social circuitry of the brain,
strengthening the neural connections you
need to act effectively; that’s why Olympic
athletes put hundreds of hours into mental
review of their moves.
At one point, Cavallo asked Janice to name a
leader in her organization who had excellent
social intelligence skills. Janice identified a vet-
eran senior manager who was masterly both in
the art of the critique and at expressing dis-
agreement in meetings without damaging rela-
tionships. She asked him to help coach her,
and she switched to a job where she could
work with him—a post she held for two years.
Janice was lucky to find a mentor who believed
that part of a leader’s job is to develop human
capital. Many bosses would rather manage
around a problem employee than help her get
better. Janice’s new boss took her on because
he recognized her other strengths as invalu-
able, and his gut told him that Janice could im-
prove with guidance.

Before meetings, Janice’s mentor coached
her on how to express her viewpoint about
contentious issues and how to talk to higher-
ups, and he modeled for her the art of perfor-
mance feedback. By observing him day in and
day out, Janice learned to affirm people even
as she challenged their positions or critiqued
their performance. Spending time with a liv-
ing, breathing model of effective behavior
provides the perfect stimulation for our
mirror neurons, which allow us to directly
experience, internalize, and ultimately emu-
late what we observe.
Janice’s transformation was genuine and
comprehensive. In a sense, she went in one
person and came out another. If you think
about it, that’s an important lesson from neu-
roscience: Because our behavior creates and
develops neural networks, we are not necessar-
ily prisoners of our genes and our early child-
hood experiences. Leaders can change if, like
Janice, they are ready to put in the effort. As
she progressed in her training, the social be-
haviors she was learning became more like sec-
ond nature to her. In scientific terms, Janice
was strengthening her social circuits through
practice. And as others responded to her, their
brains connected with hers more profoundly
and effectively, thereby reinforcing Janice’s cir-
The Chemistry of Stress
When people are under stress, surges in

the stress hormones adrenaline and cor-
tisol strongly affect their reasoning and
cognition. At low levels, cortisol facili-
tates thinking and other mental func-
tions, so well-timed pressure to perform
and targeted critiques of subordinates
certainly have their place. When a
leader’s demands become too great for a
subordinate to handle, however, soaring
cortisol levels and an added hard kick of
adrenaline can paralyze the mind’s criti-
cal abilities. Attention fixates on the
threat from the boss rather than the
work at hand; memory, planning, and
creativity go out the window. People fall
back on old habits, no matter how un-
suitable those are for addressing new
challenges.
Poorly delivered criticism and dis-
plays of anger by leaders are common
triggers of hormonal surges. In fact,
when laboratory scientists want to study
the highest levels of stress hormones,
they simulate a job interview in which
an applicant receives intense face-to-face
criticism—an analogue of a boss’s tear-
ing apart a subordinate’s performance.
Researchers likewise find that when
someone who is very important to a per-
son expresses contempt or disgust to-
ward him, his stress circuitry triggers an
explosion by stress hormones and a
spike in heart rate of 30 to 40 beats per
minute. Then, because of the interper-

sonal dynamic of mirror neurons and os-
cillators, the tension spreads to other
people. Before you know it, the destruc-
tive emotions have infected an entire
group and inhibited its performance.
Leaders are themselves not immune to
the contagion of stress. All the more rea-
son they should take the time to under-
stand the biology of their emotions.
cuits in a virtuous circle. The upshot: Janice
went from being on the verge of dismissal to
getting promoted to a position two levels up.
A few years later, some members of Janice’s
staff left the company because they were not
happy—so she asked Cavallo to come back.
Cavallo discovered that although Janice had
mastered the ability to communicate and con-
nect with management and peers, she still
sometimes missed cues from her direct reports

when they tried to signal their frustration.
With more help from Cavallo, Janice was able
to turn the situation around by refocusing her
attention on her staff’s emotional needs and
fine-tuning her communication style. Opinion
surveys conducted with Janice’s staff before
and after Cavallo’s second round of coaching
documented dramatic increases in their emo-
tional commitment and intention to stay in the
organization. Janice and the staff also deliv-
ered a 6% increase in annual sales, and after
another successful year she was made presi-
dent of a multibillion-dollar unit. Companies
can clearly benefit a lot from putting people
through the kind of program Janice completed.
Hard Metrics of Social Intelligence
Our research over the past decade has con-
firmed that there is a large performance gap
between socially intelligent and socially un-
intelligent leaders. At a major national bank,
for example, we found that levels of an execu-
tive’s social intelligence competencies pre-
dicted yearly performance appraisals more
powerfully than did the emotional intelli-
gence competencies of self-awareness and self-
management. (For a brief explanation of our
assessment tool, which focuses on seven di-
mensions, see the exhibit “Are You a Socially
Intelligent Leader?”)
Social intelligence turns out to be espe-
cially important in crisis situations. Consider

the experience of workers at a large Canadian
provincial health care system that had gone
through drastic cutbacks and a reorganiza-
tion. Internal surveys revealed that the front-
line workers had become frustrated that they
were no longer able to give their patients a
high level of care. Notably, workers whose
leaders scored low in social intelligence re-
ported unmet patient-care needs at three
times the rate—and emotional exhaustion at
four times the rate—of their colleagues who
had supportive leaders. At the same time,
nurses with socially intelligent bosses re-
ported good emotional health and an en-
hanced ability to care for their patients, even
during the stress of layoffs (see the sidebar
“The Chemistry of Stress”). These results
should be compulsory reading for the boards
of companies in crisis. Such boards typically
favor expertise over social intelligence when
selecting someone to guide the institution
through tough times. A crisis manager
needs both.
• • •
As we explore the discoveries of neuroscience,
we are struck by how closely the best psycho-
logical theories of development map to the
newly charted hardwiring of the brain. Back in
the 1950s, for example, British pediatrician
and psychoanalyst D.W. Winnicott was advo-
cating for play as a way to accelerate children’s

learning. Similarly, British physician and psy-
choanalyst John Bowlby emphasized the im-
portance of providing a secure base from
which people can strive toward goals, take
risks without unwarranted fear, and freely ex-
plore new possibilities. Hard-bitten executives
may consider it absurdly indulgent and finan-
cially untenable to concern themselves with
such theories in a world where bottom-line
performance is the yardstick of success. But as
new ways of scientifically measuring human
development start to bear out these theories
and link them directly with performance, the
so-called soft side of business begins to look
not so soft after all.
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page 8
Further Reading
A R T I C L E S
Competent Jerks, Lovable Fools, and the
Formation of Social Networks

by Tiziana Casciaro and Miguel Sousa Lobo
June 2005
Product no. R0506E
When looking for help with a task at work,
people turn to those best able to do the job.
Right? Wrong. New research shows that work
partners tend to be chosen not for ability but
for likeability. Drawing from their study en-
compassing 10,000 work relationships in five
organizations, the authors have classified
work partners into four archetypes: the
competent jerk, who knows a lot but is un-
pleasant; the lovable fool, who doesn’t know
much but is a delight; the lovable star, who’s
both smart and likeable; and the incompetent
jerk, who...well, that’s self-explanatory. Of
course, everybody wants to work with the
lovable star, and nobody wants to work with
the incompetent jerk. More interesting is that
people prefer the lovable fool over the
competent jerk. That has big implications for
every organization, as both of these types
often represent missed opportunities. Lovable
fools can bridge gaps between diverse groups
that might not otherwise interact. But their
networking skills are often developed at the
expense of job performance, which can make
these employees underappreciated and

vulnerable to downsizing. To get the most out
of them, managers need to protect them and
put them in positions that don’t waste their
bridge-building talents. As for the competent
jerks, many can be socialized through
coaching or by being made accountable for
bad behavior.
Cultural Intelligence
by P. Christopher Earley and
Elaine Mosakowski
October 2004
Product no. R0410J
In an increasingly diverse business environ-
ment, managers must be able to navigate the
thicket of habits, gestures, and assumptions
that define their coworkers’ differences.
Foreign cultures are everywhere—in other
countries, certainly, but also in corporations,
vocations, and regions. Interacting with indi-
viduals within them demands perceptiveness
and adaptability. And the people who have
those traits in abundance aren’t necessarily
the ones who enjoy the greatest social suc-
cess in familiar settings. Cultural intelligence,
or CQ, is the ability to make sense of unfamiliar
contexts and then blend in. It has three
components—cognitive, physical, and emo-
tional/motivational. Although it shares many
of the properties of emotional intelligence,
CQ goes one step further by equipping a per-
son to distinguish behaviors produced by the

culture in question from behaviors that are
peculiar to particular individuals and those
found in all human beings. In their surveys of
2,000 managers in 60 countries, the authors
found that most managers are not equally
strong in all three of these areas of CQ. The
authors have devised tools that show how to
identify one’s strengths and developed train-
ing techniques to help people overcome
weaknesses. They conclude that anyone
reasonably alert, motivated, and poised can
attain an acceptable level of CQ.
=itemdetail&referral=4320&id=R0410J
http://www.hbr.org
The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science
49(2) 153 –178
© 2012 NTL Institute
Reprints and permissions:
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DOI: 10.1177/0021886312462236
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462236 JAB49210.1177/0021886312462236The

Journal of Applied Behavioral ScienceBoyatzis et al.
1Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, USA
Corresponding Author:
Richard E. Boyatzis, Department of Organizational Behavior,
Case Western Reserve University, Peter B.
Lewis Building, Cleveland, OH, 44106, USA.
Email: [email protected]
Coaching With Compassion:
Inspiring Health, Well-
Being, and Development in
Organizations
Richard E. Boyatzis1, Melvin L. Smith1,
and ‘Alim J. Beveridge1
Abstract
Compassion involves noticing another’s need, empathizing, and
acting to enhance
their well-being. In response to another’s pain, the motivation is
to increase hedonic
well-being or the absence of pain. In response to another’s
desire to grow, the
motivation is to increase eudaimonic well-being or helping them
develop. We argue
that compassion includes both. Our expanded view suggests that
coaching with
compassion will lead to desired change, enhanced health, and
well-being. We propose
a model saying coaching with compassion invokes a
psychophysiological state that
enables a person to be open to new possibilities and learning. In
contrast, coaching
for compliance (i.e., toward how the coach or the organization

believe the person
should act) and deficiency-based coaching invoke the opposite
state—resulting in a
person being defensive, reducing cognitive functioning. We
theorize how coaching
with compassion can enhance adaptability of the organization
through creating norms
and relationships of caring and development.
Keywords
coaching, compassion, well-being, complexity
Coaching as a practice has gained in popularity as evident by
the growth of the coach-
ing industry during the past decade1 (Feldman & Lankau, 2005;
Segers, Vloeberghs,
Henderickx, & Inceoglu, 2011; Smith, Van Oosten, & Boyatzis,
2009). Despite this
Article
The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science
49(2) 153–178
© 2012 NTL Institute
Reprints and permissions:
sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/0021886312462236
jab.sagepub.com
462236 JAB49210.1177/0021886312462236The

believe the person
should act) and deficiency-based coaching invoke the opposite
state—resulting in a
person being defensive, reducing cognitive functioning. We
theorize how coaching
with compassion can enhance adaptability of the organization
through creating norms
and relationships of caring and development.
Keywords
coaching, compassion, well-being, complexity
Coaching as a practice has gained in popularity as evident by
the growth of the coach-
ing industry during the past decade1 (Feldman & Lankau, 2005;
Segers, Vloeberghs,
Henderickx, & Inceoglu, 2011; Smith, Van Oosten, & Boyatzis,
2009). Despite this
Article
154 The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science 49(2)
growth, few empirical studies have examined the coaching
process and its impact on
the coach and the person being coached and little theory has
been developed around
it (Feldman & Lankau, 2005; Kampa-Kokesch & Anderson,
2001). Even fewer stud-
ies have investigated the impact of coaching on organizations
that adopt this practice.
In this theoretical article, we extend the work of Boyatzis,
Smith, and Blaize (2006)

by adopting their distinction between two broad approaches to
coaching and articu-
lating the impact of each on both the coach and the person being
coached, whom we
call the coachee. We also propose how one approach, coaching
with compassion,
affects the organization and its openness to organizational
change. Furthermore, we
offer an expanded view of compassion that does not require the
presence of pain and
suffering.
Our experiences at work affect psychological and emotional
states and the health of
our bodies. We therefore explain how the psychological,
emotional, and physiological
consequences of experiencing coaching with compassion have
an enduring impact on
individual health and development. In this way, we both expand
current understanding
of the experience and effects of compassion and explore how
our bodies are affected
by social interactions at work (Heaphy & Dutton, 2008).
Finally, we discuss how
coaching with compassion affects the organization through its
effect on the individu-
al’s appraisal of the organization, his or her behavior at work,
and his or her relation-
ships with colleagues.
Coaching With Compassion
Various definitions of coaching have been offered. Most
converge on its being a
“facilitative or helping relationship with the purpose of
achieving some type of
change, learning, or new level of individual or organizational

performance” (Smith et
al., 2009, p. 150). Because this definition could also describe
mentoring, we distin-
guish the two by clarifying that coaching involves a shorter
term duration and a more
specific focus (Smith et al., 2009). Unlike other scholars (e.g.,
Sue-Chan, Wood, &
Latham, 2012), we refer to an explicit dyadic coaching process.
This means that both
coach and coachee are aware of participating in such a process.
Although the coaching
often takes place during determined coaching sessions, it
sometimes occurs walking
to or from meetings, at lunch, or in other less formal sessions.
With this in mind, the
coach might be a formal internal or external coach, a boss, or,
as recent research has
suggested (Parker, Hall, & Kram, 2008), a peer.
Several recent studies suggest that it is the general orientation
or approach to coach-
ing, rather than specific techniques or behaviors, that predicts
important outcomes,
such as increased learning and performance (de Haan, Culpin, &
Curd, 2011; Sue-
Chan et al., 2012). Consistent with these studies, we focus on
general types or
approaches to coaching. Specifically, we primarily theorize
about an approach known
as coaching with compassion (Boyatzis et al., 2006). We define
compassion as an
interpersonal process that involves noticing another person as
being in need, empa-
thizing with him or her, and acting to enhance his or her well-
being in response to that

Boyatzis et al. 155
need. We will elaborate on this simple definition in a
subsequent section. Compassion,
we claim, is a key component of coaching with compassion.
The hallmark of coaching with compassion is the focus on
invoking the Ideal Self
to initiate and guide the change process. The Ideal Self is the
individual’s vision of
who he or she wants to be and includes hir or her goals, values,
and deepest aspirations
for the individual’s future (Boyatzis, 2008; Boyatzis & Akrivou,
2006; Higgins, 1987).
The starting point of coaching with compassion is helping the
coachee develop or
articulate a compelling personal vision. Research on visioning
has shown that it helps
guide future behavior (Roffe, Schmidt, & Ernst, 2005), arouses
hope, and increases
athletic and academic performance (Curry, Snyder, Cook, Ruby,
& Rehm, 1997;
Snyder, Rand, & Sigmon, 2002). Following the articulation of
the Ideal Self, the coach
may help the coachee take stock of their current situation,
identify required changes,
and make a realistic and exciting plan to implement these
changes.
A second important characteristic of coaching with compassion
is the focus on
identifying current strengths before considering weaknesses.
Thus, it incorporates
strength-based development (Roberts, Dutton, Spreitzer,

Heaphy, & Quinn, 2005).
However, coaching with compassion is more than a simple
sequence of steps. To be
successful, the coach must establish a trusting relationship with
the coachee, so they
discuss their hopes and dreams openly, and develop in them a
sense of safety to explore
new thinking and behavior (Brotman, Liberi, & Wasylyshyn,
1998).
Coaching with compassion can be distinguished from three
other basic types of
coaching. First, because of its primary objective to further the
coachee’s growth and
development it stands in contrast to instrumental coaching. The
objective of instru-
mental coaching is to influence the coachee to change to better
fit the goals of the
organization, their manager, or perhaps the coach, rather than
their own. Providing
advice to someone to help improve his or her performance,
trying to convince that
individual to accept a particular assignment, or putting pressure
on him or her to act
more consistently with organizational norms are all focused on
influencing the coachee
to do something desired by others. To be clear, coaching with
compassion may involve
both focusing on furthering the coachee’s development and
serving an organizational
need. The critical factor is whether or not the coachee’s own
goals and view of his or
her development is taken into account.
Second, coaching with compassion is distinct from coaching
that aims to help the

coachee develop but omits the focus on the coachee’s Ideal Self.
When a coach
points to something that the coachee should change or improve,
even if the intention
is to further the coachee’s good, the coach is prescribing what
the coachee should do.
According to self-discrepancy theory, in such situations, the
coachee focuses on the
Ought Self, which often comes into conflict with the Ideal Self
(Brockner & Higgins,
2001; Higgins, 1987; Higgins, Roney, Crowe, & Hymes, 1994).
The theory predicts
that when people to whom one turns for help, or those with
more organizational
power suggest an Ought Self, one feels pressure to comply. This
can ensue even
from well-intentioned, ostensibly helpful behavior, such as
helping a person net-
work or calling someone to ask for an interview on behalf of the
coachee. Such
helping behavior can have unintended negative consequences if
the aims are not
“self-concordant” (i.e., not in alignment with the coachee’s own
goals and aspira-
tions, Ryan & Deci, 2001). A focus on the coachee’s Ideal Self
is therefore a sine qua
non of coaching with compassion.
Third, coaching with compassion differs from approaches that
attempt to stimulate
the coachee’s development by focusing on deficiencies.

Coaching and mentoring pro-
grams and performance reviews often adopt this focus on
deficits. Coaching with com-
passion, in contrast, puts a greater emphasis on the coachee’s
strengths than his or her
weaknesses.
To summarize, we define coaching with compassion as a
process that aims to fur-
ther the coachee’s development by focusing on their Ideal Self
and on their strengths
more than their weaknesses. Instrumental coaching and
coaching toward the Ought
Self can be called coaching for compliance, defined as coaching
another to comply
with an authority’s or an organization’s view of how they
should act, often inducing a
defensiveness or sense of guilt (Boyatzis et al., 2006). We argue
that coaching with
compassion leads to more positive outcomes than coaching for
compliance and defi-
cit-based coaching.
To support our claim that coaching with compassion is an
instance of compassion,
we next present a theoretical discussion of our expanded view
of compassion.
An Expanded View of Compassion
Our concept of compassion builds on Boyatzis et al.’s (2006)
proposition that compas-
sion consists of (a) empathizing with the other, (b) caring for
the other, and (c) acting
in response to the other’s feelings. In this section, we examine
these three components
and argue for the adoption of a more encompassing view of

each.
In the management literature, the most widely accepted
definition of compassion
consists of three components: (a) noticing or attending to
another’s suffering; (b) other-
regarding feelings such as empathic concern; and (c) acting to
ease the suffering
(Dutton, Worline, Frost, & Lilius, 2006; Frost, Dutton, Worline,
& Wilson, 2000;
Kanov et al., 2004). There is no apparent relationship between
this definition and
coaching unless one were to conceive of coaching as a remedial
intervention. Yet,
coaching, like other developmental relationships, is not always
focused on helping the
beneficiary overcome a problem; nor is the coachee necessarily
in distress at the out-
set. Coaches are often asked to help someone attain an
important goal or more fully
realize their potential, even when there is no “problem” to be
resolved.
Social scientists do not fully agree on the definition of
compassion. In a recent
review, Goetz, Keltner, and Simon-Thomas (2010) contend that
compassion is a
unique, discrete emotional state that, along with sympathy, pity,
and empathic con-
cern, can be placed in a family of emotions that center “upon a
concern for ameliorat-
ing the suffering of another individual” (p. 352). As mentioned
above, the most
common definition in the management literature holds that
compassion is a dynamic,
relational process of noticing, feeling, and responding to the

pain or suffering of
Boyatzis et al. 157
another (e.g., Dutton et al., 2006). While the two definitions
differ, they have in com-
mon the assumption that compassion is always a response to the
distress, pain, or suf-
fering of another.
We argue, however, that the first component of compassion
should be viewed as
noticing another’s need or desire, which is more general than
pain or distress. The use
of the term compassion, both in everyday language and in
scholarly writing, implies
that it need not be exclusively linked to distress, pain, or
suffering. Studies of lay con-
ceptions of compassion have shown that English speakers most
often group the word
compassion with terms, such as love, tenderness, and caring
(Shaver, Schwartz,
Kirson, & O’Connor, 1987), none of which imply a response to
pain or distress. Within
the academic literature, the term compassion often appears
together with other terms,
such as care, caregiving, caretaking, tenderness, warmth,
cooperating, and helping
(e.g., Batson & Shaw, 1991; Goetz et al., 2010; Kanov et al.,
2004; Lilius et al., 2008).
None of these are exclusively triggered by distress and pain.
While caregiving is per-
formed toward someone who is unable to fully care for himself
or herself, most recipi-

ents of caregiving are not in a constant state of distress, pain, or
suffering.
We find that Buddhist philosophy of mind also supports our
view. Compassion
within the Buddhist tradition is a response to dukkha, a Pali
word that has often been
translated as suffering. However, many scholars of Buddhism
have pointed out that
the translation is inaccurate. The original term encompasses a
range of experience,
from pain and suffering to unease and disquietude (Coseru,
2011; Olson, 2009).
Consequently, some modern translations use the term
unsatisfactoriness instead.
Disquietude and unsatisfactoriness include both negative
experience, such as exis-
tential unease, and positive ones, such as the desire to self-
actualize. This inner
experience of disquietude may be noticed by another even if it
does not result in an
arousal of negative emotion.
We concede that it is likely that in our evolutionary history,
compassion was once
an emotional response that could only be triggered by others’
pain and distress (Goetz
et al., 2010). However, over time, the functions of many
emotions have expanded. For
example, Haidt, Rozin, Mccauley, and Imada (1997) propose
that the function of dis-
gust has expanded from only protecting us from physically
harmful substances to also
protecting us from what is socially deemed as harmful. They
argue that early in human
evolutionary history, disgust exclusively served to prevent the

swallowing or inhaling
of substances that could be poisonous or otherwise dangerous,
and induce vomiting if
a harmful substance had been swallowed. Modern humans,
however, also react with
disgust to things that are considered morally reprehensible to
them.
We contend that the function of compassion has similarly
expanded. Goetz et al.
(2010) for example, claim that one of compassion’s functions is
the “maintenance of
cooperative relationships” (p. 365). Cooperative relationships
would be ineffective if
the parties involved only helped each other when the other was
in pain. If compassion
were only triggered by distress and pain, it would not be
sufficient to maintain a
cooperative relationship. Our contemporary societies require
that we invest heavily
in cooperation and in helping and developing each other, even
when there are no
kinship ties and no promise of reward or reciprocation. The
function of compassion
has conceivably expanded, such that now, sensing another’s
strong desire to achieve
some goal or aspiration may trigger it just as readily as sensing
another’s pain or
distress may.
The second component of compassion, in our view, must be

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