Daniel Goleman Quotes

If your emotional abilities aren't in hand, if you don't have self-awareness, if you are not able to manage your distressing emotions, if you can't have empathy and have effective relationships, then no matter how smart you are, you are not going to get very far.

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

Research shows that for jobs of all kinds, emotional intelligence is twice as important an ingredient of outstanding performance as cognitive ability and technical skill combined.

True compassion means not only feeling another's pain but also being moved to help relieve it.

When we focus on others, our world expands.

Emotional self-control-- delaying gratification and stifling impulsiveness- underlies accomplishment of every sort

Gifted leadership occurs when heart and head--feeling and thought--meet. These are the two winds that allow a leader to soar.

Empathic, emotionally intelligent work environments have a good track record of increasing creativity, improving problem solving and raising productivity.

One aspect of a successful relationship is not just how compatible you are, but how you deal with your incompatibility.

The basic premise that children must learn about emotions is that all feelings are okay to have; however, only some reactions are okay.

People learn what they want to learn. If learning is forced on us, even if we master it temporarily, it is soon forgotten.

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

Attention is a little-noticed and underrated mental asset.

Compassion begins with attention.

Life without passion would be a dull wasteland of neutrality, cut off and isolated from the richness of life itself.

As much as 80% of adult "success" comes from EQ.

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

IQ and technical skills are important, but emotional intelligence is the sine qua non of leadership.

In a very real sense we have two minds, one that thinks and one that feels

The human brain is by no means fully formed at birth. It continues to shape itself through life, with the most intense growth occurring during childhood.

For better or worse, intelligence can come to nothing when emotions hold sway.

Remember, empathy need not lead to sympathetically giving in to the other side’s demands—knowing how someone feels does not mean agreeing with them.

The more time you put into practicing, then, the greater the payoff.

The more socially intelligent you are, the happier and more robust and more enjoyable your relationships will be.

Empathetic people are superb at recognizing and meeting the needs of clients, customers, or subordinates. They seem approachable, wanting to hear what people have to say. They listen carefully, picking up on what people are truly concerned about, and respond on the mark.