Harvard Business

New studies of the brain show that leaders can improve group performance by

understanding the biology of empathy. by Daniel Goleman and Richard Boyatzis

Social

Intelligence

and the Biology of

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 effective leadership. The concept of emotional intelligence continues to occupy a prominent space in the leadership literature and in everyday 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.

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Jean-François Podevin

Leadership

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Social Intelligence and the Biology of Leadership

but their inability to get along socially on the job was profesThe salient discovery is that certain things leaders do – spesionally self-defeating.

cifically, exhibit empathy and become attuned to others’

What’s new about our definition of social intelligence is

moods – literally affect both their own brain chemistry and

its biological underpinning, which we will explore in the folthat of their followers. Indeed, researchers have found that the

lowing pages. Drawing on the work of neuroscientists, our

leader-follower dynamic is not a case of two (or more) indeown research and consulting endeavors, and the findings of

pendent brains reacting consciously or unconsciously to each

researchers affiliated with the Consortium for Research on

other. Rather, the individual minds become, in a sense, fused

Emotional Intelligence in...