Analysis of Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman
Analysis of "Emotional Intelligence" by Daniel Goleman
Daniel Goleman's book Emotional Intelligence is phenomenal. Rich with insight and valuable information, it provides answers to some questions that have perplexed professionals and lay persons alike for some time: Why do some people achieve far beyond what we might expect of them based on their circumstances and innate abilities, and why do some children thrive in a modem environment that seems intent on preventing them from even surviving? The answer, Goleman says, lies in emotional intelligence.
He writes, "My concern is with. . emotional intelligence, abilities such as being able to motivate oneself and persist in the face of frustrations, to control impulses and delay gratification; to regulate one's moods and keep distress from swamping the ability to think; to empathize and to hope"(34). Emotional intelligence is further described as a "meta-ability," determining how well we can use whatever other skills we have, including raw intellect (36). The book goes on to explain that it is our ability to successfully manage our emotional lives, and therefore our relationships with others and our view of ourselves, that determines our success in life.
Interestingly enough, the book doesn't t focus to any extent on communication per SE, but brings us just to the door of that issue on many occasions, almost as if it is a foregone conclusion that the ability to communicate about one's emotional state, and read others effectively is critical to achieving emotional intelligence. In all of the book 's many pages about empathy, for example, very little air time is given to the fact that one needs to first establish a personal empathetic state by observing and interpreting another's distress, and then communicate that response to the distressed person. However, a specific nod is given to effective communication in the chapter, "The Roots of Empathy." In both the statement, "Just as the mode of the rational mind is words, the mode of the emotions is nonverbal" (97), and later focus on the concept that empathy is of little value if it cannot be successfully expressed, the importance of effective communication is stressed. In a similar fashion, in the first few pages of the book, the concept of impulse control is defined, in terms of emotional intelligence, as knowing what to say and do and when to say and do it, but again the issue of effective communication is not addressed in so many...