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  • Emotionally Intelligent Leadership: A Guide for College Students
  • Patrick Dilley
Marcy Levy ShankmanScott J. Allen. Emotionally Intelligent Leadership: A Guide for College Students. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2008. 131 pp. Paper: $25.00. ISBN: 978-0-4702-7713-3.

The concept of what leadership entails has reached the Millennials. For centuries, a leader was thought to be born, to have inherent qualities that placed him (usually him) above other men. By the 20th century, leadership was conceived of being a strong [End Page 273] match between particular skills and positions/offices with responsibility for social or organizational outcomes or goals. But within the past decade or so, since the dawn of the new millennium, both of these concepts seem to have merged—and not flawlessly.

To Millennials, everyone is equal and special. (See Jean M. Twenge’s Generation Me [2007] for a great analysis of how this change in undergraduate student identities and experiences developed.) Consequently, everyone has leadership potential and ability, no matter one’s inherent nature or one’s role within an organization. Marcy Levy Shankman and Scott J. Allen’s Emotionally Intelligent Leadership demonstrates the utility—and the futility—of this line of thinking as applied to college students.

This book is written for an audience of undergraduate students, no doubt to be used in student leadership seminars and courses. According to the authors, “This book will help you begin or enhance the development of your leadership potential. This book will also help you think more critically about the topic of leadership” (p. 1).

But more to the point, the authors then state, “If you hope to lead others, this book will help you think about the role of leader in a new way. If you’re interested in being a good team member, a good employee, or even a good friend, EIL will provide you with some of the tools needed to be successful in a formal (appointed) or informal (voluntary) leadership role” (p. 2). But, oddly, “This book will also help you become a better follower—a role or position often left out of discussions on leadership” (p.2). So although everyone can be a leader, not everyone can be a leader? That confusion of purpose or focus permeates the book.

Shankman and Allen use the concept of “emotional intelligence,” which, they say, “was made popular by Daniel Goleman in his book Emotional Intelligence” (1998) (p. 5). Three “core facets” comprise this intelligence: consciousness of self, consciousness of others, and consciousness of context. Each consciousness—and one’s overall emotional intelligence—can be monitored. Each consciousness is operationalized in a number of areas, most having to do with communicating clearly and reflexively about one’s self, about others, and about the groups and environments in which one participates. The authors’ intended critical approach to understanding and becoming leaders and/or followers is framed within these areas; it is apparently to result from reading the “Student Voice” section and other inclusions of undergraduates’ comments about leadership.

I searched the book in vain for any clue to the origin of the student comments. Unfortunately, these comments are short, containing little more than adages and aphorisms. Furthermore, I doubt whether the authors’ intended audience would be able to reflect much—let alone critically—since that audience would conceivably not have much experience in leading others.

Augmenting the student comments in fostering critical reflection is another facet of each chapter, “Reflection Questions,” which are vague and which are seemingly designed to promote followership as often as leadership. For example, “What does it mean to be a good citizen in your organization? Would others agree with your definition?” (p. 84); “On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being highest, at what level of optimism would you rate the organization with which you most closely associate? On what basis do you make this rating?” (p. 67); and one that is particularly suppositional and subjective, “How does losing control of emotions affect a leader?”

I don’t think reading this slight book would harm any undergraduate; at the very least, as the authors write, “This book is intended to be a fast read” (p. 8). Indeed, improving skills...

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