When thinking back on the field of  “soft skills” one realizes that there has been very little new ground broken in the last 40 years. Management, Leadership, Sales, Teams, Communication – these are all crucial topics however none have been introduced as much as they have simply evolved to reflect the professional eras as we’ve moved through time. With one exception.

Daniel Goleman was working as a science journalist for the New York Times in 1995 when he first introduced a new “soft science” to the world. His groundbreaking book  Emotional Intelligence (Bantam Books, 1995) was wildly popular with more than 5,000,000 copies in print worldwide in 30 languages, and has been a best seller in many countries. Emotional Intelligence, at its inception, was based in affective neuroscience which explores how emotions are regulated in the brain. Though its application Emotional Intelligence or “EQ” has become perceptually lockstep with effective leadership, trumping even the once dominant IQ in the categories of desired traits and predictive ability.

Once he realized the enormous application for the workplace Goleman shaped his ideas around business and published Working With Emotional Intelligence by the same publisher in 1998. Goleman stated that workplace competencies based on emotional intelligence play a great role in star performance, and that both individuals and companies will benefit from cultivating these capabilities. The Harvard Business Review touted Emotional Intelligence as  “a ground-breaking, paradigm-shattering idea, one of the most influential business ideas of the decade.”

Since that time Goleman has gone on to write more than 20 books on subjects that expand his work in the area of emotional intelligence, social intelligence, leadership, parenting, and more.  Goleman’s next work takes a hard look at one of the most pressing issues of the day. In the upcoming Ecological Intelligence he challenges our perceptions of what we consider to be “green” and why we’re uniformed, or even in denial, about why we are buying what we buy as it pertains to the environment. Get ready for what Goleman terms a “radical transparency” that will change the way you think…again.

 You can learn more about Daniel Goleman and his work at his blogsite http://www.danielgoleman.info/blog