Daniel Goleman

Daniel Goleman lectures frequently to business audiences, professional groups and on college campuses. A psychologist who for many years reported on the brain and behavioral sciences for The New York Times, Dr. Goleman previously was a visiting faculty member at Harvard. Dr. Goleman’s 1995 book, Emotional Intelligence (Bantam Books), argues that human competencies like self-awareness, self-discipline, persistence and empathy are of greater consequence than IQ in much of life, that we ignore the decline in these competencies at our peril, and that children can—and should—be taught these abilities. Emotional Intelligence was on The New York Times bestseller list for a year-and-a-half, with more than 5,000,000 copies in print worldwide. It has been a best seller throughout Europe, Asia and Latin America, and was translated into nearly 30 languages. Dr. Goleman was a co-founder of the Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning at the Yale University Child Studies Center (now at the University of Illinois at Chicago), with the mission to help schools introduce emotional literacy courses. One mark of the Collaborative—and book’s—impact is that thousands of schools around the world have begun to implement such programs. His 1998 book, Working With Emotional Intelligence (Bantam Books), argues that workplace competencies based on emotional intelligence play a far greater role in star performance than do intellect or technical skill, and that both individuals and companies will benefit from cultivating these capabilities. His most recent book, Primal Leadership - Realizing the Power of Emotional Intelligence, explores the crucial role of emotional intelligence in leadership. Dr. Goleman is co-chairman of The Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations, based in the Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology at Rutgers University, which seeks to recommend best practices for developing emotional competence. In 2003 he published Destructive Emotions, an account of a scientific dialogue between the Dalai Lama and a group of psychologists, neuroscientists, and philosophers. He is a member of the board of directors of the Mind & Life Institute, which sponsors an ongoing series of such dialogues, and fosters relevant research. Dr. Goleman has received many journalistic awards for his writing, including two nominations for the Pulitzer Prize for his articles in the Times, and a Career Achievement award for journalism from the American Psychological Association. In recognition of his efforts to communicate the behavioral sciences to the public, he was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Born in Stockton, California, Dr. Goleman attended Amherst College, where he was an Alfred P. Sloan Scholar and graduated magna cum laude. His graduate education was at Harvard, where he was a Ford Fellow, and he received his M.A. and Ph.D. in clinical psychology and personality development. Dr. Goleman now lives in the Berkshires of Massachusetts with his wife Tara Bennett-Goleman, a psychotherapist. He has two grown sons.