It's hard to see how Emotional Intelligence helps us understand and manage our emotions.

If you want to read more about EI, you don't have to look any further than this blog.

Emotional Intelligence can be used in a wide range of situations, from work to home life, parenting, romantic relationships, and more. You might be looking for concrete ways to improve your own EI, or you might want to learn more about how the concept has evolved.

Want to understand how EI can help your sales? Here are some of the best books on Emotional Intelligence from some of the best academic authors and people who work with Emotional Intelligence as well.

Download our three Emotional Intelligence Exercises for free before we go on with the rest of the class! These science-based exercises will not only help you better understand and work with your emotions, but they will also give you the tools to help your clients, students, or employees do the same.

Best Books on Emotional Intelligence

There is no need to go on any longer. These sections contain what we and other people think are the best books on Emotional Intelligence. Some are great for people who are new to the field of positive psychology, and others are well-known books that we think everyone should read.

Here, we have tried to cover some of them, but the list is not complete. People are welcome to share their favorite books in the comments at the end of this text. If you've read a great book that has been particularly insightful or helpful to you, then feel free to do so!

Daniel Goleman’s Books on Emotional Intelligence

People who are interested in Emotional Intelligence are likely to have heard of the work of Daniel Goleman already. Mayer and Salovey came up with the name for the term in 1990. They said it was (Salovey & Mayer, 1990, p. 190):

"the part of social intelligence that deals with being able to keep track of your own and other people's feelings and emotions, be able to distinguish between them, and use this information to guide your thinking and actions."

When he worked at the New York Times in the 1990s, Goleman's work came to the fore. It was during this time that he became very interested in the work of Salovey and Mayer. This led to the publication of his best-selling book Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ in 1995. There are two more books by Emotional Intelligence author Daniel Goleman that we'll look at after this one. They look at the subject from a different point of view.

Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ

Goleman's first book on emotional intelligence was a best-seller around the world. People often call it "Emotional Intelligence." It wasn't Goleman's first book, but it has been called "The Book" that made the idea popular because so many people read it.

Goleman's main point is that cognitive intelligence (IQ) isn't the only thing that predicts how well you do at work. Emotional Intelligence is just as important, if not more important, than IQ.

His definition of Emotional Intelligence is that it's a set of skills, not a person. The EI skillset, he says, includes things like self-motivation, social skills, empathy, and impulse control, among other things.

It is written mostly from an organizational point of view, with business implications for both employees and managers. However, it also gives the reader a general idea of how Emotional Intelligence can help everyone deal with problems, impulses, and negative emotions better.

If you want to read or listen to Goleman's New York Times bestseller, you can buy it from Amazon. It's available both as an ebook for the Kindle and as an audiobook.

Primal Leadership: Unleashing the Power of Emotional Intelligence

Primal Leadership: Unleashing the Power of Emotional Intelligence was first published in 2001. It focuses more on how to become a better leader. It may be more important for people who run teams or businesses to read this book because it talks a lot about "styles of leadership."

The six styles of consulting Goleman and the authors Richard Boyatzis and Annie McKee each use their own consulting experience to identify and introduce the six styles. Each of these styles may be better suited for different types of situations. People:

Visionary;

Affiliative;

Democratic;

Coaching;

The commanding; and

Pacesetting.

It may be good news for people who want to learn more about the theory behind EI to know that Primal Leadership sometimes cites (and talks about) research from academic sources. For example, the authors use research to show how Emotional Intelligence (self-awareness and empathy in particular) and certain leadership skills are linked.

However, it isn't very academic and most people think it's a fairly easy book to read. With the help of his own Theory of Self-Directed Learning (Boyatzis, 1999), he also explains how leaders can grow and improve their skills.

If you've had some experience as a leader, you might enjoy learning how to use your knowledge of EI and improve the skills you already have, even more. Emotionally intelligent organizations can also be built with help from Primal Leadership.

Working with Emotional Intelligence

Goleman's second book, Emotional Intelligence II, focuses more on how the Emotional Quotient (EQ) skills he talked about in Emotional Intelligence can be used at work.

Indeed, it's all about the professional world again, and it has a lot to offer managers, leaders, and the whole group. In many ways, it's like the first one.

A lot of things could happen if you're interested in organizational culture, too: EI often plays a big part in making changes happen.

In Working with Emotional Intelligence, there are anecdotes and Emotional Intelligence case studies about bosses, CEOs, and managers in each of the five chapters. It also touches on some of the "brainwave" ideas that are linked to EI, like how stress, impulse control, and hormones all work together.

Emotional Intelligence 2.0 Book Summary

The book Emotional Intelligence 2.0 is one of the best-known on the subject. If you have heard of Emotional Intelligence, chances are you have heard of Emotional Intelligence 2.0.

Many people also think that Emotional Intelligence 2.0 is one of the best books on Emotional Intelligence. The authors, Drs. Travis Bradberry and Jean Greaves, are the co-founders of EQ assessment company TalentSmart, so they aren't afraid to apply the theory to real-world research to make a big difference.

Emotional Intelligence 2.0 uses data from more than 500k people to answer some of the most common questions about EI research.

The findings about EQ patterns in different cultures, generations/ages, and gender are interesting, to name a few. As with most Emotional Intelligence books, "The Big Picture" chapter gives a good answer to the question "What is Emotional Intelligence?" As a bonus, this video gives us a good look at how Emotional Intelligence doesn't work.

Emotional Intelligence 2.0 is a great source of ideas. It talks about more than 30 ways to improve your self-management, social awareness, relationship management, and self-awareness skills. They also have online access to a short self-assessment on the same. This isn't the only test for EI out there, but it is one of the most popular. Find more EQ tests on this page.

Authors Bradberry and Greaves then give simple advice on how to improve the parts of your test that you didn't do so well on. You can also write your own plan for how you will improve your Emotional Intelligence in the future.

It's worth noting that even people who aren't very interested in reading will find the beginning interesting. As a start, it tells the story of a surfer who came face-to-face with a Great White shark. This is how the rest of the book will be.

Emotional Intelligence 2.0 can be bought on the TalentSmart website or on Amazon Kindle.

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