I'm continuing my thoughts on the most impactful books that I read this year.

Primal Leadership talks about emotionally intelligent leaders and how the prime job of a leader is create good feeling in those they lead. In other words, it's about leading, not managing.

The book is fantastic, and sort of blew my mind.

I've had a lot of experience with leaders over the years. Many good, far more bad, and some excellent.

As with everything else in life - I pay attention. I pay attention to what worked well, what didn't work well, and what was downright sabotaging.

I've also had a fair bit of experience trying to be a leader myself. Particularly in non-heirarchal situations, where an affiliative style goes a long way.

I had built up a picture in my head of the perfect leader and strove to be that person (someone who listened, lead from the front, was understanding and kind, but also firm, and who had principles).

What this book taught me is that it's much better to think of leadership as a toolkit rather than something that's right and wrong. It's not that there are bad leadership methods, it's that there are bad leadership methods for certain situations.

So things I had totally slagged actually had their use.

For example, I don't like it when leaders make decisions without listening to their people, particularly those that are closer to the situation. I wonder about those leaders that tend to think they're always right - if they're so good at everything, why couldn't they surround themselves with people who could teach them a thing or two?

However, that leadership style works very well in a crisis, when people want clear direction and leadership saying: "this is what we're going to do."

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Biggest takeaway: Primal Leadership