This book certainly has some helpful tips and ideas. I found that a lot of the recommendations were not necessarily new or innovative, but they were well thought out and explained. This would be a good book to read if you are at the beginning of your learning journey and need a foundation of understanding about leadership and emotional intelligence.

In today’s world, organizations live in two worlds: processes and values. In order to be successful, the human element is a crucial component. To lead effectively, managers must understand their own emotions as well as others and what drives them. In this book, Mann provides practical, useable advice that will help leaders to work towards mastering emotional intelligence, reducing costs, examining processes, and drive core business values in the organization.

Narrators, Troy W. Hudson and Debbie Gratten are well-suited for narrating this book. Their narration was a bit slow, but used insightful intonations. Narrative style complemented the author’s writing style. Advice was vague and could’ve used some more in-depth exploration. Overall, book was insightful and had a logical progression. Listeners who are interested in emotional intelligence and are not well-versed in the concept will enjoy listening to this book.

This book was a welcomed delight in the emotional intelligence space. It addresses key gaps in emotional intelligence in the digital age. The techniques given in the book were easy to follow, as was Kevin Mann's synthesis of his research. The book also had a business/sales focus that could be helpful with those in those fields. I also enjoyed the mindfulness portion of the book.

I didn't quite know what to expect with this book, but was pleasantly surprised. It is very business-focused (also made clear by the full title), with all of its applications being focused on how to improve efficacy and efficiency with colleagues or partners at work, though what you learn in the book can be applied in general in life when you're trying to work with others. It covered a wide range of topics that you hear about in popular science articles these days (how to channel your own grit, supporting growth on your team, earning respect, etc), but with very clear examples and it covers much more variety than other books offer, which was greatly appreciated.

I can see this being a book that would be checked out by the folks who were hot on the emotional intellegence books that were prevalent in 2016. I am unsure if this would be great advice for current business folk as I am not currently managing or in a setting like described in the book. The author, or more likely author's agent, emailed several times begging for a review which was irritating as my name was not even correct in the email, it was another person's.

i really like this book, it has many tips to improve as leader (i already gave a review for the written version).
what i have to say about the audiobook version is that i like the narrator voice, it gives you the seriousness and formality that requires it and also has a bonus: you have access to respiration exercises to practice a few mintutes per day and mildfulness practices for leaders.

Kevin Mann’s “Leading with Emotional Intelligence : In the Age of Automation, Robotics & AI“ is a great book filled with great examples on how to use EQ when leading in a world driven by changes in technology. As opposed to other leadership books, I would recommend this one only for people who have already some experience (whether direct or indirect) with managerial topic, as the topics covered by Kevin Mann might not be easy to absorb by someone who is just now starting their journey into leadership.

What makes this book great is also the fact that the chapters can be read / listened to independent one from the other, so if you’re not interested in topics such as stakeholder engagement, you can just jump to the chapter on how to gain competitive advantage in business. If I had to choose between reading and listening this book, I would choose listening to it. The narrator’s voice conveys the messages in the right tone and the right pitch and the last section is a series of exercises which helps leaders with focus and concentration.

Special thanks to NetGalley, Kevin Mann, and the editorial team for giving me the opportunity to review the ARC in audiobook format and to you, my reader, for taking the time to read this honest personal book review.

If you are interested in other of my book reviews, make sure to follow me on GoodReads!

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My opinion about this book changed a few time while reading (or rather listening to) it.
After the first hour or so I almost dnf'ed because I disliked it very much. Later I found that there is knowledge to be found in this book. But in the end I must say that I would not recommend it for the following reasons:

I really don't like the writing style and I don't like the performance of the narrator.
Some chapters are just too full of information without the possibility to process it. Other times there are lengthy anecdotes that rarely have anything to do with what the author is talking about.

While there is a lot of useful information in this book I would assume there are many others with the same information that are better written.

Also I was kind of affronted when the author refered to the leader as the "man behind the mirror". As if all leaders were men...

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC!

I try and read at least one leadership book a month since I became a supervisor. I think that everyone in their life is in charge of managing or leading others in some way whether it is family, community, in your job or just in the way you interact with others in your life. It is always interesting to me to look at these books through multiple lenses and see how they relate to my work life and my personal life.

Leading with Emotional Intelligence does what most books in this genre do. They all talk in vague terms that apply to many areas instead of specifics in a lot of cases. I get why this is, so the book will be relatable to a larger population. So I normally like to look for a few take-aways I can use in my day to day operations. This book did give me a few of those but they weren’t necessarily new to me just because I do read other books in this genre.

Be empathetic with your employees. This seems like a no brainer if you are in a leadership position. You do need to know who your staff is, what their challenges are and how to put themselves in their shoes to really understand how to motivate, encourage and mentor them. Just because you empathize with someone’s situation/attitude/way of thinking doesn’t mean you agree with them. But it should be used as a tool. I did agree with the statements made here and have found that being able to empathize with what is happening with my staff I am able to communicate with them better to achieve goals.

I also liked one area that talked about the Rose, the Thorn and the Bud of a situation or process. The rose is what is going well, the thorn are challenges or things to work on and the bud are the opportunities. I think every business or leader should be looking at these and know what they are.

Kevin also talked about using the 3 whys to get from the problem to a possible solution. As someone who works in quality the whys approach was not new to me and many of my tools use a 5 why approach so I was very familiar with the goal of this method. But it is a good way to get from what the surface problem is to a way to work through it.

Other than that most of the stuff like Labeling, Mirroring and developing the talent you have I was already very familiar with. I will say the information was presented well and there was only one chapter on sales specifically that I didn’t think could be used by anyone. Kevin jumped off a little bit at the end to talk about eating habits a little in a strange way that I could have done without but overall if you are in a position where you are trying to develop a new culture, connect with employees or facilitate change then Leading With Emotional Intelligence could have something in it for you.

Narration:
Troy W Hudson is a new to me narrator. He seems well suited to books like this one and talked extremely easily and well throughout the narration. I liked his style for the book it reminded me of being in a seminar. It seemed like he was the one that came up with the presentation instead of just presenting it. I was able to listen at my usual 1.5x speed

Narration is clear and eloquent, but quite dry. Almost robotic. Not my favorite type of narration.

Great read on leading with emotional intelligence. The author gives practical tips and stories to illustrate his points. I also really appreciated that early on, he lines out which of the chapters talk on what topic and advises the reader to skip around to the parts that are most vital to the reader first instead of just reading straight trough. I think more authors should do this in business/nonfiction books.
It’s been a long time since I read a business book and I had forgotten just how dry they can be. But this one was so informative that it combatted the dryness well.