As buoyancy is not contrary to other characteristics of leadership, including decisiveness, accountability and performance standards, I don't ever think it can be self-defeating.

What I've come to realize is that emotional intelligence, which I define as buoyancy, was the only way I knew how to lead, and is, in my option, the only way to inspire real change.

As a sensitive and highly intuitive person in the command-and-control corporate world, I always felt miscast.

True buoyant leaders can never communicate in percentage points, or charts and figures. First and foremost, they must be storytellers, communicating with their hearts, not heads.

Survival in the demand economy depends on and requires experimentation, risk taking, and trial and error.

It is so easy to "calibrate" -that is, given the pressures on a smaller company to redefine in less ambitious terms- that which you are in business to accomplish. The moment this happens the downward spiral begins.

Once you reach people on an authentic emotional level, they will reward your faith in them with their belief in you, and they will mobilize to get the job done.