Ask anyone about leadership and they'll tell you that emotional intelligence is key.

Read any management or leadership book and you'll get that same answer too.

In his article for the HBR "Leadership That Gets Results", Daniel Goleman explains that emotional intelligence is the ability to manage ourselves and our relationships effectively.

Unlike IQ which is largely genetic and barely changes from childhood, the skills of emotional intelligence can be learned at any age but it takes practice and commitment.

It also takes time because the emotional centres of the brain, not just the neocortex, are involved.

The neocortex is the thinking brain that acquires purely technical knowledge and cognitive abilities very quickly. The emotional brain, on the other hand, needs repetition and practice to master a new behaviour and change a habit because it has to first unlearn the old one and then turn the new one into the brain’s default option.  

Daniel Goleman also explains that emotional intelligence consists of four fundamental capabilities: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and social skill.

Next to inbound PR, my latest area of interest and learning has been leadership. You may recall my recent infographic on the differences between leadership and management.

I’ve been reading a lot on the topic and recently finished one of the classics: Warren Bennis’ On Becoming a Leader.

It’s certainly a book that I can recommend to anyone, not just people interested in learning more about leadership, and so I thought I’d share with you my favourite quotes.

You can check out the leadership quotes in the SlideShare below, but there were a few other things that impressed me, so here’s some more food for thought for you:

"Change—relentless change—is our weather now. It is that constant and that unpredictable."

I started university again this week. Yes, I did. As busy as I am at work, or perhaps at work and in my free time as I am a bit of a workaholic, I have this innate need to always learn and grow. And because I am driven to succeed in my career, I felt it was important to start preparing for the next step – and so I began a part-time Professional Diploma in Management at the Dublin Business School.

On Wednesday, I had my first lecture, which I thought was a great start. We delved into leadership and particularly the differences between leadership and management.

It was an inspiring evening of learning and reflection for me that got me writing this blog post and creating the infographic on the differences between a leader and a manager below.

The key learning really is that leadership and management are fundamentally different, but they often need to go hand in hand.

Warren Bennis distinguishes both explaining that “To manage means to bring about, to accomplish, to have charge of or responsibility for, to conduct. Leading is influencing, guiding in a direction, course, action, opinion.” He also says that both are important.

“Leadership is an action, not a position." said Donald McGannon – one of the biggest influencers and advocates of social responsibility in the broadcasting industry.

Hierarchy is the world of the past. Today’s organisations belong to the people who work in them (notice the word IN them, not FOR them). Each and every person, no matter levels, because today everyone is empowered and has the tools to speak up, be heard and drive change.

We’ve been seeing this happen more and more over the past few years, so it’s no surprise that this is one of the main findings of this year’s Leadership Communication Monitor by Ketchum –leadership no longer comes from CEOs only, but from everyone in the organisation.

This is the era of title-less, shared leadership.

In a recent podcast by the Harvard Business School, Richard Edelman – CEO of the largest PR consultancy in the world – talks about four main factors that affect trust in business. One of them is leadership, which in itself is not that surprising, however what’s interesting is that CEO trust, which was recovering from a low point in 2008 up to 2011, has gone backwards substantially.

As the 2015 Edelman Trust Barometer has found, focusing extensively on operations and making a lot of money is no longer key – it doesn’t earn you a better reputation anymore, nor any credibility.

According to Richard Edelman it is engagement and integrity that really matter – engagement related to absolute transparency and sharing of data and information, and integrity related to putting customers ahead of profits, treating employees well and making the supply chain good.

For business, Edelman has found that trust is built through specific attributes, organised into five performance clusters and ranked by importance with integrity and engagement leading the pack, followed by products and services, purpose and operations.

What all these have in common is that they evolve around people. Trust is about them, not you.