Don’t Get Emotional, It’s Just Eggs
- Aug 25, 2025
- 3 min read
Written by Mark Branson, Leadership Theorist
Mark Branson has combined 20 years of experience, 5 State Titles, and one World Record into the first advancement in leadership theory in 50 years. Branson's first book, The Illusion of Competence, introduced perception-based leadership. Branson's second book, Unified Leadership Theory (2025), advances the theory further.
Daniel Goleman popularized our current dynamic understanding of Emotional Intelligence in 1995. Servant Leadership embraces dynamic Emotional Intelligence, as does Authentic Leadership. The gist of a dynamic interpretation is that Emotional Intelligence can be taught and improved.
A dynamic interpretation of Emotional Intelligence means it can be bought and sold alongside other behaviorist leadership principles. The key component of behaviorist leadership is that everything you know about leadership must be taught.
Behaviorists decide which behaviors need to be improved and how to improve them, but the implications of a dynamic interpretation of Emotional Intelligence are more far-reaching than most people realize.
Behaviorists believe every aspect of leadership must be taught. You bring nothing to the leadership table. If you don’t learn it, you don’t know it. If it is innate, it isn’t leadership.
Traditional Emotional Intelligence takes an individual approach. You must understand your own emotions as well as the emotions of others.
Behaviorist doctrine does not allow for natural laws that influence leadership, as such laws would be innate in nature. This was the Great Man Theory’s Achilles’ heel: innate leadership traits could not be identified or measured.
Unified Leadership is built on a static interpretation of Emotional Intelligence, but this interpretation is unlike any that came before it. The previous static interpretation meant individual emotions could not be improved, nothing more. A group dynamic runs counter to both the dynamic and static interpretations of Emotional Intelligence that came before it.
The Laws of Leadership, a Unified Leadership exclusive, are built on a static interpretation of Emotional Intelligence with a group dynamic. The only emotions that matter are the elemental emotions we cannot control.
We are amazingly alike at this level of Emotional Intelligence. What makes me happy makes you happy. What makes you sad makes me sad. We only differ in our emotional reactions.
Authentic and Servant Leadership embrace a dynamic interpretation of Emotional Intelligence. This interpretation focuses on emotional reaction, not emotion. People don’t know the emotions of others until they see the emotional reaction.
If you wait for the emotional reaction, you are too late. Don’t give an answer and then wait to see if the answer makes the person happy. Make the person happy. It really is that simple.
People often question how I could base a leadership theory on perception. “We are all so different” is a common refrain, yet evidence of static Emotional Intelligence with a group dynamic surrounds us.
Walk up to a customer service counter, any counter. The policies posted are the ones the company knows will upset us: no cash refunds, mail checks over $50, must have a receipt, and unworn.
We are not the great mystery we think we are.
A dynamic interpretation of Emotional Intelligence absolves the company of any responsibility for an upsetting policy, while shifting blame to the customer for being upset about the policy.
Unified Leadership says not to upset the customer in the first place.
The implications of a static interpretation of Emotional Intelligence are not that far-reaching. The only thing that really impacted is leadership as you knew it.
Read more from Mark Branson
Mark Branson, Leadership Theorist
Mark Branson set the world's record for the arcade game Asteroids in 1981, playing for 55 hours in a quarter. Branson then applied his concepts of greatness to winning 5 New Mexico state racquetball titles over a 15-year career. Branson then created a leadership theory from scratch, combining 30 years of leadership experience and his habit of winning into the first advancement in leadership thought since the turn of the century.
