Jim Bouchard argues that human-centric leadership with high emotional intelligence outperforms command-and-control by 500% or more. He shares his journey from college dropout and drug addict to martial-arts sensei as proof that radical change is possible, and outlines a three-step mandate: Inspire, Empower, Guide.
But our jobs as leaders is to try to pull everybody into the same direction so we can all succeed, right? To turn me into we. Keep it human. Now in order to achieve this, we need leaders with a high degree of emotional intelligence, very strong interpersonal skills, and a well-developed, and I'm gonna add, an accurate sense of self-awareness. Awareness. This is the type of leader we call a human-centric leader. An organization that practices human-centric leadership will outperform others by 500% or more. Strong leaders for the coming decades see human growth as essential to business growth. Leaders who make this connection are positioning their organizations for success. Those stuck in command and control are dying. People perform at their best when and only when they know their leaders care, their work has meaning, and they have the chance to learn, grow, and develop. We need to inspire. We need to touch people's hearts, not just their heads. We need to empower. We need to make sure everyone has what they need to succeed. And we need to guide. We need to be willing to share our experience, our wisdom, our knowledge face-to-face. Do you want a lecture or do you want a conversation? Well, before we go too much further, I suppose I should give you my resume. I'm a two-time college dropout and a former drug addict. Aren't you glad you came to see me this morning? If we're not constantly involved, engaged with this process of transformation, as individuals and as organizations, we're in trouble. And I had to transform myself in a number of ways. First of all, obviously, I had to transform myself from a loser to a leader, from a dropout and a drug addict to a black belt, and later to sensei. So while I used to think that my resume was a pretty lousy one for someone working with leadership, I came to appreciate that it was a pretty useful one. Who better to share ideas about transformation than someone that had to do it in order to survive? And if you truly want to serve, you want to lead people to their very best, inspire, empower, and guide. That's what the human-centric leader does. Isn't that what you do? Inspire, empower, and guide.
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