CUES 161: Human-Centered Leadership

In this episode we talk about human-centered leadership. Returning to the show as our guest is CUES’ own VP/Consulting Services Lesley Sears, who heads up our CUES Consulting offerings.

She explains the difference between a business-centered culture and a human-centered one and shares why centering your people will ultimately be better for the business.

“In business-centered leadership, you're primarily focused on the numbers. You're focused on the ways of business that are outside of the people,” Sears says. “Are we strategically aligned? Are we getting our numbers? What is the data showing? What's the profitability?”

“Then the counter to that is digging into and aligning leadership with what's best for the people who are getting the business done,” she adds. “They're the ones that are making the credit union successful. How can we develop our organization to focus on them first, and then let the success of the credit union come from that people focus?”

In the show Sears also discusses:

•  the difference between human-centered and business-centered leadership;
• why a human-centered approach to leadership works;
• what human-centered leadership looks like in action;
• signs that your workplace is struggling to be human-centered; and
•  ways to evolve your culture.

Links for this show:

• Transcript
• Caveday.org: The resource that is saving Lesley’s life right now by helping her find time to focus on deep work.
• From Fast Company: 7 Qualities of the Human-Centric Workplace for Innovative Leaders
• CUES Consulting
• Purposeful Talent Development blog posts, podcasts and videos by Sears