Dr. Donna Hicks is an Associate at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University. You may recall that she has facilitated dialogues in numerous unofficial diplomatic efforts in the Middle East, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Colombia, Cuba, Libya and Syria. She has consulted with governments, corporations, schools, churches, and non-governmental organizations.

And she is an expert on the subject of dignity.

On this podcast, Donna introduces the Dignity Model and explains how it has been used to address numerous leadership challenges in the corporate world, healthcare, education, governments and organizations of all kinds. She also tries to give an understanding of what dignity is and is not, the neuroscience of dignity and what it looks like to have “dignity consciousness.”

Listening is not always a dedicated subject in educational curriculums.

Think about it. There are speech classes, debate teams. You don't hear much about listening classes. That's why it's one of the foundational leadership classes taught in Barry-Wehmiller's internal university. We teach our people to "listen like leaders." It not only affects their relationships at work and with customers, but it has been shown to have a pround affect at home with their families, friends and neighbors.

On this podcast, you'll hear how those teachings are being integrated into college curriculum by Lisa Waite, a professor in communication studies at Kent State University. Lisa teaches a course titled Business and Professional Communication. On this episode she discusses incorporating Barry-Wehmiller's empathetic listening curriculum and CEO Bob Chapman's TEDx talk into her college courses, as well as the effect it has had on her students and their leadership skills.

Laurie Butz is the President and CEO of Capital Credit Union, a credit union with more than 120,000 members in northeast Wisconsin.

And we at Barry-Wehmiller definitely consider Laurie part of our extended family.

Laurie’s husband, Dennis, worked for many years for our Paper Converting Machine Company, or PCMC, based in Green Bay, WI, part of our BW Converting group of companies.

Our CEO, Bob Chapman, has been privileged to be part of Laurie’s leadership journey. And Laurie has enlisted Bob and Cynthia Chapman’s non-profit, Chapman Foundation for Caring Communities, to bring our leadership training into her organization. Laurie is also working with the Chapman Foundation on a very special initiative in Green Bay, where Capital Credit Union is based.

As we always say at the beginning of this podcast, the way we lead impacts the way people live. It’s one of the driving forces behind the importance of practicing what we call Truly Human Leadership. On this podcast, we’re going to tie all our common threads together as we talk to Laurie about the ripple effect of Truly Human Leadership in her life at home and, consequently, her own leadership journey.