At the inaugural Dare Mighty Things — Together! Summit, held last Friday, Erin Clark riveted more than 400 students with her insights on evolving leadership paradigms. The summit, which focused on collective success and humanity's role in leadership, featured Clark, the co-author of Leading Through, discussing the importance of choosing progress over stagnancy during times of change. According to USU Today, Clark's presentation highlighted a human-centered approach to leadership, which she contends is deeply personal and interwoven with our capacity for connection.
When humans are involved, it is always personal, Clark was quoted as saying, as she countered the notion of impersonal business practices. In her view, leadership is misconstrued when associated solely with hierarchy and control. Instead, she introduced the summit participants, eager for her wisdom, to the concept of "leading through" a framework that operates on the premise of unleashing collective power and fostering growth among one another. Capturing her audience, Clark's speech emphasized that titles do not confine leadership.
Clark's book, developed in collaboration with her father and brother, purports not to invent leadership anew but to rediscover and reclaim its intrinsic values. She advocates for a leadership model that nurtures the human elements of soul, heart, and mind within organizations. Furthermore, as part of the essential elements of human thriving, love, inspiration, vitality, and connection, Clark argued that by creating environments where these thrive, leaders can themselves experience such enrichment.
