The latest speaker in a leadership presentation series is coming to Murray State to share the importance of emotional intelligence in all work fields, from engineering firms to the Secret Service.
Leadership by Design is an annual guest lecture event hosted by Bacon Farmer Workman Engineering & Testing, Inc. and Marcum Engineering, LLC, an engineering firm based out of Paducah, Kentucky. Ben Stinnett, the chief marketing officer of BFW/Marcum, said the series is an extension of the company’s own leadership development focus to a wider community audience.
“This year, our theme as a company has been emotional intelligence,” Stinnett said. “We wanted to bring in someone who would speak to emotional intelligence this year, which is how we ended up finding and selecting Evy Poumpouras.”
Evy Poumpouras, a former special agent in the United States Secret Service, is the third speaker in the Leadership by Design series. Her book, “Becoming Bulletproof: Life Lessons from a Secret Service Agent,” and upcoming “Bulletproof Leadership” lecture explores the leadership and emotional intelligence lessons she learned from serving on protection detail for three presidential administrations. Stinnett said several members of the BFW/Marcum staff have been reading her book and internalizing Poumpouras’s insights about reading people and how to “show up” in their work.
“The reason that emotional intelligence was a big thing for us this year is because (it) impacts how we show up as team members and how we interact with our clients,” he said. “Hearing how that applied on such a national stage level, I think, though it may look a little different, the principle is the same.”
Elise Kieffer, the program director of nonprofit leadership studies and executive director of the Nonprofit Resource Center at Murray State, attended last year’s Leadership by Design lecture with former astronaut Joan Higginbotham. She said Leadership by Design shares a “valuable throughline” to students and community members about how success in life and careers isn’t always linear.
“The greatest takeaway for me is that these folks didn’t set out to be leaders,” Kieffer said. “They did their best and followed their passion and talent and said yes when they were called upon. That makes leadership and impact accessible to anybody in any space, rather than being a nebulous concept or out-of-reach goal.”
Geoffrey Luurs, an associate professor and department chair of the organizational communication and leadership department, said that while he hasn’t attended past Leadership by Design lectures, he believes the series highlights firsthand accounts of opportunities and challenges in organizational leadership that students in his department and others could face in their future careers.
“I think a better focus on interpersonal skills and worker-focused initiatives can help us to take care of the people who take care of our businesses,” Luurs said. “I always want to stay people-centric because if our people aren’t good, then our businesses aren’t healthy.”
Poumpouras’s lecture will be held at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 25, in Lovett Auditorium. The event is free with registration through BFW/Marcum’s eventbrite page.
