Kwai emigrated to the UK with his family in 1970 as his father wanted to make a better future for the family. He cites his father as his earliest role model. "My dad fled the Japanese invasion when he was only 12 years old, walking 200 miles through China to reach Hong Kong, leaving his family behind. He had to make his own way in the world. Despite this, he never lost his integrity, honesty and his drive to have a better future."

With not a word of English, what was life like for 10-year old Kwai in Oldham in the 1970's? "Life was hard. We always lived in cramped conditions above run-down chip shops, working all hours to stay above the poverty line."

As both his parents were illiterate, Kwai had to learn English quickly and soon took on responsibility for dealing with the business correspondence. "Those hard early years, made me want a better future. Not just for the family and me, but also for my children. I wanted a future as part of British society, not apart from British Society. My proudest achievements are gaining an O level in English by the age of 16 and then getting my degree at age 22."

Early in his career Kwai identified that he lacked the management experience to achieve his personal and career aspirations. "I wanted to move back to the North West and needed to change roles. Firstly, I had to learn to hear the truth about my abilities and skills. Until I heard and accept the truth, it was not possible to take positive action to achieve my personal aspirations. The positive action I took was to study for a Diploma in Management Studies which then led to studying for an MBA."

Kwai's later involvement in a major leadership development programme for 600 leaders saw him start to develop the leadership principles he now calls BE YOUR FUTURE (TM). Leaders who attended the pilots had career development plans and had participated in various leadership development programme but few felt they really owned their career. It was quite clear that many of them did not possess the "critical thinking" ability to develop the skill to self-reflect and to manage their own learning.

During the main rollout of the leadership programme Kwai drew on his personal experience of seeing his future, and hearing the truth as methods to develop "critical thinking" in leaders. He also used the same personal experience to develop a method of aligning personal aspirations with corporate goals, which leads people to take positive action to make the future into reality by managing their own learning. It proved to be the spark to the touch-paper.

"The whole programme had immediate and long lasting results, establishing a positive leadership ethos in a 2,500 strong IT department. I learned that whilst most organisations recognise the importance of career development, people will only truly own their career aspirations if they are clearly aligned with a personal action plan for their own future."

Kwai is passionate about leadership and the "real world" results his leadership practices can achieve. He has lived and breathed these principles and achieved tangible results in blue chip organisations such as Barclays Bank, EDS and Computacenter.

Kwai describes how staff turnover and absenteeism can be reduced as people realise whether they are in the right or wrong job. "When people have a properly aligned career development plan, they become more content as they understand the match between their capabilities and aspirations. And leaders can also better plan to move people into the right job."

In Kwai's experience the hardest thing for a leader is to have the resilience, courage, tenacity and energy to have those first career development discussions with their team members. "These conversations will take your staff out of their comfort zone. But in the end, they will really own their development plan because they can see how it will influence their future. This, of course, means it is far more likely to be implemented."

It's not just attitudes that change. "These leadership practices offer a practical, proven way to fire up people's enthusiasm which in turn increase productivity and personal effectiveness."

Kwai has seen people embark on both wholesale career changes and more specific changes in behaviour. "I've recently given feedback to people on their personal presentation at work. On hearing the truth, they then assessed it against their aspirations for the future. They realised that they were making a conscious choice on the image they presented. Before long they chose to stop wearing earrings and to start wearing suits and ties. The change in their behaviour was intrinsically linked to their vision of getting a better job."

As well as mastering the use of "see, hear and act" leadership practices, Kwai also learned how to increase the levels of resilience, courage, tenacity and energy necessary to have those initial, tough conversations on how to align personal and career aspirations with organisational objectives.

"It may be hard, but just imagine how it feels to work in a place where everyone understands where they are going and how the organisation is helping them to get there."

Kwai is passionate about cascading BE YOUR FUTURE (TM) leadership practices. Many people he has managed have taken these leadership principles with them as their careers have developed. So BE YOUR FUTURE (TM) is contagious and spreading fast.