Category: events & trainings

The Art of Leadership Returns August 21-26, 2026

“If you were to step into the full power of your life’s purpose – what might be possible? What might be possible for the people you follow? For the people you lead? For the people you serve and collaborate with?”  

If you feel called to wrestle with some of those questions, then this might be the right time for you to apply to the Art of Leadership at Hollyhock, running from August 21-26, 2026.

I remember wrestling with those questions myself when I experienced the Art of Leadership for the first time back in 2000. Veteran trainer Robert Gass had just started leading this signature program at Hollyhock on Cortes Island, while at the same time co-founding the Rockwood Leadership Institute to deliver it across the United States.  I was a single mother then, co-parenting my 3-year-old son, and struggling to keep up with the rapidly growing national social enterprise I’d co-founded just two years earlier.

I barely had time to sleep in those days – much less to reflect on these kinds of questions. But carving out the space to step out of the fire-hose-pace of my life for those 5 days, amid cool green forests on the edge of the Pacific Ocean, changed my life forever. 

Since then, nearly 10,000 people from around the world, including premiers, mayors, nonprofit executives, public servants, and mission-driven entrepreneurs, have taken the Art of Leadership.  My colleague Michael Bell and I, both Rockwood trainers, have supported hundreds of them.  And 2026 marks the fifth year we’ll be co-facilitating the Art of Leadership at Hollyhock, after Robert passed the baton for this specific training to us in 2022.

In a time of growing polarization and unprecedented levels of social and environmental disruption, we believe this kind of equity-embedded, collaborative leadership training is more essential than ever.

Over the course of 5.5 days, in one of the most beautiful places on earth, participants dive into inner and outer capacities needed to lead with greater clarity, courage, and collective impact.

“I’m a BIPOC woman working to address the climate crisis within a large institution. The Art of Leadership provided me the connection, self-reflection and tools to address burnout in myself and my team, and foundational strategies to continue the collective hard work we need to do.”
— Participant, 2023

This year’s program runs August 21–26, 2026.  Our multiracial leadership team and participant cohort represents a wide range of backgrounds and experiences. Leaders join us from government, nonprofit, business, philanthropy, and social change sectors, creating a rich learning environment where different viewpoints strengthen our collective wisdom.

“The Art of Leadership program helped me build a strong foundation as an elected official. Suzanne and Michael supported me in exploring my vision, understanding my why, and identifying the inner triggers that can become barriers along the way. I wholeheartedly recommend this program to anyone who is seeking to lead with intention and integrity.”
— Jenny Tan, Councillor, City of Maple Ridge, 2024

The training blends rich group dialogue, individual reflection, and immediately applicable tools for connecting to purpose, honing interpersonal skills, strengthening resourcefulness in moments of stress, and clarifying strategies for sustaining your energy for a lifetime.

Participants also receive a confidential 360-degree feedback process from peers, supervisors, and direct reports. This is an essential part of the program, and serves as a powerful mirror to guide your leadership growth.

“Sometimes you have to slow down to speed up. The Art of Leadership gave me the space I needed to pause – to recharge, to reflect, to evolve. It was a great privilege and honour to learn alongside other passionate and dedicated change makers and leaders. I would not hesitate to encourage and recommend that you invest in yourself as a leader through this programme.”
— Participant, 2025

Rooted in decades of practice, The Art of Leadership offers a rare space to reflect, reconnect, and return to your work with more clarity, confidence, and ease. If you’re looking for a reset — time to reflect, learn, and recharge alongside fellow change-makers —consider applying to join us.  

Learn more or apply here.

Early bird: Book now and get 10% off accommodation prices. Offer valid until May 22, 2026.

Feel free to share with someone you think would benefit — it tends to fill early. Some scholarships are available, with priority for BIPOC leaders —please inquire when you apply.

Is this Your Leadership Moment?

What if the leadership breakthrough you need isn’t so much about learning more tools —but about leading and sharing power from your place of purpose and clarity?  

You’re skilled, committed, making real impact—but something’s shifting. Maybe you’re questioning patterns that no longer serve you or your community, feeling called to lead differently in these polarized times, or sensing a transition ahead. Here’s what I know: you’re not alone. And this restlessness you feel is your own wise self, calling you in. 

Many of us are asking: How do I lead in these volatile times with both strategic skill and deep humanity? How do I stay resilient while doing transformational work? How do I navigate power and build trust across difference?

The Art of Leadership (August 22-27, 2025 at Hollyhock, on Cortes Island, BC) creates space to explore these questions alongside a thoughtfully curated community of change-makers from diverse sectors—Indigenous and local government leaders, health care, social justice, climate action, and mission-driven businesses.

This isn’t just about adding tools to your toolkit—though you’ll definitely get some powerful ones. It’s about strengthening who you are as a leader from the inside out. Over 5.5 days in a stunning oceanside setting with nourishing food and spacious time to think, you’ll deepen six core practices:

  • Purpose: Reconnecting to what truly fuels and guides you
  • Vision: Creating compelling futures that inspire and align others
  • Partnership: Building authentic relationships and having courageous conversations across difference
  • Resourcefulness: Managing triggers and staying centered under pressure
  • Personal Ecology: Sustaining your energy and preventing burnout
  • Performance: Understanding your real impact through confidential 360-degree feedback

This power-informed, equity-centered approach recognizes that effective leadership requires both inner clarity and outer skills. You’ll practice with peers who understand the complexity of creating change—from government leaders navigating bureaucracy to activists working within institutions to entrepreneurs building new models.

“I never knew I was holding so much back out of fear. This training unlocked power and vision within me I didn’t know existed.” —2023 participant

“I’m a BIPOC woman working to address the climate crisis within a large institution. The Art of Leadership provided me the connection, self-reflection and tools to address burnout in myself and my team, and foundational strategies to continue the hard work we need to do.” —2023 participant

“This was the most human training I have ever completed—and I loved every second, even the hard bits.” —2024 participant

These aren’t just nice words—they’re what happens when leaders get the space to remember who they are and why they’re here.

If you’re ready to step into this next chapter of your leadership—not because you’re broken, but because you’re called to more—we’d love to have you join us.

Applications: hollyhock.ca/programs/7450/the-art-of-leadership/
Limited spaces. Some scholarships available.

The Art of Leadership Returns – August 2025

I’m honoured to return this summer co-leading The Art of Leadership — a 5.5-day immersive retreat at Hollyhock, on the beautiful coast of British Columbia, with my long-time colleague Michael Bell. In a time of rising pressure, polarization, and complexity, leadership that is grounded, collaborative, and purpose-driven is more essential than ever.

The Art of Leadership has supported leaders from around the world since the early 2000s. From premiers and mayors to nonprofit executives, public servants, and mission-driven entrepreneurs, participants develop the inner and outer capacities needed to lead with greater clarity, courage, and impact. Originally developed and led by our mentor and friend Robert Gass, this transformative training has been held at Hollyhock and beyond for over two decades, with just a brief pause during the pandemic.

This year’s program runs August 17–22, 2025. Our multiracial leadership team and participant cohort represents a wide range of backgrounds and experiences. Leaders join us from government, nonprofit, business, philanthropy, and social change sectors, creating a rich learning environment where different perspectives strengthen our collective wisdom.

“I’m a BIPOC woman working to address the climate crisis within a large institution. The Art of Leadership provided me the connection, self-reflection and tools to address burnout in myself and my team, and foundational strategies to continue the collective hard work we need to do to address the complex multi-layered problems we face.”

The training blends rich group dialogue, individual reflection, and immediately applicable tools.

Modules include:

  • Purpose: Reconnecting to what fuels and guides you
  • Vision: Articulating a compelling vision that aligns and inspires
  • Partnership: Feedback, courageous conversations, and collaborative problem-solving across differences
  • Personal ecology: Long-term energy management and burnout prevention
  • Resilience: Emotional self-regulation in high-stakes leadership

Participants also receive a confidential 360-degree feedback process from peers, supervisors, and direct reports — a powerful mirror to guide leadership growth.

“The Art of Leadership challenged me to rethink my approach to leadership and provided the tools and insights I needed to grow personally, in order to grow professionally. The course inspired me to lead with greater intention, empathy, and vision, and it empowered me to make meaningful changes in my work and life.” — Participant, 2024

Rooted in decades of practice, The Art of Leadership offers a rare space to reflect, reconnect, and return to your work with more clarity, confidence, and ease.

“Finally, a leadership course that acknowledges, recognizes and even celebrates feelings. This was the most human training I have ever completed – and I loved every second, even the hard bits.” — Participant, 2024

If you’re looking for a reset — time to reflect, learn, and recharge alongside fellow change-makers — we’d love to have you join us.

Learn more or apply here
August 17–22, 2025 | Cortes Island, BC
Hosted by Suzanne Hawkes and Michael Bell

Feel free to share with someone you think would benefit — it tends to fill early.  Some scholarships are available.

Online course: Building Collaborative Teams for High Impact

Building Collaborative Teams_TWHow do you build a collaborative team that can work across difference, adapt to change and unleash their creative potential? I’m thrilled to be teaching “Building Collaborative Teams” as part of Simon Fraser University’s Executive Leadership program, part of Continuing Studies. In addition to the face-to-face offering each Fall, we’re now offering it as an online course starting March 11, 2019, and running for six weeks. Learn with other senior leaders from diverse sectors and organizations.  There are still a few spaces left!  Register soon to save your spot: http://at.sfu.ca/NxSWZK

Coaching for Power Intelligence

header-web-homeOnce again, Anima Leadership in Toronto is offering an outstanding line-up of trainings this Fall.  Given my own focus on power, I’m really excited about participating in one of them next month: a 3-day seminar on “Coaching for Power Intelligence”, centered on developing the effective use of power by leaders using the new Diamond Power Index, developed by Dr. Julie Diamond.  As the Anima team describes it, “this is an essential assessment tool for anybody wanting to correct  leader’s unconscious use of power including: pulling rank, gossiping, bragging, taking credit, fostering unhealthy competition, not taking responsibility, etc. This is the Myers-Briggs of our generation.”   One option is to participate in the first 1.5 days of the seminar.  The entire three-day training covers the background and research underlying the instrument, how to administer the test, how to interpret scores and reports, how to coach and train leaders and leadership teams, as well as marketing support for using it in organizations. Successful completion of the seminar will result in certification for using the assessment

‘Interpersonal Leadership Styles’ Assessment for High Functioning, Collaborative Teams

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ILS teaches how to ‘flex’ for different styles

“Wow,” said Robert, looking over at me with a big smile. “They are REALLY loving this!”  Robert Gass, master facilitator and co-founder of the Rockwood Leadership Institute, sat beside co-trainer Gibran Rivera and I in the sunlit meeting room at Devil’s Thumb Ranch, high in the mountains of Colorado. The three of us were watching our hilarious, brilliant colleague, Jose Acevedo, exuberantly leading a group of 24 leaders through a half-day training on Interpersonal Leadership Styles. It is one of the most popular modules in Rockwood’s year-long Leading from the Inside Out program for national non-profit leaders.  Four groups of participants were clustered around flipcharts in in each corner of the room. The energy of each group was remarkably different: some were laughing and punching one another on the shoulders, others were fiercely debating, some pondering silently and gently offering suggestions to one another, as they reflected on their different working styles.  And they were, indeed, loving it.

In fact, I have heard back now from dozens of leaders about the power and impact of having gone through a team-wide training in Interpersonal Leadership styles. Why? People walk away with a keener sense of their blind spots and their strengths as leaders – and of their team-mates’. Rather than feeling judged for those differences, or limited by narrow definitions (something I had feared), it turns out that participants become vastly more appreciative, not just tolerant, of one another’s differences.

The ability to work across difference and to harvest the gifts those differences bring is an essential skill for today’s leaders.  Leaders simply must become adept at recognizing and working with not only differences of power and rank as expressed through race, sexual orientation, class, and ability, but differences in style.  Interpersonal Leadership Styles, or ILS, is an accessible tool that supports this kind of learning. And it offers immediate take-aways in terms of how to flex, even in periods of stress, to make the most of one anothers’ unique perspectives.

Interpersonal Leadership Styles is one of several typologies over the past several decades based on the work of Jung and others, to help map out the different leadership styles individuals tend to bring to their teams. Other typologies you may have heard of include Myers-Briggs, Colby, or DISC. It turns out they are all based on largely the same body of Jungian-based social science research – just packaged differently. But the concept isn’t new. In fact, the Chinese first invented work-related typologies over 4,000 years ago, to help assign civil servants to appropriate roles based on their unique styles and aptitudes.

I and most of my other fellow leadership trainers at Rockwood chose to get certified in ILS because, compared to other systems, we found it simpler to grasp and apply immediately. Most of the sessions I facilitate are between 2.5 and 3 hours, although full-day versions are also offered by many of Stratton Consultants’ licensees.  And while at first I resisted pursuing certification in any such system, I became convinced after repeatedly observing the power of teams who embrace their stylistic differences.

For more information about ILS, contact Stratton Consulting.

The Engineer-Cabbie: messaging workshop for skilled immigrants

I can’t wait to co-facilitate a workshop on communications and social media with Marco Campana at the Allies Learning Exchange conference supporting skilled immigrant workers in Halifax May 6-7th.

Met any brilliant engineers masquerading as cab drivers these days? I’ve met far too many, and that’s why I’m so excited about the 2010 Allies Learning Exchange conference in gorgeous Halifax. May 6 and 7th. I and my co-trainer Marco Campana will lead a 2 hour workshop on message development and social media for New Canadians, particularly focused on issues affecting internationally trained professionals. Allies draws hundreds of people from across Canada to learn about issues and strategies to promote the employment of skilled immigrants. If you live in BC, Canada, and want to get involved locally, contact one of my past clients, the BC-Internationally Trained Professionals Network.

The future for print media?

Check out the webcast panel discussion on “News Innovation” on April 15th, hosted by Canadian News Wire.  The panelists  are leading print & on-line journalists Saleem Khan (chair, Canadian Association of Journalists), Mathew Ingram (senior writer with the technology blog network GigOm), and Scott Anderson (Editor-in-Chief, CanWest News).