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.

Essential Skills for Hybrid and Remote Work

The brilliant Alexandra Samuel, one of the world’s leading experts on thriving digital workplaces, has put together a checklist of the key competencies and skills needed to successfully – and happily! – navigate hybrid or fully remote work. Whether you’re a brand new employee starting your first job or a seasoned professional recently transitioning to hybrid work, or supporting other remote employees on your team, these skills, habits and strategies can be game-changers.

With her permission, here’s the same checklist in the form of an anonymous short survey.

See Alexandra’s original blog post, with her at-a-glance checklist, here. Print out the checklist on Alexandra’s site, or take the 3-minute survey, and reflect: What are the top three skills or habits you’re currently using that feel most effective?  And what are the three areas you might want to tune-up in order to get work done with greater ease and impact? 

There’s no ‘right answer’ – I love that one of Dr. Samuel’s constant caveats is that your digital work practices need to work for your unique strengths and needs – there is no ‘one size fits all’.  What makes YOU feel happy, energized, and able to more easily focus on your priorities?

If you’re ready to learn about a ton of strategies and tips that can bring more joy and ease to your remote and hybrid work life, either for yourself or as a team leader, see Alexandra’s snappy, info-packed online LinkedIn course on remote and hybrid work here.

Virtual Meetings for Humans

From my facilitator whiteboard to yours, here are a few principles and tips for making your virtual gatherings more effective, engaging and life-giving.  I’ve been obsessing over this for a few weeks, so have also developed a 12-page article with alot more detail; if you’re hungry for more, read on for the link.

dogs sitting in a circle, looking up at the camera.
High angle view of French bulldog and one Staffordshire Bull Terrier puppy sitting in a circle, looking up at the camera on a white background.

Hello friends, it’s been a while!  After my last trips to Alabama and Toronto in March 2020,  I shoved my travelling-facilitator suitcase to the back of the closet, as COVID-19 swept the world. Since then, like many of you, I’ve found myself developing “Resting Zoom Face” after facilitating or attending literally hours of back-to-back virtual meetings. All this collective screen time can nourish collaboration and connectivity – or it can suck a person’s life force. In my quest for more of the former, I’ve been gathering tips and tricks and am excited to share them. From my facilitator whiteboard to yours, here are 10 principles and tips for making virtual gatherings more effective, engaging and life-giving.  If you’re hungry for more detailed tips, strategies and sample activities, click here for the full 12-page article.

Top 10 Principles and Tips for Virtual Meetings

  1. Make the meeting count: don’t meet if you don’t have to
  2. Keep it short: Maximum 2 hours max, with breaks
  3. Less is more – shift one-way “content” to pre-reading/pre-watching where possible
  4. Basic facilitation skills still apply: active listening, reflection, excellent questions, tracking threads, ensuring shared airtime
  5. Make it super-interactive: use breakouts, chats, polls, hands, virtual brainstorms
  6. Invite the whole person: encourage physical movement, presence, feelings, story-telling and visualizations
  7. Start strong: acknowledge locations and context, handle introductions with care, and bring participant voices in early
  8. Share documentation: consider collective online note-taking
  9. Don’t do it alone; work with a team
  10. Communicate clearly in advance and again at the start, including the link, password, time, instructions, purpose and outcomes of the meeting and the agenda

 

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

7 agreements for productive conversations during difficult times

Here’s some timely advice on working across difference. Sometimes the hardest cuts to bear are from the very people we view as being ‘on the same side’; non-profit blogger Vu Le offers some powerful medicine for prevention and healing. Source: 7 agreements for productive conversations during difficult times

Focusing: Cutting through the clutter to get more done with greater ease

autumn_trees_in_dresdenFor me, Fall always feels like a new beginning. I run faster, breath deeper, and my energy rises with the cooler air and changing colours, even as urgent client demands and exciting new work and learning opportunities start to crowd my inbox. So this is also the time of year when ideas from books and articles on productivity, personal ecology, focusing and habit formation feel especially useful.  Rick Hansen’s wonderful blog was particularly timely today. With ease and simplicity, he describes three ways to focus one’s life energy from week to week and day to day on what matters most: know your purpose; clarify your priorities; and take care of yourself. So simple! Here’s a summary, but read the whole thing, it’s worth it:

Know your purpose in life. Actually write it down. Make sure it’s short, simple, and focused on what you’re for, not what you’re against. Recommit to it daily, even moment to momen – and it can become a source of both energy and discernment.  This is a core piece of the work we also teach at the Rockwood Leadership Institute.

Clarify your priorities. Identify the big goals in your life.  They might relate to the “buckets” or categories of life you’ve identified on a coaching wheel (eg. community service; high performance at work; joyful parenting). Figure out what matters most, then rank each in order of priority. Like your purpose, a short, visible list of your key life priorities can serve as guides for continual discernment and course correction as you navigate what can feel like an avalanche of demands and interests every day.

Take care of yourself.  At Rockwood this connects well to much of our work around Personal Ecology.  Ensure you have the right nourishment – emotionally, physically, spiritually, intellectually – to support staying clear, focused and centered on what really matters to  you. Then you can truly be of service, and present, to others.

“Hire Slow, Fire Fast…”

“Hire slow, fire fast” may be a well-used management cliche, but it deserves repetition. Vu Le’s excellent post today lays out why many managers avoid or delay firing under-performing staff – and why it’s almost never worth it.

Leadership Essentials: Choudhury’s Deep Diversity -Overcoming Us Vs. Them

DeDeep Diversity: Overcoming Us vs. Them is hands-down the most useful, accessible book I’ve read on strategies for achieving deep, enduring racial equity at the personal, organizational and community level. Shakil Choudhury writes with the friendly ease and accessibility of Malcolm Gladwell, mixing compelling stories with cutting edge research, ranging from neuroscience to political theory.

It is simply not possible to be an effective leader without not only emotional intelligence, but what Julie Diamond refers to as “Power Intelligence“. Choudhury sets out a clear map for getting there, and welcomes us all to take the journey.  He sets out a four-part framework (emotions; implicit bias; tribes; and power) for understanding and overcoming the devastating effects of racism and marginalization, bolstered by abundant research and his own decades of work as an international leadership trainer, teacher and consultant.

Once we have the awareness of how both unconscious bias and racism play out within ourselves and in the world (yes, racism exists, and it is everywhere; yes, all human brains are hard-wired to both see and respond to difference in ways that are unconscious and instantaneous; and yes, our emotions – not our heads – drive our actual behavior), coupled with the intention to change, Choudhury offers a set of 7 inner skills for shifting our own habits of thinking and becoming potentially powerful change-makers:

  1. Self-awareness – become aware of our own blind spots, unconscious bias, emotions, body language and body signals
  2. Mindfulness – through practice, developing our ability to witness and interrupt unhelpful habits of thinking and replace them with new habits
  3. Self-regulation – develop the inner power and skillfulness to master our own emotional responses, to return from a state of being reactive and brittle (or ‘triggered’) to one of emotional resilience
  4. Empathy – tapping into the human power of empathy to build bridges of understanding, kindness to enlarge the ‘circle of we’
  5. Self-education – actively seeking out stories, data and facts directly, blasting out of well-worn assumptions or reliance on ‘conventional wisdom’ from the dominant culture
  6. Relationship – actively enlarging that circle, personally and professionally
  7. Conflict skills – developing our skills, comfort and ease with conflict – an inevitable by-product of working across difference – so that we can lean in rather than contract or withdraw

Master these skills – and be a brilliant, compassionate and effective leader in any field – a leader that can help unleash the massive collective power and wisdom of diverse teams, organizations and communities.

‘Deep Diversity” is available at most bookstores, through the publisher, or via Amazon.

Facilitating an organizational vision: Guided Visualizations

Asian woman dreaming iStock_000015298832XSmallMany visioning processes begin with a guided visualization, where participants close their eyes and listen as they are guided by a facilitator through a series of images and questions. The key is to imagine we have arrived at a specified, fabulous point in the future – where all of our dreams have been realized. It is exactly the way we want it. It is about what we are for – not what we are against. And for most of us, our experience of being in this desired future reality is vivid and visceral. (Note: a few of us experience “visualizations” slightly differently – some of us don’t see pictures in our minds at all. Instead, we see words, or experience a set of sensations.) The experience of imagining that we have arrived at a point in the future – that we are there, right now – can unleash a whole new set of innovative, creative ideas. Click here for a list of 14 questions or elements to weave into your visualization script.