Leading Through the Tough Stuff
A practical workshop for decisions, conversations and change, facilitated by Josette Owen, Chief Executive & Executive Coach, Elevate Leadership.
Facilitator
Josette Owen
Chief Executive & Executive Coach, Elevate Leadership
Leadership is tested most when the pressure is on. Restructures, difficult decisions, competing priorities, stretched teams and constant change require leaders to provide clarity and direction, often while navigating uncertainty themselves.
Designed for all levels of leadership, this highly practical workshop explores how to lead effectively when circumstances are changing, information is incomplete and your people are looking to you for answers. Through practical frameworks, reflection and real-world scenarios, participants will learn how to maintain trust, make sound decisions and keep teams moving forward without pretending to have all the answers.
What we will cover
Two practical modules
Leading Yourself & Making Decisions Under Pressure
Pressure changes how we think, communicate and lead. Understand your own response to uncertainty and develop practical strategies to remain considered and effective when the stakes are high.
- Recognise how pressure influences your leadership and decisions
- Lead yourself well so you can lead others effectively
- Separate what is urgent from what is important
- Make sound decisions without perfect information
- Know when to act, consult, escalate or slow down
Leading Teams Through Restructure, Change & Uncertainty
When change is constant, leaders must balance empathy with accountability and performance. Learn how to create stability for your people even when you cannot control the wider environment.
- Lead through restructures, uncertainty and change fatigue
- Maintain trust and communicate well when information is limited or changing
- Deliver difficult or unpopular messages with clarity and empathy
- Balance empathy and wellbeing with expectations and accountability
- Recognise and respond when sustained pressure begins affecting team behaviour and performance
Workshop agenda
Thursday 4 March 2027 · 9.00am – 4.00pm
- Setting the context: what pressure looks like for leaders today
- Recognising your personal response to stress, uncertainty and change
- Reflection: how does pressure change the way you lead?
- Identifying your biggest current leadership pressure point
- Making sound decisions with incomplete or changing information
- Distinguishing urgency from importance
- When to act, consult, escalate or wait
- Practical decision-making framework
- Small-group decision challenge
- What teams actually need from leaders during uncertainty
- Communicating through restructures when you don't have every answer
- Managing resistance, uncertainty and change fatigue
- Balancing empathy, accountability and performance
- Rebuilding trust and momentum following significant change
- Deliver difficult or unpopular messages with clarity and empathy
- Say “I don't know yet” without undermining confidence
- Handle pushback, difficult questions and emotional responses
- Maintain trust when information or decisions change
- Practise real conversations drawn from attendee challenges and current leadership situations
- Respond to new information as the scenario evolves
- Decide what to communicate, when and to whom
- Navigate resistance and competing stakeholder expectations
- Peer discussion and facilitator feedback
- Identify the tools you will take back into your own workplace
- Personal leadership commitment