Deep Dive 3-hour Sessions
For this year's conference, we've designed these extended Deep Dive sessions as a form of professional development built right into the conference. They are master classes, focusing on new skills, in-depth learning, and practical tools you can use in your own teaching, training, consulting, or coaching work. These sessions will run alongside regular programing and will be marked as Deep Dives on our conference schedule - look for that in early May!
Followership for High Performance
with Mark Rennaker & Mike Linville
What do you really think about followers? Who are more important to an organization: leaders or followers? Are you a leader or a follower?
Key topics explored in this session include follower as role, reimagining leadership as a system, unspoken follower perspectives, and the key characteristics of effective followers. Learn how a focus on followership and follower development may be more important to high levels of organizational performance than leadership development.
Recipients of the 2023 Followership Trailblazer award and co-authors of the landmark textbook, The Essentials of Followership, already in its 2nd edition, Mark and Mike have designed this deep dive session especially for those new to followership.
Introducing Followership to New Audiences
with Dr. Marc Hurwitz & Samantha Hurwitz
Marc and Sam co-created the Generative Partnership Model and are known for their engaging, “pracademic” sessions.
Having taught followership together with leadership for nearly two decades, they will share their most effective and successful methods for introducing followership to new audiences. You'll leave this session with an overflowing toolbox of best practices and reliable strategies to inspire groups large and small.
Courageous Follower Train-the-Trainer
with Ira Chaleff & Basil Read
A session for professional trainers, educators and consultants, who would like to be able to deliver, or deepen their current delivery, of the core material of The Courageous Follower in formal training to classes, groups and private or public sector organizations.
Please consider this a master class. You should be very familiar with the principles and models of courageous followership. Questions you bring to the class should focus on how to deepen your capacity to develop courageous followership in others, rather than on how to understand it yourself.
For those who regularly teach courageous followership as part of leading and following, no further preparation should be needed. For those who aspire to do so, but have not yet had the opportunity, or only do so occasionally, please review the book, The Courageous Follower, in the weeks prior to the conference. You may also choose to watch some of the videos available at www.irachaleffauthor.com.
Everyone should have at least once taken the Followership Styles Assessment. This preparation will allow us to move at a brisk pace through the fundamentals and nuances of effectively developing courageous follower awareness, behaviors and skills.
Embodied Partnership Deep Dive
with Sharna Fabiano, MFA
Internationally recognized Tango artist and author of Lead & Follow: The Dance of Inspired Teamwork, Sharna teaches precise and effective leading and following skills from the ballroom to the boardroom.
With playful movement exercises and precise, physical awareness and communication techniques, you'll literally step into experiential leading and following and take home simple yet powerful exercises that work quickly in a wide variety of group and private contexts from individual coaching to team-building to holistic healing and beyond. This session is an out-of-the-box immersion experience for those new to followership.
Note: wear comfortable clothes and be ready to move!
LEGO® SERIOUS PlAY® Deep Dive
with Dr. Althea Simpson
In an era where organizations struggle to foster authentic leader-follower relationships, Althea offers a breakthrough approach using LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® methodology.
Following her acclaimed session that earned top ratings at the 2024 conference in Glasgow, she returns to guide participants through a three-hour immersive exploration of leadership-followership dynamics.
Polarity Thinking Deep Dive
with Lindsay Burr & Liz Monroe-Cook
Lindsay is an engaging facilitator and Polarity Thinking™ Master Trainer who brings a depth of knowledge and a global perspective that supports seeing the known in a new way. Liz is a consulting psychologist, graduate of Polarity Thinking™ Mastery Program and Past Chair of the Creative Education Foundation Board.
Together, they will unpack the key concepts of Polarity Thinking and change how you think about leadership and followership forever. This approach avoids the narrow view of the world caused by false-choice, either-or thinking, and instead gives individuals, teams, and organizations the mindset and toolset for utilization of multiple viewpoints, including those of both leadership and followership.