GROUNDED LEADERSHIP immersion

six-week online cohort experience

Join other leaders for a six-week deep-dive into the art and science of cultivating nervous system awareness and resilience as the foundation of your work with others.

You strive to lead with your full humanity—grounded, present, and aligned with your values. But the moments that matter are often when it’s hardest to show up in these ways.

Maybe you’ve noticed a tendency to…

  • Snap at people when you're overwhelmed

  • Avoid conversations you know need to happen

  • Go blank or shut down when your leadership is needed most

  • Choose being liked over being honest

These aren't character flaws—they're your nervous systems’ automatic responses to stress. When we’re dysregulated, accessing strategies, scripts, or values is out of reach. Our stress response takes over, and we default to patterns that don't serve us or the people we lead.

We can't build cultures of belonging or offer compassionate support to others when we’re ungrounded. Effective leadership starts from the inside-out.

This six-week immersion will invite you to develop nervous system awareness, practice self-regulation, and build the inner capacity to stay present so you can show up as the leader you want to be—not perfectly, but authentically.

Grounded in curiosity rather than judgment, compassion rather than shame, and courage rather than fear, you’ll develop awareness of your patterns and preferences, learn to work with your states instead of against them, and lead with your full humanity.

When you do this foundational work, everything else becomes possible. You become an inherently regulating presence for others. You create space for people to connect and thrive. You lead from groundedness, not reactivity.

This is where humanizing leadership begins.

educators + youth leaders

Tuesdays 4:00-5:30 pm PST

Jan 6 - feb 17 2026 (skip 2/3)

This cohort is for you if you are a classroom teacher, workforce development crew leader or manager, youth facilitator, camp counselor, or otherwise support, lead, or mentor young people (i.e. 21 and younger).

team leaders (Adults)

Tuesdays 3:00-4:30 pm PST

feb 24 - mar 31 2026

This cohort is for you if you are a school administrator, executive director, manager or supervisor, trainer, coach, or otherwise support, lead, or mentor adults.

Course overview

  • During our first session, we’ll start to build the container of our learning community and connect to values as the foundation of our leadership work. We will explore the concept of awareness, why its a crucial starting point for this work, and engage in practices to cultivate it.

  • During this week, we’ll take a deep dive into the physiology of the nervous system and how it influences our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors.  We will explore approaches for developing more awareness of our own stories and states and practice strategies to regulate our systems.

  • Week three invites us into compassion—not just as a concept, but as an active practice. We’ll explore  self-compassion as a regulating tool and discuss the research around compassion practices as an antidote to empathic overload and burnout.

  • Using a nervous system lens and the framework of Emergenetics , we’ll explore diverse cognitive and behavioral preferences as a way of better understanding ourselves and supporting people whose ways of thinking and behaving differ from our own.

  • Human-centered leadership often requires us to do hard things, to be vulnerable, and to deviate from the status quo. During this week, we’ll explore courage as a leadership practice and build more capacity and resilience into our nervous systems so we can act with more courage in our lives.

  • Our last week will offer the opportunity to reflect on the learnings, practices, and skills that we’ve explored over the past month and a half in order to continue forward with the momentum and intention of this work.

  • You are in a professional role of leadership or influence with youth or adults in your school, business, or organization.

  • You struggle to bridge the gap between your intentions or values (how you want to show up) and your actions (how you actually show up) in your work with others.

  • You seek to develop a relational, “power with” style of leadership, and want to build the inner tools to lead in this way.

  • You are willing to show up with vulnerability, authenticity, and openness to this experience.

  • You are interested in connecting with other leaders who are committed to creating human-centered spaces and engaging in self-reflection.

  • You can attend at least four out of the six live sessions.

This training is for you if…

This training is not for you if…

  • You are not in a professional leadership role.

  • You are interested in learning “moves” or strategies that are focused on managing others’ behaviors.

  • You prefer more of a top-down, “power over” or authoritative style of leadership.

  • The idea of reflecting on your personal growth feels overwhelming or inaccessible right now.

A limited number of scholarships are available. Please use this brief form to apply.

If you are financially able to offer support for others to attend, please consider registering at the SUPPORTER level ($549).

Educators will receive up to 12 PDUs for this course

Questions? Contact Me!

IMMERSION COST: $449

Early Bird Rate: $399

Youth cohort: through November 1st

Adult cohort: through December 15th

  • Six 90-minute live Zoom sessions

  • Individual Emergenetics® profile and narrative report

  • One-on-one profile debrief and coaching session

  • Companion workbook (PDF or Google Doc)

  • Integration work between live sessions: guided practices, reflections, and other supportive material

what’s included

  • Jo has been facilitating experiential leadership development and social-emotional learning with youth and adults since 2011. She works to support schools and organizations to create human-centered cultures that foster resilience, growth, and well-being.

    She has a Masters of Science in Teaching, is a certified Mindfulness Meditation Teacher, and has studied impacts and responses to developmental trauma with Dr. Bruce Perry and Interpersonal Neurobiology with Dr. Dan Siegel.

    Jo is a seeker of delight, curiosity, and depth, and finds joy in connecting with the natural world, reading young adult fantasy fiction, and playing with her mini Aussie, Rosie.