Cash flow, creativity, and compassion are not mutually exclusive™
The Ultimate Virtual Event for
High-Achieving Leaders to Balance Empathy, Accountability, and Performance
A FREE 2-Day Virtual Event to Help High-Performing Leaders Who Want to Boost Engagement, Increase Sales, and Accelerate Growth—While Creating a Healthy, Supportive Environment for Their Team and Themselves.
What Will You Learn?
In 2 days, you can expect to learn how to:
- Master Both/And Leadership to balance empathy and performance—unlocking innovation without sacrificing results or well-being.
- Strengthen Your Empathy Muscle with actionable tools and strategies to boost engagement, performance, and trust.
- Make the Business Case for Empathy so you can confidently advocate for its ROI and inspire internal buy-in.
- Communicate with Impact by using empathy-driven messaging and scripts to motivate, gain alignment, and hold others accountable.
- Activate a High-Performance Culture by embedding empathy into your leadership and team dynamics—no matter your personality or style.
- Deconstruct the 5 Pillars of Effective and Empathetic Leadership so you can better balance the needs of the business with the needs of your people.
- Reflect and Reset, so you can discover your strengths, blind spots, and growth areas and lead with both confidence and compassion.
- Practice Showing Up with Empathy while still holding others accountable so you can deftly handle difficult situations
Plus, I’ll even share a worksheet of reflective prompts to help you check in on your empathetic leadership effectiveness and track your progress!
What you’ll do in this workshop…
DAY #1: Discover Empathy’s Strategic Advantage and Make It Work For You
- Define what empathy is – and what it is NOT
- Let go of myths and false assumptions about empathetic leadership
- Practice empathy in a way that feels comfortable for you
- Gain buy-in for empathetic practices through proven ROI
- Genuinely practice empathy to boost your leadership capacity, team engagement, and customer connections
DAY #2: Learn How to Balance Empathy with Accountability and Performance
- Master your inner game to stay present and amplify your empathy capacity
- Recharge and replenish to protect your boundaries and mental health
- Sharpen your clarity and decisiveness to hold others accountable
- Infuse more joy and levity to bolster engagement, connection, and action
What Makes My Event Different?
I take a results-driven approach to emotionally intelligent leadership.
This isn’t your typical leadership training. We take a high-impact, human-centered approach that blends empathy with performance, so you can lead with both heart and results.
Emotional intelligence doesn’t have to be vague or “soft.” You’ll get a clear, actionable empathy framework to lead in alignment with your values, without burnout or compromising excellence.
In this workshop, you’ll:
- Challenge limiting beliefs
- Shift your leadership mindset
- Build sustainable habits
- Find a cohort of high-achieving leaders on the same journey
- Take away tools you can use immediately
You’ll walk away with strategies that fit your style—whether you’re analytical and data-driven or more intuitive and people-focused. This isn’t one-size-fits-all; it’s about finding what works for YOU.
We’ll bust the myths holding you back and give you the clarity, confidence, and ROI to lead with ease, elevate your impact, and rediscover the joy of leadership.
Your Host
Maria Ross is a speaker, author, strategist, and empathy advocate who has spent decades helping forward-thinking leaders and brands connect and engage through empathy for success. Maria’s latest book is The Empathy Dilemma: How Successful Leaders Balance Performance, People, and Personal Boundaries, and she hosts The Empathy Edge podcast.
A TEDx speaker, Maria delivers dynamic keynotes, talks, and leadership trainings to global companies and startups to help them boost engagement and performance. She is also a 2x LinkedIn course trainer on the topic of empathy at work. Maria is a Forbes contributor, and her media appearances include MSNBC, Inc., NPR, Forbes, Entrepreneur and Thrive Global. She lives with her husband, young son, American Bully rescue dog, gecko, and chickens in the Sacramento, California area and serves clients worldwide.
Maria consistently delivers engaging sessions that resonate deeply with our employee population. Her adept facilitation skills foster interactive and thought-provoking discussions. I highly recommend Maria as a speaker and facilitator for any organization seeking to enhance its understanding and practice of empathetic leadership.
– Rhonda George-Denniston, Chief Learning Officer, TBWA/Worldwide
Maria is an engaging, inspiring speaker who brings all of her knowledge, life experience, and delightful personality to her speaking engagements. She helped the group understand the business case for empathy and provided practical tools and strategies for strengthening empathy in the workplace
– Jaime Goff, Director of Leadership Development, CHRISTUS Health, PhD, SHRM-CP
“Maria has an amazing approachability that enables her to take complex strategies and translate them into actionable steps we can all begin to use the next day.”
– Kristen Lamoreaux, President/CEO, Lamoreaux Search and Founder, SIM Women
Thank you so much for contributing to our Stanford leadership class! You could see from the flood of questions in chat – Empathy is a hot topic for leaders today. Everyone walked away with better understanding and greater motivation to express more compassionate empathy. As you were signing off, there was a waterfall of thanks from the students!