Events
Live sessions and workshops for leaders building the culture that carries the business.
CULTURE THAT CARRIES · LIVE
Leading Through Change Without Carrying the Team
How coach-like leaders build adaptability, accountability, and ownership when the pressure is rising.
Date Wednesday, August 19, 2026 · Time 11:00 a.m. Mountain (MDT) / 10:00 a.m. Pacific · Length 60 minutes: 45 minutes of teaching and practice, then 15 minutes for your questions
You are being asked to lead change you did not design, on a timeline you did not set, with a team that is already full. So you take more on. You answer the questions, smooth the friction, and quietly redo the work that comes back not quite right.
It reads as strong leadership. Under enough pressure, it becomes the bottleneck.
The leaders who hold up are not the ones carrying the most. They have learned to build capability in the people around them, so ownership moves outward instead of upward.
Why now
In CPHR Alberta’s July 2026 survey, HR leaders named adaptability, leading transformational change, and holding people capable as their top capability needs. Wider engagement research points the same direction: how well an organization handles change, and confidence in senior leadership, now sit ahead of belonging and feeling valued as the strongest drivers of engagement.
AI is the trigger, not the subject. The real task in the room is leading change and holding people accountable through uncertainty, without absorbing all of it yourself.
What you'll learn
- The three leadership habits that quietly turn capable leaders into organizational bottlenecks.
- How to replace answer-giving with questions that build judgment and ownership.
- How to hold people accountable without micromanaging, rescuing, or manufacturing conflict.
- A conversation structure you can use this week with an employee or a manager.
- How everyday leadership habits become the culture that either carries the business or burdens it.
Who this is for
Owners, presidents, GMs, and senior managers in energy, industrial, engineering, manufacturing, and professional services who are carrying more of the team’s work than they mean to.
Your host
Marderé Birkill
MBL · CEC · MCC
Founder and CEO of Sage & Summit Consulting. She works with owners and senior leaders across energy, industrial, engineering, manufacturing, and professional services in Western Canada and Washington State.