Meet all our Journey Guides

Johannes Hochholzer

Facilitator, Unity Effect team member and Journey Guide. Consultant for team and organisational development.

Matthias Fecht

Head of Human Resources, Forest Stewardship Council International. My mission is to learn how the inner workings of our mind influence our behavior and decisions and how we can use this to become happier and better at what we do.

Svenja Jesumann

Life Explorer, Human Interactions Manager, Free Spirit, Journey Guide. My purpose: creating an environment for inspiring, healthy, mature human interactions.

Linda Wagner

Excited about sustainability and personal empowerment, grateful for nature's beauty and supportive networks, Journey Guide.

Marina Lynch

Participatory leadership practitioner & coach, Flow Game host, Process designer, Journey Guide. My purpose: creating space for authentic conversations and (personal) leadership to flourish.

Vera Janke

Career & Life Coach, Listening Adventurer, Journey Guide. My purpose: Bringing more listening into the world. One conversation at a time.

Sabrina Meissel

Systemic & animal assisted Coach, Facilitator, HR Manager, Journey Guide. My purpose: creating safe spaces for people to be their best self.

Franziska Kohn

Facilitator, co-founder of Unity Effect, Journey Guide. My purpose: People stepping into their potential. Passionate about personal development and leadership.

Emily Johnston

Facilitator, co-founder of Unity Effect, Journey Guide. Deeply passionate about guiding group processes and empowering people to connect with their purpose and leadership potential.

Clemens Binder

Freelancer with Unity Effect. Holding spaces, building bridges and inspiring people to realise what makes them come alive. Passionate about networks and social change.

Jannik Kaiser

Co-founder of Unity Effect & Journey Guide. Passionate about co-creating spaces for transformative change. Eternal optimist and talented in telling unfunny jokes.

Weekly themes

Explore the topics which we dive into together over the 12 week Leadership Journey.

Working with Questions instead of Answers

What does leadership mean to me? Who am I as a leader? Who do I want to be? Questions can be a powerful tool to guide and empower us, our teams and our organisations. In the first week we develop our own powerful questions which will help guide our Journey. We practice working with questions and letting go of the need to have all the answers.

Creating Cultures of Trust

Trust: the magic ingredient for healthy, creative and innovative teams. In week two we explore the conditions and practices which help us build cultures of trust – where we trust in ourselves as well as in each other.

Working in Complexity

Our world is a complex place and our work as leaders is no different. So how can we work with complexity, rather than get lost in it? This week we take a look at the world of systems thinking and see what it means for us in our day-to-day work. We will venture into the unknown and see what emerges, one step at a time.

Leading with Values and Purpose

Why do you do what you do, and how? This week we dive into the role that values and purpose play in our work as leaders: whether it’s navigating the unknown, setting boundaries or making decisions – for ourselves and our organisations.

Systems Thinking and Emergence

Systems thinking, ecosystem mapping, intuition and emergence – this week is all about playing with tools to sense potential in both our networks and the future. Part of our work as leaders is to inspire others to connect to, and trust in, a vision for the future. Yet when we work in complex systems, it can be very hard to know what will happen next, which direction to head in, or what our next step to get there might be. This week we will play with our intuition to sense into the future and break down a broader vision into concrete action steps, as well as apply systems thinking to our own network.

Focus and Intention

Our time and energy are some of our greatest resources and how we choose to use them is both essential and often challenging. This week we look at how we balance our time and set priorities, what we say yes and no to, and what is driving these decisions.

Empowering Others

How can we create the best possible conditions for people around us to step into their unique potential? How can we tap into the collective creativity, wisdom and power in our team? And how can we create shared responsibility? This week we look at what it means to support and empower others.

Empowering Decision-Making

Decision-making is a key leverage point to share responsibility, decentralise power and unlock the capacity for creativity and innovation in a team. It is a core skill for leaders, yet in a team context it can also be the source of inefficiencies, bottle-necks, conflicts and unhealthy power dynamics. This week we look at methods for empowering decision-making and explore what supports – and gets in the way of – good decision-making.

Setting Boundaries

The ability to set boundaries is important in relationships of all kinds, including in our work. This week we explore setting healthy boundaries that create clarity for ourselves and others about what is ok and not ok for us. It’s not so much about building walls, but rather about understanding, valuing and expressing our needs, and respecting the needs and boundaries of others.

Giving and Receiving Feedback

Effective feedback is essential to learn, grow and develop – individually and as a team. Yet giving it – and receiving it – can be pretty challenging. This week we look at how we deal with feedback, how our brains react to it, and how empathy plays a crucial role in both giving and receiving feedback.

Dealing with Conflict

When we work together with others, conflict can naturally arise. So how can we deal with conflict in a way which transforms it into an opportunity to learn and grow, rather than staying stuck and counterproductive? This week we introduce tools to address conflict and dive into the assumptions, stories and defense strategies that fuel it.

Appreciation

The final week in our Journey is all about appreciation: a key element that helps us to show up fully and do our best work. We begin by looking back over our personal journeys in leadership and appreciate how far we’ve already come and all the significant, challenging and beautiful moments along the way. Then we look back over our time together, tie together the different threads and reflect on what has happened, what has changed and remained, what we’ve discovered and how we’ve grown. We also look to the path ahead, to the things we want to carry forward with us on our path towards purposeful and collaborative leadership. Because of course, this is not the end, it’s really just the beginning…

Customer testimonials

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I'd say that I've learned how to treat myself as someone who has value. I realised that I can make a good use of my inner potential only when take responsibility and find courage to step up as a leader when it's needed. Also, I've learned what such a leader should be like in our complex, and yet exiting times of rapid changes and endless diversities. Thus, now I know what I should strive for and even what to do to get there. Becoming the best friend of myself and more empathetic with other, along with having all necessary tools to contribute to better team work and any kind of relationship is so empowering. Most importantly this experience has made me even more keen on continuing sort of a"Leadership Journey" throughout my life.

Artem Ponomarenko

The Journey gave me an opportunity to slow down and reflect on the meaning of leadership for me and in my context and helped me to discover my own unique leadership qualities. I feel more confident as a leader, in a broadly understood sense of this word. I realized how impossible (and dangerous!) it is to focus on achieving perfection (what does it even mean?!) and to forget about the changing and adaptive nature of leadership. As a leader, I want to now concentrate on listening and giving space to others rather than polishing the next-level leadership skills. I am grateful for the 12 weeks of continuous surprises and eye-opening conversations and I now feel that I stepped into a Real Leadership Cosmos!

Marta Kanarkiewicz

The leadership journey flew by so quickly. Due to the hands-on approach of the journey, I could immediately apply the reflections and methodologies in my work environment. I feel a lot more confident in my new leadership after these 12 weeks.

Elke Sümnick-Matthaei

This 12 week Journey has been a very intensive experience that has helped me to get to know myself and my team better. The sessions were a great mix of thematic inputs, exchange with the other participants and work on ourselves as leaders and as humans in general. Thanks to that, for myself I now perceive leadership as the gift and sign of confidence that it is and am happy to assume this role in my organization. We as a team could already implement new structures and tools that help us to grow together and to create a work environment in which we feel safe enough to be ourselves and to bring in all our resources and ideas.

Golde Ebding

Leadership Journey Participant

The Leadership Journey is exactly what it's title suggests: a Journey. It is not a seminar, or a course. For me it has been a journey to a better understanding of myself and of the people surrounding me. "Next stop: complexity" - each week was like a stop in a new place, where my co-travelers and I took time to examine our surroundings and how they influence us. Emily and Clemens from Unity Effect have been in part drivers, in part guides. Their insightful comments and a well-balanced program have never once ceased to inspire, question, and astonish me. The atmosphere of trust and genuine interest has made it easy for me to share my thoughts freely with others in the group, and yielded helpful insights. The last Journey session was by no means the final stop: the journey now continues with me in the driver's seat and other passengers or drivers drop by to contribute to it.

Dr. Yulia Kozyrakis

Leadership Journey Participant

How can I...

develop my strengths as a leader?
motivate and empower my team?
deal with others’ expectations of me?
communicate effectively in conflict and feedback situations?
set priorities and make decisions on a personal, team and strategic level?
be more effective in reaching my goals and vision?

The Journey

The Leadership Journey is a 12 week facilitated online program limited for a group of up to 12 participants. Over 12 weeks we meet once a week for a 2 hour online workshop with the group, which takes place via Zoom. Our Journey Guides facilitate the workshops with a focus on experiential learning, reflection and sharing practical methods and tools. Our workshops are highly interactive – this is definitely not your typical online course!

Between the workshops there are peer-coaching sessions, as well as individual exercises and journaling to dive deeper into the weekly themes. You will also receive a workbook with practical tools and methods to apply to your work.
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Our participants come from all across the globe. Some are just starting out on their journey as a leader. Others have many years of experience yet want to lead differently. Some are in official leadership roles, some are founders of their own organisation, some are intrapreneurs. It’s the diversity of our groups which make each Journey unique and special.

We offer Journeys for individuals and organisations. To find out about a program for your organisation, contact us.

Explore the weekly topics

Where does the Journey lead?

Learn and practice skills and tools to:

Discover your values, purpose & strengths as a leader
Build team cultures of trust, collaboration and empowerment
Empower and inspire others to step into their potential
Set boundaries, give engaged feedback and deal with conflicts and challenges
Think in systems and navigate complexity and uncertainty
Set priorities and make personal, collective and strategic decisions