Psychology-grounded workshop on leadership, bias, microaggressions, and trauma-informed practices to help workplaces thrive.
This workshop explores the human side of leadership, and workplace communication - the cognitive patterns, interpersonal dynamics, and structural blind spots that shape how we lead, collaborate, and design systems that affect people's lives. This session is grounded in clinical and developmental psychology, and social cognition.
Participants will leave with a clearer understanding of how unconscious bias operates at the organizational level (not just the personal one), practical language for naming and navigating microaggressions without derailing team culture, tools for leading across generational and positional differences, and a trauma-informed framework for building workplaces where people can thrive.
The workshop will be led by Nicolas Chehade, a strategic leader working at the intersection of human behavior, psychology, digital safety, and global governance. With a multidisciplinary background as a clinical psychologist, policy, and technical lead, Nicolas specializes in Safety-by-Design - ensuring that digital and physical infrastructure protects human agency, independent thinking, and comprehensive and inclusive environments.
Nicolas has influenced national policy on mental health and digital safety, and designed global safeguarding frameworks across 15 countries; led multidisciplinary teams to build secure, HIPAA-compliant platforms for child wellbeing and mental health; led organizational-wide staff care, trauma-informed frameworks, and social impact strategies and interventions, increasing staff satisfaction and productivity; and directed high-level workshops for international and mutli-disciplinary organizations to operationalize trauma-informed strategies across their programs.
Nicolas brings a deep commitment to gender-transformative and equity-centered leadership. Nicolas has facilitated workshops and developed curricula for over 400 staff across global organizations - including Mercy Corps, University of Notre Dame, Making Cents International, USAID, and the International Rescue Committee (IRC) - on topics ranging from trauma-informed approaches and inclusive engagement to the prevention of gender-based violence and discrimination practices. Nicolas’ work focuses on challenging top-down systems to center local voices and foster social cohesion.
Workshop Content Notice:
Some topics and group conversations may feel sensitive or personally meaningful. We ask all participants to be mindful of the vulnerability and lived experiences that others may choose to share and to treat all discussions with respect and confidentiality.
Please note that this workshop is intended for educational and professional development purposes only. Neither the facilitator nor the workshop activities are intended to provide counseling, therapy, crisis intervention, or advice regarding traumatic experiences. Participants are encouraged to engage at a level that feels comfortable and appropriate for them.