On the Menu: The Leader Identity Shift: How to Grow into Your Next Level of Leadership
A lunch and learn for small business owners, entrepreneurs, and leaders navigating growth
As your business or organization grows, your role as a leader has to grow with it; but what got you here often isn’t what will get you there.
Many leaders find themselves pulled back into execution, staying too close to the work, or solving problems they used to own. At the same time, expectations shift. You’re now responsible for setting direction, aligning others, and making decisions at a level your previous role never required.
In this session, we’ll explore the identity shift required to lead at a higher level. We’ll look at where leaders get stuck during role transitions, why those patterns show up, and how to shift the way you operate and make decisions so the people around you can actually move.
Here’s how it works.
Through a mix of direct instruction, guided reflection, and real conversation, we’ll work through what’s actually happening when leaders hit a ceiling, and what operating at the next level looks like in practice. This session is grounded in real organizational experience and designed to be immediately applicable, whether you’re scaling a business you founded or stepping into a bigger role within a growing organization.
Participants will leave with:
- A clearer picture of the identity shift required as your leadership scope increases
- Recognition of the patterns that keep leaders operating below their level
- Practical ways to shift how you spend your time and make decisions
Game Plan
11:30 a.m. | In-Person | Registration opens and lunch is available
12:00 p.m. | Event begins
1:00 p.m. | Go on back to work!
Our Session Leader
Ashley Johnson is a leadership development advisor, facilitator, and executive coach with more than 15 years of experience helping leaders scale their impact when their roles grow.
Through Brightwell Leadership, Ashley partners with organizations to design strategy and experiences grounded in real organizational context. Her work spans leadership development programs, team alignment, and coaching leaders through the shifts in thinking and behavior that growth demands. She is known for bringing both strategic clarity and genuine humanity to her work, helping leaders and teams move from insight to action in ways that are thoughtful, practical, and built to last.
Before founding Brightwell, Ashley held senior leadership development roles at global organizations including Hilton, Levi Strauss & Co., and BioCryst Pharmaceuticals. During that time, she led enterprise leadership strategy, leadership and executive development programming, and large-scale leadership capability building.
Ashley holds a Master’s degree in Organizational Leadership and is an ICF-certified coach, CliftonStrengths trainer, Korn Ferry 360 and ATD-certified facilitator.
What’s On The Menu?
At Frontier RTP, we are constantly growing, and hope you will come along for the ride! We developed On the Menu as a way of helping you and your business grow to the next level, whatever that next level may be.
Each month, we offer a lunchtime workshop on a special topic related to small businesses or startups. On the Menu is taught by a diverse group of experts from around the Triangle (some of whom started their business here at Frontier RTP!) in a small group setting.
Our hope is that these workshops will not only be rich in content, but spark dialogue, start relationships, and make your lunch break meaningful. Did we mention there will be food? For those joining us in-person, there will be a free lunch available. If you are joining us virtually, we invite you to bring your lunch to the Zoom. No shame in eating with your camera on!
We want you to easily access our events and webinars. Please reach out to us with accommodation requests at programming@rtp.org and we’ll do our best to facilitate.
Note: By registering and participating in this event, you consent to the recording of your likeness, image, and/or voice and authorize Frontier RTP to use photographs, video, and audio recordings containing your likeness, image, and/or voice in any medium for any purpose.
Location
800 Park Offices Drive, Durham, NC 27713
