May 25, 2025 - Leadership Retreat

May 25

May 25, 2025 - Leadership Retreat

Awaken Your Leadership Retreat

Get ready to stretch the limits of your comfort zone! The richest experience we have to offer for professionals looking to develop their leadership skills is finally back and this time, we're getting co-creative!

This latest edition of our retreat will bring you on a deep dive of the first key skill of a co-creative leader: Being a voice among many in the conversation.

The Surdek Team invites you to take part in our transformative two-and-a-half day leadership program. We will introduce you to your leadership game and will help you become a more effective leader when communicating with your team.

As with our previous retreats, the registration cost includes a room for two nights at Auberge West Brome as well as all breakfast, lunch and dinner meals during the event.

Date & Time

May 25, 2025 — May 27, 2025
5:30 PM — 4:30 PM
Spaces are limited — we only accept up to 12 people for this event!

Location

Auberge West Brome, West Brome (Québec)

Language

Français

Register now!

Now more than ever, leaders need to take time for their personal growth!

In the madness of your daily work, when do you take the time to take a step back and reflect on how you can better yourself as a leader? If you are like most leaders that I know, I'm willing to bet the answer is: Not too often. When you feel buried under work, you get caught up in the things that you need to deliver and forget the importance of taking this time as a leader.

Our retreat is a powerful and safe space to learn more about yourself, notice your existing behaviors and discover how to approach situations more productively. Taking these kinds of moments is the key to help you grow and develop yourself as a leader.

Tell me, what are some of your biggest challenges as a leader in your team meetings?

Let me guess...

  • As soon as you bring an idea in meetings, your team runs with your ideas by default.
  • You feel you need to make all the decisions or people always turn to you for approval.
  • You feel like team members are holding back their opinions and not speaking up.
  • You are less experienced in your leadership role and struggle getting your voice heard by your team.
  • You want to change the group dynamic but do not know how to do it.

As a leader, do you feel like you reached the limits of your current leadership style and need a new approach?

Are you willing to grow and learn a new way to lead?

Co-Creative Leadership is the answer!

Now what if in three days, you could learn skills to turn things around and begin to create an environment in meetings where:

  • Your team members will be more willing to challenge your ideas.
  • Your team will make more decisions together of moving things forward.
  • Your team can have real conversations in a constructive way.
  • You see situations and issues with your team from different perspectives and see more solutions to address them.
  • You can lead or participate in group discussions in a way where everyone can communicate as equals and contribute.
"Working with Steffan was refreshing and energizing. He not only inspired me to assume a more forward-leaning role within my organization, but also emphasized my responsibility to do so. The world needs more leaders. In that vein, Steffan reminded me that I have much to contribute in the workplace and wider community."
Taryn W., Project Manager, Government Organization

In over ten years doing organizational coaching, what I found is that many leaders struggle with how much (or how little) they should talk in meetings with their teams.

Sometimes, they are uncomfortable with silence so they feel as though they always need to bring their ideas first to get the ball rolling in conversations. What consistently ends up happening is their team never challenges these ideas and goes with them by default.

To resolve this, often leaders try to hold back and speak last instead. They listen to what their team has to say and if their idea did not come up, then they will bring their idea. This creates the impression with the team that the leader is not really listening to their ideas and should speak up earlier instead.

The end result is that these leaders no longer know when to speak up and say what they have to say. They become frustrated when they feel the team is going in the wrong direction in the conversation and when they finally speak up, team members feel as if they failed some sort of test they did not even know they were taking.

If this sounds like you, the harsh reality is that this dynamic with your team will never change until you master the first skill of a co-creative leader: Being a voice among many in the conversation. You need to learn how to have conversations with your team in a way that allows them a real space to speak up and take ownership while not holding back your own ideas. You need to learn how to see the best in the ideas of the different people around the table and help your team converge towards a solution that best meets the needs of the business.

Only then will you be able to begin to have meetings with your team where everyone contributes and takes ownership of moving things forward together.

So what are you waiting for?

A unique opportunity to experience
the power of Co-Creative Leadership!

The content of this retreat is based entirely on Steffan Surdek's book "The Way of the Co-Creative Leader" which you will receive as a gift for joining us at the event.

This retreat is not just another leadership workshop filled with theory you will not have any idea how to put into practice. It is an immersive experience designed to take you out of your comfort zone. You will discover how it feels to be a co-creative leader: engage in interactive sessions, receive personalized coaching, and practice new skills in a supportive environment.

During the retreat, you will witness firsthand how co-creative leadership fosters collaboration, innovation, and better communication in teams. Past participants have praised our retreats for their profound impact on their professional and personal lives. Join us to unlock your potential as a co-creative leader and elevate the performance of your team!

What you will get from this experience...

In our retreat, you will experience transformative growth as you unlock your leadership potential through co-creative leadership. You will learn and practice actionable strategies that foster team collaboration and help you generate productive conversations with your team with confidence.

Don't miss this opportunity to take your leadership to the next level—we only accept 12 people for this event!

As a participant in our empowering retreat, you will:

Transform your leadership game

Your leadership game is your default operating system as a leader. As you work through the retreat, you will begin to see more and more of your leadership game in action.

This will help you change some of the behaviors that are currently holding you back from reaching your leadership potential.

Get coaching on your real-life situations

At the retreat, you will be able to bring up any current real-life situations you would potentially like us to discuss during the event.

As appropriate, we will address some of these topics either in a group discussion or in a coaching session in front of the group.

Get time to practice and hone your skills

During the retreat there will be live practice and coaching time either in small breakout groups or with the entire group.

This time allows you to get advice and coaching on how you can approach important discussions differently.

Learn new tools

During the retreat, you will learn new tools and approaches to help you change how you interact in conversations with your team.

Changing your approach to conversations will directly change how your team interacts with you.

Learn from our experience

The approaches we teach in this retreat are the same ones we use ourselves when working with our existing clients. That’s how we know it actually works!

Leveraging our real-life experience and knowledge will help accelerate your growth.

Get support from your peers

As you meet other participants in the retreat, you will build new connections and potentially get some support and advice from them based on their experiences.

Sharing and hearing the stories of other participants will help you see how common some of the challenges you are facing actually are.

Thank you to our partners!

We want to thank our partners that are
helping us make this retreat possible!

What Participants Are Saying

The individuals below attended our previous retreats and experienced profound transformations in their leadership journey. Read their full testimonials.

“Questioning myself every day on my impact and the type of leader that I am allows me to make corrections which I did not do in a consistent way in the past.”

Josée, ScrumMaster, IT / Telecom

“I am more attentive and more aware of the impact of my words in my exchanges both professionally as well as in my relationships with the people with whom I am very close.”

Abdoul, Quality Assurance Manager, IT / Telecom

“This leadership retreat was full of leaders willing to look at themselves and share their experiences. Everyone should be able to take advantage of this kind of opportunity!”

Emil, Customer Service Manager, IT / Telecom

“For me, it was a moment to pull myself out of my day to day life to have some deep reflections. You go back to your life and you are not the same.”

Yiwen, ScrumMaster, Banking industry

“I love to do experiences that allow me to discover my blind spots. I was having some difficulties at work and I decided to attend the retreat to try to find some answers.”

Nathalie, Agile Coach, Banking Industry

“We need a place to take a closer look at ourselves and to reflect and think about where we are at in our lives. This retreat is exactly that kind of place.”

Beatrice, Portfolio Manager, IT / Telecom

“When launching ourselves in an experience such as this, there is always a bit of apprehension on what we will say or what other people will think. Steffan really succeeds in giving us a safe space.”

Josée, Scrum Master, participant in leadership retreat

“You go back to your life and you are not the same. I am really lucky to have crossed paths with Steffan in my personal development journey.”

Yiwen, Scrum Master, participant in leadership retreat

Get to know the coach who will be facilitating this program.

Steffan Surdek
Founder of Surdek Solutions

Steffan Surdek is an in-demand consulting principal, leadership development coach and corporate trainer. He has always been driven to expand the notion of leadership to include each member of the team. As a widely recognized consulting principal, Steffan’s work has a strong business impact, helping reshape business cultures and guiding them in becoming more collaborative and efficient. He is the founder of Surdek Solutions, a consulting and training company based in Montreal, Canada.

Steffan has over 1000 hours of experience delivering various training courses and workshops around Agile and Lean practices. He is a trained integral coach that helps people grow and develop themselves through experiential learning as well as through his leadership retreats.

Steffan is a recognized leadership expert that writes about leadership on various websites such as forbes.com, cutter.com and wellness.com among others.