LGDA Online event: Leadership - Cost and Resilience by Klao Bell-Lewis

Leadership – Cost and Resilience

Date: 18 November 2026

Time: 18:00 – 19:30 CET

Format: Online via Microsoft Teams

Language: English

PDU: 1 PDU available

Organized by: PMI Germany Chapter – Local Group Darmstadt

Contact: LGDarmstadt@pmi-gc.de

The Emotional Price of Leadership and How EQ Builds Sustainable Resilience

Leadership involves taking calculated risks, making tough calls, and absorbing high-stakes pressure—carrying a heavy personal and emotional toll. While organizations often focus strictly on technical and strategic deliverables, leaders frequently face the hidden "emotional cost" of leadership: burnout, isolation, empathy fatigue, and the strain of navigating crisis and change.

In this webinar, Klao Bell-Lewis, MA, PMP draws on her extensive 20-year career spanning strategic leadership, crisis communication, and project management in the financial and development sectors to explore the psychological realities of modern leadership. This session examines how high emotional intelligence (EQ) serves as the ultimate risk-management tool, helping leaders safeguard their well-being, navigate vulnerability, and lead with empathy without sacrificing strength or team trust.

Drawing from her global experience leading high-impact teams across complex sectors—including her roles as Head of Corporate Communications at the Caribbean Development Bank, Manager of Public Relations and Corporate Affairs at Scotiabank Jamaica, and Communication and Social Impact Manager at CEMEX Jamaica—Klao shares real-world insights on maintaining steady leadership presence during high-pressure disruptions.

Participants will discover why traditional leadership models that ignore emotional toll fail, how emotional intelligence creates sustainable resilience, and how leaders can protect their teams' morale while successfully steering through uncertainty.
What Participants Will Learn:

-Navigating the Emotional Toll of Leadership: Understand the psychological and emotional risks leaders face when absorbing stress, managing crises, and carrying organizational pressure.

-Leveraging EQ for Risk Management: Learn how high emotional intelligence improves decision-making under uncertainty by helping leaders read emotional currents within teams.

-Managing Empathy Burnout: Discover boundaries and self-care strategies to lead with high empathy without absorbing secondary trauma or burning out.

-Building Trust Through Vulnerability: Explore how acknowledging risks and emotional realities authentically builds psychological safety and stronger team loyalty.

-Fostering Emotional Resilience: Develop personal coping mechanisms and cognitive reframing techniques to bounce back from setbacks, failures, and high-pressure conflicts.

Value Participants Will Gain

Participants will leave with a practical roadmap for recognizing and managing the emotional cost of leadership. They will gain actionable EQ tools to strengthen personal resilience, prevent burnout, lead through crises with authenticity, and cultivate supportive, high-performing organizational cultures.

About the Speaker

Klao Bell-Lewis, MA, PMP has more than 20 years of experience in strategic communication, stakeholder engagement, project management, crisis communication, and social impact. She has led communications teams in both the financial and development sectors, designing and executing high-impact programs.

Klao’s career spans the financial, manufacturing, and development sectors, including serving as Head of Corporate Communications at the Caribbean Development Bank (managing communication projects across twenty-six member countries), Manager of Public Relations and Corporate Affairs at Scotiabank Jamaica, and Communication and Social Impact Manager at CEMEX Jamaica. She has also served as a communications and project management consultant, advising companies in the financial and manufacturing sectors, as well as public sector agencies in several Caribbean countries.

A certified Project Management Professional (PMP) and Chartered Public Relations Practitioner (Chart PR), she holds a master’s degree in international public relations from Cardiff University, which she attended as a Chevening Scholar. She is a member of the Project Management Institute’s Germany Chapter and sits on the International Committee of the UK-based Chartered Institute of Public Relations.