Brave Space Leadership Conference

We believe leadership becomes more effective, ethical, and inclusive when leaders have the courage to reflect on their experiences, assumptions, and decision-making patterns.

The Brave Space Leadership Conference exists to help leaders develop the self-awareness, emotional intelligence, and relational skills needed to build workplaces and communities where people feel respected, valued, and able to thrive.

We cultivate this kind of leadership by creating immersive learning experiences that combine:

• Arts-based reflection that slows thinking and surfaces hidden assumptions.
• Structured dialogue and storytelling that deepen empathy and understanding.
• Practical leadership tools that strengthen communication, trust, and accountability.
• Guided facilitation that helps participants translate personal insight into professional action.

Through this process, leaders learn how to move from automatic reactions to intentional leadership.

The Brave Space Leadership Conference is a one-day immersive professional development experience where leaders will:

• Engage in interactive workshops and facilitated dialogue.
• Explore art as a catalyst for reflection and leadership insight.
• Learn strategies for navigating conflict, bias, and complex workplace dynamics.
• Strengthen communication and decision-making skills that build trust and inclusion.

Visit the conference website: https://www.mosaiceducationnetwork.com/bslc

Info: Start the day with a shared breakfast and informal check-in time designed to help participants arrive fully, connect with others, and transition from daily demands into a reflective learning space.

Info: The Welcome formally opens the Brave Space Leadership Conference by setting intentions, outlining the day’s flow, and establishing shared community agreements. Participants will be introduced to the Brave Space framework and invited into a learning environment rooted in courage, care, reflection, and collective responsibility.

Info: Dr. Melissa Crum connects emotional validation to workplace culture transformation. Through personal stories, she shows how self-abandonment begins early—and follows us into leadership. At work, it appears as people-pleasing, weak boundaries, silence in the face of misalignment, and chasing approval over purpose. Cultures built on self-abandonment cannot sustain trust or equity. When leaders stop self-abandoning, they stop modeling it—and culture change becomes possible.

Info: This interactive, arts-based session invites participants to explore leadership through music, storytelling, and collective reflection. In this 30-minute workshop, local hip-hop artist Chris Hearns performs an original song centered on bravery, resilience, and overcoming challenges. Participants receive the song’s lyrics and engage in guided table conversations, identifying lines that resonate with their personal leadership journeys. Together, groups unpack themes of courage, rejection, identity, and perseverance—connecting the emotional truths in the music to real workplace dynamics.

Info: Table facilitators lead small group conversations leadership goals over lunch.

Info: This workshop invites leaders into the galleries to examine how identity, assumptions, and everyday leadership practices shape workplace systems and culture. Grounded in Brave Space principles and critical reflection, participants will explore how power, race, gender, and unexamined beliefs become embedded in policies, norms, and behaviors. Leaders will work in small groups with an art educator, using select artworks in the galleries as reflective tools to surface insight, practice accountability, and clarify impact versus intent.

Info: In this powerful keynote, Nona Jones invites leaders to reconsider rejection not as a setback, but as a profound teacher. Drawing from her personal journey, Nona shares how moments that could have derailed her instead became catalysts for purpose, resilience, and leadership clarity. The session will conclude with a live Q&A, offering participants space to engage, reflect, and connect the message to their own leadership journeys.

Info: The conference concludes with a reflective closing and book signing, offering participants space to integrate the day’s insights and honor the collective journey.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Columbus Museum of Art, 480 East Broad Street, Columbus, United States

Concerts, fests, parties, meetups - all the happenings, one place.

Get App