The Huddle: Guarding the craft – Creating safety and leading through chaos

This event is exclusive to Visionary Leader members.

About The Huddle

In this Huddle, we’re focusing on psychological safety and leading through change – two challenges that are deeply connected in practice.

We’ll look at how you create and protect the conditions where your team can speak up, push back and bring ideas – not just execute orders. And we’ll explore how you maintain those conditions when your team is under pressure or facing organisational upheaval.

This session draws on Michael’s experience leading creative teams over fifteen years of sustained growth and change, plus advisory work with global brands facing similar challenges.

You’ll leave with practical approaches you can use immediately and concrete next steps to take back to your team.

About the Huddle

Our Huddle sessions offer our Visionary Leaders the opportunity to learn, share and connect. Building on the friendly, collaborative spirit of our much-loved Breakfast Club, each Huddle brings together in-house creative leaders for focused learning, open conversation and genuine connection.

Benefits of Attending

This Huddle gives you the chance to work on a challenge you’re probably living with every day – but rarely get dedicated time to think about properly.

In one focused hour, we’ll look at how psychological safety and leading through change are connected, what signals to watch for in your team, and a few practical things you can try. You’ll also hear how other in-house creative leaders are tackling similar challenges, under Chatham House rules.

You’ll leave with a clearer perspective on what’s happening in your team plus some concrete next steps – not a complete toolkit, but enough to start making a difference.

We can’t wait to see you in the room.

About Michael Storey

Michael has spent much of his career leading in-house creative teams, scaling them and keeping them effective as organisations grow more complex. More recently, he’s worked with global brands as an advisor and consultant, which means he’s seen the same challenges play out across multiple organisations. He knows what works in practice and what separates teams that cope from teams that thrive. He’s also a trained coach, which informs how he develops teams and individuals – focusing on culture, growth and sustained performance, not just output.

If you want someone who’s done the job at scale, understands the structural challenges beneath the surface symptoms, and will give you practical approaches that work within real constraints, this is worth your time.