Sara Ross

Leadership has always been demanding, but in today’s reality—where AI is accelerating change, complexity compounds, expectations rise as energy falls—leadership feels like a pressure cooker of competing demands. These circumstances aren’t temporary, they are trademarks of todays workplace, so the question isn’t how to overcome them, it’s how to sustainably thrive within them?

Drawing on more than 15 years of hands-on work developing and advising leaders, and a multi-year study on workplace vitality resulting in her bestselling book, 'Dear Work, Something Has to Change,' Sara Ross introduces LeadFULL™—a science-backed leadership approach to vitality-fueling excellence. Instead of teaching leaders how to stretch themselves thinner with more coping strategies, LeadFULL™ shifts the focus from managing effort to managing state—because capacity, not endurance, is the new currency of sustainable high-performance.

This keynote focuses on the ‘Lasting’ pillar of the LeadFULL model. When leaders operate from the Vitality State, high performance isn't just sustainable; it becomes an energizing force that makes work engaging, relationships enriching, and life fulfilling, creating a ripple effect of thriving across teams and throughout organizations for lasting impact.

THIS KEYNOTE IS BEST FOR EXECUTIVES, PEOPLE LEADERS, AND FAST GROWTH ORGANIZATIONS WHO:

•Find that despite their best intentions, hard work and impressive skill sets, are caught in an exhausting cycle of reactivity and diminishing returns.
•Strive for new heights in their careers but feel caught in sacrifice-based trade-offs with an increasing impact on their health, happiness, or relationships.
•Are looking for insights to create sustainable high performing cultures and practical strategies to prioritize well-being for themselves and their team without compromising performance.
•Feel disconnected from the spark that once motivated them and want to bring more purpose, passion and meaningful impact back into their work and lives.

AUDIENCES WILL LEAVE ABLE TO:

•Understand why the foundation of sustainable high performance starts from within—learn how shifting to the Vitality Operating state expands capacity to meet rising complexity with energy, resilience, and confidence.
•Stop firefighting and start amplifying vitality through their teams with three simple empowerment questions to extend ownership of problem-solving, deepen empathy, and multiply capability.
•Recognize the common misconceptions that cause approaches to energy management, work-life balance, and workplace well-being programs to undermine the very things they aim to enhance—and understand what actually works.
•Shift out of ‘right time’ thinking and apply the 20% Principle™ to integrate energy-generating practices real time to reignite a sense of aliveness, rest without guilt, and enjoy the life they are working so hard to create.

In a world where AI is transforming how we work, a counterintuitive truth is emerging: despite the focus on technology, an organization’s greatest competitive advantage isn’t AI; it’s human potential. Today, human-centered skills are critical for succeeding in an increasingly complex world where organizations are fiercely competing to leverage AI’s potential while attracting and retaining top talent.

Yet, potential doesn’t unlock itself. Organizations don’t just need talented people—they need leaders that unify talents and transforms them into collective excellence. Lead FULL™—a vitality-fueling approach to human-centered excellence developed by Sara Ross—provides the blueprint for just that.

This keynote is built on data from over 10,000 survey responses to what brings the best out in others and 15 years of research and leadership work in emotional intelligence, well being and culture. In it, Sara Ross focuses on three transformative human-centered leadership insights that fuel collective excellence—accountability, empathy, and vitality. Grounded in the Unifying pillar of the Lead FULL™ model, Sara helps leader brings out the best in themselves and others.

THIS KEYNOTE IS BEST FOR EXECUTIVES, PEOPLE LEADERS, AND CROSS-FUNCTIONAL TEAMS WHO:

•Face compounding pressures—AI transformations, organizational shifts, rising customer demands, and critical talent challenges.
•Excel technically but recognize the need for deeper levels of emotional intelligence to generate next level results through and along side others.
•Aim to transform siloed, exhausted or disengaged colleagues and teams into high performing collaborative powerhouses—in-person and virtually.
•Seek practical strategies to elevate their leadership impact and overcome the invisible barriers holding them and their teams back.

AUDIENCES WILL LEAVE ABLE TO USE THE LEADFULL APPROACH TO:

•Use behavioral science-backed insights to build high-trust environments where people feel valued, connected, and empowered to courageously challenge themselves and their perspectives to stay innovative in an AI-accelerated world.
•Recognize that bringing out the best in others starts with leading by example—apply a personal accountability framework to strengthen self-awareness, harness energy, and activate curiosity for deeper engagement and impact.
•Expand their understanding of empathy—demonstrating it’s not about lowering expectations, but about knowing what lifts and blocks performance and using it to foster collaboration across teams and functions.
•Leverage their leadership influence to shape a vitality-fueled culture where people feel energized, engaged, and equipped to sustain performance in today’s ‘always-on’ world.

In today's dynamic world, there are two human operating states from which we can approach change: the Scarcity State, where we're reactive, stressed out, frustrated and change-fatigued, or the Vitality State, where we're strategic, energized, resilient and future-ready. With research suggesting the average organization has undergone five enterprise changes in the past three years—and 73% expecting more ahead—leading change from the Vitality State isn't just an option, it's a competitive advantage.

This keynote is grounded in the ‘Future-Ready’ pillar of Sara Ross’s LeadFULL™ model—a vitality-fueling approach to human-centered excellence. Drawing on fifteen years of experience researching, coaching and advising leaders and their organizations through change efforts, Sara shares how operating from the Vitality State transforms resilience from a reactive tactic called upon in moments of crisis—to a proactive practice strengthened daily. From here, stress can be converted to a strength that reveals purpose, uncertainty can be a gateway to innovation, and resistance can be shifted into a catalyst for energizing, momentum-creating growth. This is how to stay future-ready in a changing world.

THIS KEYNOTE IS BEST FOR LEADERS AND TEAMS WHO:

•Work in industries facing significant disruption or organizational transformations and see/feel signs of burnout or rampant stress and want to navigate change in healthier, energizing ways.
•Recognize the need to proactively strengthen future-readiness, particularly around AI integration.
•Want to better understand how to embrace change, how to influence buy-in, and overcome resistance.
•Question whether operating from the Vitality-Fueling state means ignoring real challenges, forcing artificial positivity, or lowering the bar of success (it’s quite the opposite).

AUDIENCES WILL LEAVE ABLE TO:

•Apply a Resilience framework to navigate change from the Vitality Operating State—working with the brains default negativity bias to authentically activate a growth-oriented possibility mindset.
•Be more future-ready by leveraging three behavioral science insights to turn stress into meaning-fueled strength, boost uncertainty and discomfort tolerance, harness energy to unlock opportunities.
•Channel the full spectrum of emotions that accompany change—including fear and resistance—into courage catalysts for connection, and collaboration.
•Replace FAUX Resilience beliefs which breed toxic positivity, isolation, and exhaustion with FULL Resilience beliefs, rooted in realistic optimism, community, and well-being.

*This inspiring and interactive keynote can be customized for leaders as well as expanded into a breakout session and up to a half day workshop.

Do you find yourself striving for big goals but running on fumes? Wonder why traditional approaches to work-life balance, stress management, and self-care so often fall short? Feel stuck choosing between professional success or personal well-being, knowing something has to change? In a world where exhaustion is often accepted as the price of success, Sara Ross has the data to prove otherwise.

In a multi-year study exploring our relationship with work through the lens of personal energy management and performance science, Sara uncovered something that challenges conventional advice. While most believe we simply need better strategies to address exhaustion, Sara found that people who thrive with vitality in demanding environments aren't simply working differently—they hold fundamentally different beliefs about how excellence is achieved.

This keynote is based on Sara Ross’s book, “Dear Work” and is grounded in the ‘Liberating’ pillar of her LeadFULL™ model. It confronts the outdated behaviors and beliefs that keep both individuals and organizations trapped in exhaustion-driven narratives of success. Through science-backed strategies, it reveals how to create vitality-fueling workplaces where people stand out, bringing their best forward, without burning out.

THIS KEYNOTE IS BEST FOR MIXED AUDIENCES, CONFERENCE ASSOCIATIONS, SALES AND SERVICE TEAMS WHO:

•Work in fast-paced, high-demand environments and seeing signs of burnout in themselves or those around them.
•Feel disconnected from the spark that once drove them and want to bring more purpose, passion and meaningful impact to the work they do.
•Are losing confidence in themselves with escalating stress and change and want ways to lower stress while boosting, productivity and performance.
•Find the 'always on' work culture where technology has blurred boundaries between work and life has left them struggling to fully disconnect (physically and mentally) and rest in a way that is truly rejuvenating.

AUDIENCES WILL LEAVE ABLE TO:

•Learn to recognize when they are operating from the Scarcity versus Vitality State and master simple shifts to break the burnout cycle, boost happiness and bring their best forward.
•Deliver sustainable performance by breaking free from "success traps" that keep them locked in energy-draining comfort zones.
•Activate a mindset of possibility to transform how they engage with stress and overwhelm converting it to a source of meaning, motivation and momentum for divergent thinking and productive bold action.
•Establish a ‘Rest Ethic’ to generate energy more strategically, disconnect from work more successfully, rest without guilt and use it to experience a deeper sense of aliveness at work and in life.