Emotional Leadership

Redefine leadership. Rewire your inner world.
Reclaim your power.

A transformational, trauma-informed 11-month container for black sheep, pattern-breakers, and mission-led humans who are ready to embody a whole new depth grounded in transparency, integrity, strength, and advanced awareness of self and others.

 

You’ve never believed life has to look the way they told you.

That your work, relationships, or purpose have to follow the rules everyone else lives by.

You care deeply.
You see what others ignore.
You’ve questioned the cultural programming, the unspoken rules, and the rigid expectations handed to you your whole life — knowing there has to be a better way.

There’s a part of you that knows you didn’t come here just to play small for the sake of fitting in.

But fighting the tide of the way life is done in your family, in your industry, in society?

It’s draining you.

You feel driven to break the mold, but being the one to rewrite the rules, do your deep inner work, and challenge and question all the ways you were told to be and do in work, in relationships, and inside of yourself is hard – and while you might have spent your whole life doing it alone, you’re ready to do this work inside a community who actually gets it, with tools that help you navigate what no one ever taught you.

Emotional Leadership gives you
the new way you’ve been craving.

This is where we do leadership differently.

Where emotional depth meets grounded self-responsibility.

Where you stop performing and start embodying.

Where standing at the front of the room becomes a practice of real connection—with yourself, your people, and your power.

It’s not about being more polished, more perfect, more professional.

It’s about becoming more you—and understanding how to hold your ground, your values, and your self-respect when shit gets hard.

Because leadership isn’t about power over. It’s about relationships.

And you can’t lead others if you’re disconnected from yourself.

Leadership that’s… Emotional?

Most of us were never taught how to be with our emotions.

We weren’t taught to hold ourselves.

Let alone lead ourselves.

 

We were told to keep it together.

 

To get back to work, to act like everything’s fine—even when it wasn’t anywhere near “fine.”

We were praised for being strong, independent, high-achieving…

And punished—subtly or directly—any time we showed softness, truth, or need.

We were taught to fake it until it looked like success.

But what if leadership didn’t mean faking anything?

 

What if it meant becoming someone you actually trust and admire?

Someone you would love to be in relationship with, work with, be led by?

What if being fully human, in your mess and your brilliance, in your unpolished perfection, made you a better, made you a more powerful, more inspirational, and more effective leader in all areas of your life?

 

In Emotional Leadership, you’ll learn how to:

 
 

Understand…

your emotional patterns — and work with them, not against them.

Navigate…

rupture, rejection, and feedback without collapse or self-abandonment.

Lead…

with clarity, connection, and grounded confidence — in business, relationships, and life

Create…

a secure attachment to self that doesn’t crumble in the face of conflict or chaos.

 

Hold Boundaries…

and compassion at the same time — learning how to say the hard thing without guilt, hear the hard thing without freezing, and how to stay human in the mess.

Move…

through power dynamics and relational roles with maturity, sovereignty, and self-responsibility.

Discern…

the difference between your capacity and your capability — and lead in ways that honor both.

Bring Awareness…

to subconscious strategies and survival agendas shaping your behavior — and start making conscious, aligned choices instead.

Building an aligned life doesn’t come with a manual.

The job of a leader is to write your own.

         And once you do?         

You start living in a way that reflects what you actually value — not what you were taught to chase.

What Clients Have Said

Emotional Leadership is the clearest mirror you’ve ever looked into.

It’s where you finally see every way you’ve been shooting yourself in the foot and slowing yourself down
and shift it.

  • Where the patterns that used to run your life — such as overgiving, repressing, pushing through, collapsing, self-sabotaging, performing, shrinking, being endlessly critical of yourself and/others — start to lose their grip.

  • Where you stop fearing the depths of your emotions — and start recognizing them as tools, not threats.

  • Where you stop leaving your body, biting your tongue, or pushing past your limits — and learn how to stay with, honor, and express yourself, whatever the circumstances, no matter how intense life gets.

 
  • Where self-trust becomes real, not just a concept — because you’ve seen what you can hold, you know how you’ll respond, and you can finally hear yourself.

  • Where internal shame and blame fade away — and your healthiest most mature voice gets to step to the front as a guiding force in how you view yourself, others, and the world.

  • Where you stop concentrating on what’s wrong with you (or others) — and start focusing on what you desire, what health and stability look like for you, and your own ability to create the environment where you (and others) can thrive.

 

This work builds the kind of emotional resilience that makes discomfort a welcome experience—because discomfort doesn’t shake you anymore, it’s just a sign you’re growing.

It’s a lot of work. Ruthless self-honesty. 

It’s not therapy. It’s not coaching as you’ve known it.

It’s a whole new way of relating—to yourself, your work, your people, your life.

It’s not about being less emotional. It’s about learning how to hold your emotions without being ruled by them.

You’ll learn to recognize your patterns.

Stop spiraling.

Take full responsibility for how you show up—and what you pass on.

The family patterns you keep seeing playing out that lead to disconnection and dissatisfaction? 

The cycles of avoidance, of fearing disappointment, discomfort, and failure? 

The fuckery of constantly questioning if you’re enough, or too much, if you have worth and value, if your presence matters?

It all ends with you, stepping into your leadership in a new way.

Who is Emotional Leadership For?

 

People with big dreams, big desires, who want BIG lives and/or businesses — who want more than what their parents or grandparents had, and more than the lives they see their old classmates settling for.

Relentless truth-seekers. Lifelong learners. The ones who always want to go deeper — who know it’s never really “enough,” because they’re not here to live on the surface.

Pattern breakers who grew up in households where emotions, trauma, communication, and boundaries were never taught — and who are now realizing how deeply that’s impacted their ability to forge the path they truly want to walk.

People stuck in painful patterns they know are self-sabotage — but can’t seem to stop — and who are so sick of the cycle, even if they don’t fully believe change is possible.

People committed to figuring out what’s going on internally — what’s underneath the repeated patterns in their life and business — and who are ready to face them, shift them,  and change their story.

People who’ve either been afraid to step to the front of the room — uncomfortable being seen, being in charge, or owning their brilliance — or who’ve learned to lead from control and certainty, but feel exposed when asked to share what’s real — and who are ready for a way of leading that feels honest, regulated, and whole.

And who is it Not For?

Emotional Leadership is not for people who:

Don’t believe it’s possible to feel in control of themselves, their lives, or their destiny — and who aren’t willing to accept that real control requires letting go of control mechanisms, judgment, blame, and defense, and learning to build true safety inside themselves.

Aren’t willing to drop into deep transparency and vulnerability — to share their heartbreak, their pain, their struggles, even when those struggles are still messy and unresolved. 

Don’t want to do the wildly uncomfortable work of letting people they lead (or love) see them cry, struggle, or be imperfect — whether that’s in business, in parenting, in partnership, or in friendship.

Aren’t willing to give up playing the victim. Who would rather stay in the loop of blame, self-sacrifice, or martyrdom than take radical responsibility for leading themselves.

Aren’t interested in learning how to show up for themselves and their lives with maturity, sovereignty, and compassion — who want to lead others without first learning to parent and guide themselves.

Aren’t deeply drawn to being seen, to being heard, or to having a real, lasting impact on the world around them.

What Clients Have Said

This is the work where everything starts to change.

It rewires you.
Repatterns you.
Reparents you.

Reminds you that nothing about you is too much.

It gives you back the power you didn’t even know you were missing.

It’s where you go from...

 

Not using your voice…

to confidently using your voice and sharing your thoughts, opinions, and stories, knowing that what you have to say matters.


Shutting up and taking it in your relationships…

to naming what’s happening, holding discomfort and uncertainty with grace, and repairing what matters.


Feeling like you’re boring…

to dancing naked on a burning log on a Mexican beach


Telling everyone your life is great while secretly working till 8pm and drinking multiple glasses of wine every night to get through…

to taking a Tuesday afternoon off because you feel like it, and prioritizing connections with others


Burning bridges the moment someone can’t hold you…

to holding your ground, staying present to your values and trusting yourself to respond — instead of shutting down or blowing up.


Feeling like you’re just play-pretending at being an adult…

to actually trusting yourself to embody the emotionally grounded grown-up you know you can be.


Shrinking, reacting, or blaming when things get hard…

to staying steady, taking ownership, and responding with clarity — even under pressure.


Dodging responsibility or waiting for someone else to save you…

to being your own white knight — stepping in with self-trust and leading from your values, not your fear.

Leadership isn’t just how you show up at work. It’s how you show up in relationship.

With your clients. Your team. Your kids. Your community. Your partner. Yourself.

It’s the invisible thread running through every single connection you have.

And most of us were never taught how to lead in a way that honors both ourselves and the people we care about.

Because we were raised inside a leadership paradigm that’s broken — one rooted in fear, control, and hierarchy.

One that confuses dominance with strength, and repression with professionalism.

Here’s What That Old Paradigm Looks Like…

  • Nothing is ever your fault — or if you secretly think it might be, you keep that inside, because admitting it is weakness and makes you a target.

  • Command respect. Admit no weakness. Pretend you have it all together. Never say you don’t know what you’re doing — someone else might take your place.

  • When someone asks how you’re doing, you say fine. You lie if you’re not. You say things are good — or at most, “a little stressed” — and complain about others not doing their jobs. But you never actually say how you are. They don’t want to know. And truthfully? You don’t want to know how they are either. There’s work to do.

  • If you can’t be the best, pretend you’re the best. Never admit otherwise. 

  • Your job is to predict what might happen, control everything possible, and never let anything catch you by surprise.

  • To stand out, be the loudest voice in the room. If you’re not loud, bold, or “charismatic,” you’re not a real leader. Leadership is LOUD. There’s no such thing as quiet leadership, soft leadership, or — god forbid — emotional leadership. That’s vulnerable. That’s weak.

  • Hierarchy is everything. Your team works for you. You work for someone else. Your worth is determined by your position on the ladder, and power over is the name of the game. Your job? Keep climbing.

  • If someone harms you, you are expected to get over it and never bring it up again. You apologize. They don’t.

  • Your worth is dependent on your doing. Hit your goals. Exceed expectations. Focus on outcomes – in life, in business, what matters is achievement.

  • Power is centralized: one person in power, everyone else out of it.

And what it means to choose something radically different:

The New Paradigm of Leadership

 

There’s no such thing as urgency, and it’s always okay to ask for time and space in the process. 

There’s an embodied awareness of the difference between responding and reacting, and a dedicated practice to slow down and limit reactivity. 

Leaders lead from the front, and don’t ask anything of others they wouldn’t do themselves first, and in front of those they lead.

Emotions aren’t suppressed — but they don’t run the show either. Everyone is encouraged to own their emotions and show up fully, while honoring the roles they’ve chosen to hold.

Your value and worth? It’s in your being, not your doing.

The journey is as important (or more so) than the outcome, and the lessons that come in the process of the goal help make the goal worthwhile, even if it’s not achieved.

 

No hierarchy — hierarchy is replaced with a deep understanding of the role you are embodying at any one time. Different responsibilities, shared humanity.

Each person holds sovereignty. Each person is self-responsible. We rise above victim/perpetrator/savior dynamics and meet as equals — even when one person holds more responsibility in the moment.

A continuous and dedicated practice of self-awareness and radical responsibility. You look at your own patterns first. You ask: What am I bringing to this dynamic? What’s mine to own? How can I do better?

When you mess up, you take responsibility for the impact. You apologize. You repair. But you don’t throw yourself under the bus just because someone says you did something wrong. You do the work. You sit with it. You come back with what’s true for you. You engage in collaborative repair — because everyone has something to own.

Ready to shift into leading from clarity, not control?

Emotional Leadership isn't just about communication skills, self-awareness, or nervous system tools.

 

It’s about your whole life — the intersection of how you lead, how you relate, and how you exist. It includes spiritual grounding, energetic clarity, and the kind of presence that changes everything you touch.

It’s the difference between wishing you could show up differently — and actually doing it, again and again.

This program offers both the deep teachings and the structured space to actually embody them. Over our year together, you’ll not only learn the skills of emotional mastery and advanced leadership — you’ll have consistent support to practice, refine, and apply them in real time. 

This is where secure attachment stops being a concept and becomes your lived reality.

You'll build the capacity to move through life, business, and relationships with steadiness, clarity, and self-trust—even when things get messy. With advanced tools in emotional regulation, conflict repair, and self-leadership, you’ll stop defaulting to old patterns and start responding from your most grounded self.

The curriculum is robust, the container is supportive, and the results are lasting.

This is a rich, deep experiential & training program specifically formulated to stretch you, but also to hold you in the stretch.

You’ll be guided through layered teachings, small group sessions, and coaching designed to help you live what you’re learning — in real time, in real life.

 You’ll move through a structured model: learn a concept, embody it through a specific skill, practice it in real time, and integrate through coaching and reflection.

Add in the two in person retreats, and you have a powerful multi-layered approach to learning and integration that creates lasting change.

Regular integration periods are built in to help you embody what you’ve learned, as well as several layers of community interaction and support to help you deepen the teaching, connect with others who are speaking your language, and help build relationships that can last a lifetime.

Logistics: Emotional Leadership At A Glance

Call Times


TUESDAY 2 - 3:30PM MST

THURSDAY 2 - 3:30PM MST

Call times and duration are the same every week - 90 minutes, twice weekly. Calls include skills training, group coaching, concept teaching, and workshops throughout the duration of the 11 month program. You will have weeks off for integration scheduled at various intervals throughout the program.


Topics & Skills

Over the course of 11 months, you’ll move through a carefully sequenced arc designed to deepen your self-awareness and transform how you show up in the world.

You’ll learn foundational concepts that help you understand the parts, patterns, and strategies that shape your behavior — and what gets in the way of living and leading as the person you want to be. From there, you’ll begin practicing how to embody those shifts in real time.

(Click to expand each concept below to learn more)

In-Person Retreats

The Emotional Leadership retreats are where everything integrates, expands, and lands — in your body, in your nervous system, and in your leadership.

These are the moments that shift you from knowing the work to becoming it. The place where community becomes family. Where real transformation takes root in facilitated exercises, embodied practice, and the power of being fully seen.

You’ll step away from your daily life and drop into a deeply immersive experience — supported, challenged, stretched, and held in real time.

There are two in-person retreats planned for this program:


1) IN-PERSON: August 1st- 4th, 2025
Gore, Virginia

Across four immersive days, we’ll explore how you process, how you lead, and how you relate — not just in your mind, but through your full nervous system. You’ll work with tools like somatic tracking, emotional mindset practice, and energetic awareness to understand your patterns on a whole new level.

We’ll move through guided embodiment work, experiential group exercises, and deep connection that brings the online experience into full, grounded presence.

Some meals are included, students book their own accommodations or pay a lodging fee to stay on site.

 

2) IN-PERSON: End of March / Beginning of April 2026

| Stunning property in Mexico. Exact location to be released soon

The second retreat marks the integration point of your Emotional Leadership journey.
After months of practicing the work in your daily life, this is where it all comes together. Through facilitated group experiences, personal reflection, and embodiment-based exploration, you’ll solidify what you’ve learned — and who you’ve become.

This retreat is designed to feel like a celebration and a return to center. A chance to reflect, connect, and step forward with more clarity, self-trust, and truth than ever before.

Some meals are included, students book their own accommodations or pay a lodging fee to stay on site.


Meet Your Facilitators

Jen Underwood

Jen is an ex-therapist turned facilitator and coach. She combines her extensive training and real-life experience in life and business to deliver firm but gentle mentorship that is always based in love and compassion — with a solid backbone of truth.

Jen is a trauma-trained specialist, and has spent over a decade working with some of the most traumatized people on the planet.

Now, in Emotional Leadership, she uses this on the ground experience and her wide range of professional and academic trainings, including a double Masters in Science in Clinical Counseling and Addiction Studies, years of advanced PhD coursework in Leadership, and a Coaching Certification in Somatic Coaching & Leadership, to offer dynamic teachings of concepts and skills and hold students in the process of doing their own development and leadership work.

The thing she cares the most about is helping others to help others while not causing suffering to themselves in the process - something that she had to learn how to do herself.

She lives in Denver, Colorado with her teenager daughter, and when she’s not teaching and coaching, is an active writer and speaker, always continuing to further develop her own leadership and learning.

Tim DeSutter

Tim DeSutter brings over 25 years of experience in trauma-informed work, vibrational medicine, and deep emotional integration into every space he leads. He’s a master coach and mentor who specializes in helping leaders, coaches, and facilitators break through old patterns, expand their emotional capacity, and reconnect to the truth of who they are.

Before this work, Tim led high-performing teams in a Fortune 100 company. He knows the pressure of leadership from the inside—and the cost of performing strength instead of embodying it. Since leaving corporate in 2014, he’s built a global practice helping people come back into alignment, power, and integrity—not through hustle or hierarchy, but through awareness, truth-telling, and real inner change.

Tim’s approach is grounded, relational, and deeply energetic. He brings a unique lens to this work—bridging nervous system awareness, energetic patterning, and emotional intelligence into one integrated path. He has a gift for tracking what’s really going on beneath the surface, and for holding space that feels both deeply safe and profoundly activating.

In Emotional Leadership, Tim helps students tune into the vibrational roots of their patterns, clear what no longer serves, and lead from the kind of inner steadiness that can’t be faked.

He believes leadership isn’t something you perform. It’s something you embody—moment to moment, breath by breath, in how you show up for yourself, your work, and the people you care about.

What Clients Have Said…

The people who are meant to be in your life?

 

They want to meet the real you — not the curated, polished, always-okay version. They can handle your depth, your edges, your bigness, your imperfections.

The opportunities that match your gifts? 

They’re already circling. But they need the full-frequency version of you — the one who’s done hiding, done pretending, done waiting.

The life you want isn’t waiting for some perfect version of you to arrive.

It’s waiting for the real you to show up and say yes.

Emotional Leadership

Our next cohort begins in 2026.


Join the waitlist to be the first to know when enrollment opens again.


Still Considering?

When you build emotional resilience, the hard parts of being human stop taking you out.

You stop spinning in freeze, fawn, or avoidance—and start stepping forward with clarity, strength, and self-trust.

You start to build secure attachment: a way of relating to yourself and others that doesn’t dissolve in the face of discomfort, rupture, or rejection. You don’t need to chase people for validation or isolate to protect yourself. You can stay with yourself — and stay in connection with others, with your work and with your responsibilities — at the same time.

From there, you can have the conversations you’ve been avoiding.

Lead the rooms you thought you weren’t ready for.

Show up as the version of you who doesn’t just dream of more— 

but has the internal resilience to pursue more.

 

The most powerful tool you can build is the ability to hold your fear and discomfort— and keep taking steady steps forward anyway.

Discomfort shouldn’t be a stop sign.

It’s proof that you’re in motion.

And when you stop resisting the hard stuff and start moving through it?

That’s when everything accelerates.

            Frequently Asked Questions            

(Click to expand to read the answers)



Still have questions, or not sure if this is right for you?

Reach out to me via email at jen@jenunderwoodleadership.com, or send me message me on Facebook or Instagram.