Join us for the second webinar in the Leadership Unfolded series, a collaborative initiative by WATTLE and Women-Space, designed to support and elevate women leaders in Australian higher education.
This session will explore the often-unspoken realities of senior leadership – dealing with the fallout from unpopular decisions, navigating incivility and bullying in the workplace, managing the emotional toll of complex environments, and staying aligned with personal values under pressure. Our speakers will share candid reflections and practical strategies for leading with confidence, emotional intelligence, and resilience.
About Women-Space:
Women-Space provides high-impact support for women working in universities. We specialise in executive leadership development, growth strategies, and personalised mentoring for women navigating transitions, challenges, and career pivots. Whether you’re seeking strategic support, transition coaching, or aiming to sustain your values in complex environments, our approach offers clarity, emotional intelligence, and confidence.
About WATTLE:
WATTLE (Women ATTaining LEadership) is a leadership initiative for senior women in the Australian higher education sector. Designed by leaders in the sector for leaders within it, WATTLE supports women stepping into and growing within senior roles across academia.
This is a space for honest reflection, connection, and growth – crafted for women at the forefront of leadership in academia.
Leadership Unfolded: “The Emotional Baggage of Leadership “
DATE: 15 August 2025, Friday
TIME: 9:00 AM – 10:00AM AEST
Via: Microsoft Teams
Registrations now open. Be part of the conversation.
Speakers
Professor Lynn Bosetti
University of British Columbia (Lynn Bosetti | LinkedIn)
Professor, Education Policy and Leadership, Faculty of Education | Okanagan School of Education, The University of British Columbia
Dr. Lynn Bosetti brings both personal insight and scholarly depth to the emotional realities of leadership in academia. As a former dean in Canada and Australia, Lynn has led through turbulent institutional change, often while confronting cultures of incivility, isolation, and institutional betrayal. Her research explores the hidden emotional labour of leadership—particularly for women—and the toll it takes in spaces shaped by competition, silence, and performativity. She writes and speaks candidly about burnout, hope, and the cost of caring in systems that often resist it. Lynn is committed to fostering more humane academic cultures where women leaders can lead authentically, without losing themselves in the process.
Dr Vicki Webster
Incisive Leaders (Vicki Webster | LinkedIn)
Founder and Director, Incisive Leaders, and Adjunct Research Fellow, WOW, Griffith Business School.
Vicki is an organisational psychologist, leadership specialist, coach, pracademic and author, who works with leaders to help them lead at their best, to leverage their strengths and let go of mindsets or behaviours that are no longer serving them well. Many of her female clients struggle with the authenticity paradox, how to be true to themselves, manage the ‘emotional baggage of leadership’ and still meet the expectations of their organisation. Vicki also coaches teams to help them find ways to improve their team functioning and dynamics, taking into account the political and cultural context within which they work. In her latest venture, Serendipity Thought Leaders, she is offering the space for women leaders to take time out for themselves, to come together to explore ideas, make connections and have interesting, thought-provoking conversations.
Vicki’s research PhD was on the The Dark Side of Leadership and Its Impact on Followers. Her publications include: Destructive leadership in the workplace & its consequences. Translating theory & research into evidence-based practice, Sage Swifts, co-authored with Professor Paula Brough; Fight, Flight or Freeze: Common Responses for Follower Coping with Toxic Leadership in Stress and Health journal; Toxic Boss at Work in The Conversation; and co-author of How to Get Ahead without Murdering Your Boss. Six simple steps to actively manage your career.
Facilitated by:
Dr. Naomi Dempsey
La Trobe University (Naomi Dempsey, PhD | LinkedIn)
Pro Vice-Chancellor (Student Experience and Employability), La Trobe University
Naomi is an accomplished executive educational leader with over 25 years of experience in tertiary education. Naomi is the Pro Vice-Chancellor of Student Experience & Employability at La Trobe University and was the former Interim Deputy Provost of Students & Academic Services, Pro Vice-Chancellor of Students, and Chief Student Officer at Victoria University. Naomi has also held executive roles in the vocational education sector within Registered Training Organisations, TAFE and Australian Apprenticeship Centres. She is an Associate with Women-Space supporting the global development and progress of women who work in higher education.
Naomi’s expertise in tertiary education spans enhancements to student learning and success, student equity, innovation in service delivery and digital technologies, and organisational capability. She has a proven track record conceptualising and leading innovative strategies that solve problems in complex environments and build organisational capability and sustainability.
She was awarded the tertiary education sector’s LH Martin Institute Award for Excellence in Leadership (ATEM, 2019), recognising her achievements in delivering innovative strategies that improved the student experience for an Australian dual-sector university.
Naomi holds a Doctor of Philosophy and a Master of Education. Her PhD research examined a new educational model in Australian higher education focused on first-year student success, curriculum redesign and block mode learning and teaching to determine the influences of that institutional change on student outcomes across multiple academic disciplines and student equity groups.
Naomi’s personal education journey was neither linear nor traditional – a winding road from a Certificate III traineeship as a school-leaver to a mature-aged university student with an ambitious goal to achieve a PhD. This lived experience motivates her work in education and the contribution she makes to the education sector for students to have improved access, opportunities and experiences.