Evolve or else human-centered leadership: Empowering teams in a digital era

What made someone a great leader in a predominantly face-to-face world isn’t enough to keep them being a great leader in a hybrid world of work. This session explores leadership practices that are essential in today’s technology-driven workplace, focusing on empathy, trust, and empowerment as the cornerstones of successful team dynamics. Attendees will leave with actionable ideas around changing their own approach to leadership, and upskilling other leaders in their organisations – as well as being more able to assess the quality of hybrid leadership in their organisations.

Guest speaker's profile: Gary Cookson

Gary is a father of four and a husband of one, running a successful business, EPIC , in his spare time. He’s an expert on work and workplace performance, with extensive experience leading and directing HR, OD, and L&D functions across all sectors. His clients like working with him as he is authentic, honest, knowledgeable, communicative and people focused, with a broad and deep range of skills and experience – a glance at his prolific social media output will verify this. Gary is a leading expert in the design and delivery of leadership, management, and HR/L&D programmes, as well as an inspiring and entertaining keynote speaker. He has been recognised in the HR Most Influential awards, written for publications worldwide and spoken at global events. His first book, HR for Hybrid Working was published in June 2022 and his second book, Making Hybrid Working Work published in January 2025. He is one of the world’s leading thinkers on hybrid working, and the modern on world of work and is in regular demand with clients and conference organizers worldwide, speaking on these topics plus leadership, management, and various HR/L&D issues.

Please note:

1. Reminder emails will be sent to you the day before, with a further reminder on the day of the event.

2. Photography and video production may be taking place at the event, and these images may be used in the CIPD newsletters.

3. By attending the event, you are giving your consent for your image to be used on any CIPD promotional materials.

4. As we are supplying refreshments, if you can no longer attend, please cancel your place either on Eventbrite, responding to this email.

5. This event may include an external speaker who has prepared their own presentation. Any views or opinions expressed by the speaker are their own and do not reflect those of the CIPD.

6. Please note that refunds for CIPD Non-Member tickets will only be available until 7 days prior to the event, any cancelled tickets after this will not receive a refund.

7. If you require any reasonable adjustments to enhance your experience, please get in contact with us by responding to this email and we will do our best to accommodate.