Women who lead out loud: reimagining leadership from a growth mindset and psychological safety lens

Think of a time you held back an idea in a meeting, and a time you decided to speak up. What made the difference? This workshop starts with that question, and with the belief that leading out loud is a skill we can all keep growing.

We will begin by exploring the beliefs we carry about leadership and how they shape what we dare to try. With the mindset continuum, each participant will discover where their thinking sits today across different leadership situations, and see how much room there is to grow. Then, through a game-based design, we will reflect on our own mindsets and learn from the way other women think about moments leaders face, such as receiving feedback, making mistakes, handling pressure, and taking on challenges we have not mastered yet. We will also explore psychological safety and how we can build spaces where we, and the people we lead, feel free to speak up, take risks, and grow. We will close by connecting both ideas to our own leadership stories and leaving with concrete ideas to reimagine our leadership as women.

María Luisa Ramírez has held leadership positions in both the nonprofit and private sectors for the past twelve years. She holds a degree in psychology from Fundación Universitaria Konrad Lorenz and a Master's degree in International Studies from Universidad de Los Andes. She is passionate about training leaders and teams in areas related to leadership skills development, strategic thinking, and psychological science, with a special focus on creating organizational cultures based on psychological safety. In 2019, she received a Presidential Citation from the American Psychological Association (APA) in recognition of her outstanding contributions to international psychology. In 2024, she published an article in the Handbook of International Psychology, a collaborative work with contributions from over eighty countries. That same year, she wrote an article in the journal Humanitarian Exchange on cultivating psychological safety. She currently lives in Washington, D.C., and runs her own consulting firm, MLR Consultants, which supports organizational processes based on the principles of applied psychology. It also supports the strategic process of an NGO in Colombia, GENFAMI, dedicated to social transformation through approaches based on human rights, gender and mental health support.

Martha Ramírez is an educator, researcher, and consultant with over 20 years of experience. Since 2018, her research has focused on the impact of a growth mindset on learning and professional development. She collaborates with educational institutions and companies to promote mindset-based transformation processes in both academic and corporate contexts. As an adjunct professor at the Universidad de Los Andes, she has led innovative projects that integrate a growth mindset into teaching, teacher training, and educational leadership. In the business sector, her work explores how mindset influences communication, decision-making, and organizational culture, strengthening resilience, effective communication, and teamwork. A specialist in instructional strategies, she has pioneered the application of the In-Class Flip methodology in diverse learning environments. She is the co-author of the book In-Class Flip: A Student-Centered Approach to Differentiated Learning (ISTE) and is recognized for designing active and differentiated learning experiences. She is also a co-author of the Mindset Revolution Handbook for Educators (2024), an open-access publication developed in collaboration with OSUN, Bard College, and Universidad de Los Andes.

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