You're Being Asked to Lead Through More Change Than Ever Before.
Artificial intelligence is transforming work, but technology is only part of the story. Priorities continue to shift, decisions must be made with incomplete information, and teams are looking for clarity in an environment defined by uncertainty. Every day, you're being asked to help others navigate change while navigating it yourself.
For years, success was defined by what you knew. Today, your advantage is increasingly determined by how you respond when the path forward isn't obvious—how quickly you adapt, how confidently you make decisions, how effectively you create clarity for others, and how sustainably you perform through pressure and change.
These are the human performance capabilities technology cannot replace—and the focus of the Athleadership Leadership Lab.
As the World Cup concludes on July 19th, the world will celebrate extraordinary moments of performance under pressure. But elite performers understand something most people never learn:
The moment doesn't make you ready. Preparation does.
SHRM Linkage and Athleadership Arena extend that conversation into the workplace—where the lessons of preparation, adaptability, resilience, and performance matter just as much as they do on the field.
THE READINESS GAP (OPTIONAL BUT HELPS GROUND IN DATA)
If you're feeling overwhelmed by the pace of change, you're not alone.
Organizations are investing heavily in technology. Many people still don't feel prepared for the pace of change it creates.
85% of SHRM Executive Network leaders said they are not prepared to lead others through change.
64% of professionals report feeling overwhelmed by how quickly their jobs are evolving.
63% of managers report feeling burned out or disconnected from their role.
As technology becomes more capable, the human side of performance becomes more valuable.
That's the Human Performance Advantage.
The question is no longer whether change is coming.
The question is whether you and your team are prepared for it.
YOUR LEADERSHIP CONDITIONING JOURNEY
Three Sessions. Three Essential Capabilities. One Leadership Advantage.
You'll Walk Away With:
✓ A practical decision framework for cutting through competing priorities and making better decisions when everything feels urgent
✓ A 60-second pressure reset you cna use before any high-stakes moment
✓ Clear understanding of the Athleadership Core 4 and the human performance capabilities that create advantage in an AI era
✓ A personal leadership conditioning roadmap with practical habits and practices to help you—and the people you lead—become more prepared for change, pressure, and uncertainty
✓ Your first rep in the Athleadership Leadership Condition system
Plus: An Exclusive First Look
You'll be among the first to see how leaders and teams are translating insight into action through Athleadership Arena™ and receive a preview of what's coming next in the Leadership Lab series.
This Leadership Lab Is For You If:
✓ You're overwhelmed by competing priorities and constant change
✓ You're responsible for helping others navigate uncertainty
✓ You're making important decisions without complete information
✓ You're looking for practical tools—not more theory
✓ You want to strengthen the capabilities AI cannot replace
✓ You're committed to becoming more effective when leadership matters most
GROUNDED IN LEADERSHIP. BACKED BY NEUROSCIENCE.
"What Melissa Dawn Simkins offers in Athleadership is not another layer of tactics but a fundamentally different approach: conditioning the leader from the inside out.
Her core insight—that leadership is less about what you do and more about who you are conditioned to show up as—aligns closely with what we've learned from neuroscience.
Under pressure, the brain does not rise to the level of knowledge. It falls back on trained patterns."
Dr. Michael Platt
Director, Wharton Neuroscience Initiative
University of Pennsylvania
Foreword Author, Athleadership
Why This Matters
Most development focuses on learning.
Leadership Conditioning focuses on building the patterns, habits, and responses you rely on when pressure is highest and uncertainty is greatest.
Under pressure, you don't rise to the level of information. You perform at the level of your conditioning.
OFFICIAL LEADERSHIP LAB PARTICIPANT GUIDE
The Field Guide for Leadership Conditioning
Athleadership: The Elite Athletic Mindset
How to Lead Under Pressure and Perform When It Counts
Founder's Edition Experience
$32.50 + tax and shipping
The Leadership Lab introduces the framework.
The Athleadership book helps you put it into practice.
Serving as the official participant guide for the Leadership Lab, Athleadership provides the concepts, exercises, reflection prompts, and practical tools that help you strengthen the capabilities explored throughout the series.
PURCHASE THE FOUNDER'S EDITION EXPERIENCE
Includes
✓ Autographed Founder's Edition copy of Athleadership
✓ Leadership Lab Discovery Guide
✓ Pressure Proof™ Assessment
✓ Founding Athleader Recognition
✓ Priority access to future Athleadership opportunities
Use It Throughout the Series To:
✓ Reinforce the concepts introduced in each Leadership Lab session
✓ Create your personal leadership conditioning plan
✓ Strengthen agility, resilience, alignment, and wellbeing through practical application
✓ Build greater confidence and readiness for the moments that matter most
Because insight is valuable.
Application creates change.
Conditioning creates performance.
SESSION I | JULY 23 | 1:00 PM ET
Agility Under Pressure
Why some people create more value under pressure while others become overwhelmed and what to do differently.
If you're feeling overwhelmed by competing priorities, constant change, increasing pressure, or uncertainty about how to lead through it all, this session was designed for you.
Most people aren't struggling because they lack intelligence, talent, or experience.
They're struggling because the pace of change is outpacing their ability to process it.
When priorities shift, information is incomplete, and certainty is unavailable, success requires something more than knowledge.
It requires conditioning.
In this opening Leadership Lab experience, Melissa Dawn Simkins, Tracey Walker, and Charlie Batch will introduce Leadership Conditioning, a modern approach to becoming the leader the moment demands, inspired by elite athletics, neuroscience, and human performance.
Drawing from their unique perspectives, you'll discover why the people who perform best under pressure aren't necessarily the smartest or most experienced.
They're the most prepared.
You'll receive a first look at the Athleadership Core 4 and discover how Agility, Resilience, Alignment, and Wellbeing help people navigate uncertainty, make better decisions, create clarity for others, and sustain performance over time.
You'll also hear directly from Charlie Batch, 2X Super Bowl Champion and Former Pittsburgh Steeler NFL Quarterback about what elite performers do before high-pressure moments so they're ready when the stakes are highest.
Meet the Presenters
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Tracey Walker
is the Chief Executive Officer at SHRM Linkage. Tracey Walker is a nationally recognized executive strategist and transformational CEO with more than two decades of impact across business, government, and professional services. As the Chief Executive Officer of SHRM Linkage, she brings a bold, evidence-based vision for elevating leadership excellence worldwide—grounded in data, strategic foresight, high-performance cultures and an unwavering commitment to developing leaders who inspire trust and deliver measurable, enterprise-level results.
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Melissa Dawn Simkins
Melissa Dawn Simkins is the founder of Athleadership® and CEO of Velvet Suite®, an Inc. 5000 company. Athleadership is a leadership conditioning operating system grounded in neuroscience and the elite athletic mindset and the foundation of a new category redefining how leaders perform under pressure. With a proven track record of accelerating performance and purpose, her work has reached more than 250,000 leaders globally. She is the author of the new book, Athleadership: The Elite Athletic Mindset: How to Lead Under Pressure and Perform When It Counts.
For nearly two decades, she has partnered with Fortune 500 companies, professional sports organizations, elite athletes, and high-performing executives, equipping them to adapt with clarity, navigate change, and lead when it matters most. She defines modern leadership as a discipline of conditioning, building the mental muscle required to outperform any environment. Athleadership proves what most leadership models overlook: leaders are not born, they are built.
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Charlie Batch
Charlie Batch is a former NFL quarterback turned entrepreneur, media personality/color analyst, community advocate, and professional speaker.
His NFL career spanned 15 years which included two Super Bowl victories. In retirement, Mr. Batch continues to be a respected strategist in the NFL, providing game-day commentary for Steelers broadcasts and several national media outlets. Mr. Batch is the Former President of the NFLPA Pittsburgh Chapter. He also served for 9 years as Senior Captain for The Trust Powered by the NFLPA, an initiative that Mr. Batch helped negotiate in 2011 with NFL team owners. Additionally, he helps former players achieve their dreams after football as a Transition Consultant for the NFLPA.
In joint venture with Athleadership
Leadership Lab Participant Guide Available
Continue the experience between sessions with the newly released Athleadership Founder's Edition—the official participant guide and field guide for Leadership Conditioning.
PURCHASE THE FOUNDER'S EDITION
SHRM certification has approved this webinar for 1 PDC toward SHRM-CP or SHRM-SCP recertification. A program code will be provided at the end of the webinar.