The Latitude to Lead
Middle Manager Skills For When the World is on Fire
In many ways, 2026 is a dumpster fire, and yet the bills still need paying, and careers are (somehow) still going. Learn the skills that let you lead in late-stage capitalism without faking it, for your boss or your direct reports.
WHAT IT IS
a training intensive for middle managers
Three Fridays: October 2, 9, and 16, 2-4 pm each day
In person, centrally located co-working space in Tucson
Capped at 12 participants
Includes a private 1:1 coaching hour with Elena Joy
This is the sharpest version of what I've spent a career teaching inside Fortune 500s, local governments, and pro sports organizations.
The difference is that there is no client to edit what I can and can’t say.
$1,450 early bird
Beta pricing for 2026 only, ends September 8. Includes your coaching hour. It will not be this price again.
This thing is for you if:
→ You have (or will soon have) people reporting to you, while you report up to another leader.
→ You're ready to improve your 2026 communication so you don’t burn out.
→ You can handle hearing the real stuff, not the buzzwords.
→ You want the skills nobody handed you on the way up.
One honest note: this is a room led by a queer woman. Not everyone can learn in that room, and that’s ok. This is where you can self-select out.
WHAT YOU’LL EXPERIENCE
Three sessions that change how you lead
In a beautiful Tucson co-working space, with a cohort of twelve, this is the opposite of a lecture. You'll work from your own real situations, practice out loud, and leave each Friday with words and tools you can use on Monday. We use proven neuroscience techniques aimed at creating actual behavior change, so you arrive at each skill through something you actually felt in the room, not a slide you tried to memorize. By the end, how you lead will fundamentally change.
Session 01 — True North
Your team shouldn't have to figure out which version of you walked in today.
THE PROBLEM
Under pressure, we react from stress, habit, or avoidance, so our teams learn to read our mood instead of solving the problem. That guessing costs time, capacity, and money.
THE SKILL
Know your own patterns well enough to choose your response instead of defaulting to it, using neuroscience and my proprietary framework.
YOU WALK OUT WITH
A personalized system that keeps you steady and clear no matter what the day throws at you, so your team always knows what drives your decisions.
Pre-work for Session 2: come with two to five conversations you've been avoiding with your direct reports.
Session 02 — Cross-Current
VitalSmarts (now Crucial Learning) found that an average of $1,500 and a full workday are the cost for every high-stakes conversation team members avoid.
That stops now.
THE PROBLEM
Handed a team but never taught the human side of problem-solving, we avoid the hard conversation until it becomes a performance problem nobody named, a resentment nobody addressed, and a resignation that arrives as a surprise.
THE SKILL
Address the issue while it's still small, and deliver feedback so it lands as information the person can use instead of a verdict they defend against, using three tested structures.
YOU WALK OUT WITH
A written, practiced outline of one real conversation you've been dreading, ready to use on Monday.
Pre-work for Session 3: track what you're not saying to your boss. Same assignment, the other direction.
Session 03 — HAIL THE BRIDGE
VitalSmarts also found that when a manager waits five or more days to raise a problem, the cost to the organization can top $25,000.
Let's fix that.
THE PROBLEM
Managers sit on information leadership needs, because escalating early reads as incompetence and pushing back reads as insubordination. So they absorb what they can, and the rest becomes a surprise.
THE SKILL
Sort what to escalate now from what can wait, and raise a problem or set a boundary with your boss through a three-part structure that keeps you looking capable, not overwhelmed.
YOU WALK OUT WITH
A written proposal for the boundary or resource you've been needing, built and said out loud in the room, so the first time you say it isn't in your boss's office.
MEET YOUR TEACHER
I built a career, came out at age 37, and watched a good deal of what I’d constructed fall apart. Then I rebuilt, this time without the exhausting performance of being someone I wasn’t. That rebuild is the thing I teach, and it’s not theoretical. It’s the actual work of leading like yourself when doing so risks everything. My story is in the documentary CONVERSION, streaming now on Apple TV and AmazonPrime, if you want to see where this comes from before you trust me with your own hard conversations.
Here’s the résumé part, because it matters too. I’ve spoken on the TEDx stage. My work has shown up in Forbes, on ABC, and in HuffPost. I’ve been hired to train leaders inside Logitech, Penn State, and the Denver Broncos, and I spend much of my time in rooms full of company presidents who bring me in precisely because I say the thing everyone else is dancing around.
Every time I teach, someone finds me afterward to tell me that a thing I said fundamentally changed a piece of their life. That is the whole reason I do this. I know I can make that kind of impact, and I know how rare it is, and after everything I went through to get here, I am not going to sit on it. This training is the first time I get to teach the sharpest, truest, most unedited version of all of it, the best of everything I've learned in every room. I can talk up the value all day, but the reality is simple. Your life experience can get better because of this work.
I want it to. That is why I want you in the room.
The Latitude to Lead
PRICING
2026 beta pricing. This is the first time the program runs outside a closed, in-company environment. The price reflects that, and it will not be this price again.
$1,450
Enroll by September 7 for beta early bird pricing
$1,750
Beta regular when you enroll on September 8 and after
$2,250
2027 pricing
Team discount: enrolling two or more leaders? 10% off the second seat, 15% off any additional seats. Not combined with early bird (the larger discount).
INCLUDED WITH YOUR SEAT
Becoming the Navigator
A 60-MINUTE 1:1 WITH ELENA JOY
The training gives you the skills. The Navigator session is where you point them at your own map. One hour, just the two of us, to pull up to the bird’s-eye view of your career: where you are, what’s coming that you can’t see from the ground, and where you actually want to be heading. We’ll name the pitfalls close enough to trip you next quarter and the ones still out on the horizon, and get clear on the direction worth steering toward. You leave with a read on your own trajectory you can’t get in the day-to-day grind.
Book your session anytime between enrollment and October 16. Want to go deeper? Cohort members can add sessions at a discounted rate.
Bullet point version, please
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Leadership skills, specifically communication skills critical for those in the messy middle, pulled in multiple directions. Learned and practiced in an experiential cohort environment.
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Three consecutive Fridays: October 2, 9, and 16, 2–4 pm each day. The bonus Gen Z workshop is October 23. Your Navigator coaching hour is booked separately, any time between enrollment and October 16.
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This will be finalized shortly. I’m looking at a few centrally located co-working spaces, with a priority on a beautiful atmosphere and great parking.
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Your seat is $1,450 if you enroll by September 7 (early bird); after that, beta pricing is $1,750. Enrollment includes all three sessions, your 1:1 Navigator coaching hour ($250 value), the pre-work core values video made for this cohort ($47 value), and a custom workbook. The Gen Z bonus workshop is $375 for cohort members ($450 public). Additional coaching hours are $175 (retail $250).
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Let me be real. I don’t want you paying for this out of your own pocket. The organization who receives the benefit of your improved skills needs to be paying for it.
If that’s not an option and you still want to take the class and need a payment plan to make it work, then yes my friend. Yes, there will be a payment plan for you and we’ll work out the details on our call. See the link on the form.
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Yes, Tucson is filled with incredible nonprofits who do incredible work and I want this to be accessible to their incredible leaders. The discount is on a sliding scale based on 2025 budget. Nonprofits with budgets under $1 million get the biggest discount.
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Yup. 10% for the second leader, 15% for any more. It can’t be combined with the early bird discount, which is the larger discount.
2 leaders, early bird (by Sept 7) = $2,900 ($1,450 × 2)
2 leaders, after Sept 8 = $3,325 ($1,750 + $1,575)
3 leaders, after Sept 8 = $4,813 ($1,750 + $1,575 + $1,488) -
Middle managers and team leads who carry the weight in both directions and want the skills nobody handed them on the way up. You don’t need a particular title or number of direct reports. You need to be the person organizational strategy runs through.
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Before Session 1, a short core values video and exercise, about 45 minutes. Between sessions, light tracking work (noticing the conversations you’re avoiding or struggling to nail), which becomes the raw material we practice with. No busywork. Everything you do outside class comes back into class.
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Life happens. If missing one of the three is unavoidable, you can schedule a 30-minute call with Elena Joy, receive the materials, and review the content. Available for one session per participant.
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Fully in person, in Tucson. That’s deliberate. The work asks you to practice hard conversations out loud with other managers, and that lands differently in a room than on a screen.
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Yes. Fill out the form below. After confirmation, you or your company receives an invoice payable by credit card or ACH. The Latitude Leaders W-9 is sent with the invoice.
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Cancel more than 7 days before the first session for a full refund less a $250 seat fee. After that, seats are non-refundable, but yours can transfer to a future cohort or to a colleague you’d like to send in your place.
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Fill out the form below. You’ll get a confirmation email from Elena Joy within 48 hours, then an invoice. Your seat is saved once the invoice is paid.
Claim one of twelve seats
Fill this out to begin enrollment. Prefer to talk first? Schedule a quick call with Elena Joy to ask questions and confirm details.
CLIENTS INCLUDE
SINCE WE’RE BEING REAL
This is more than a leadership training.
I use leadership development as a way to help real humans in their real lives. I don’t teach theory. I teach the systems I had to use to recover from a mental health crisis, and the skills required to deconstruct the internalized bias that threatened my ability to engage in my own life.
The tools that kept me here are the same tools I use to create the life I’ve always wanted. Leaders who put these into practice, personally and professionally, find themselves intentionally creating the life that’s always felt just out of reach.
Come to learn the leadership skills. Stay because your future is being created right now, whether you mean it to be or not. Discover what you need to make that future truly yours.
OPTIONAL BONUS TRAINING
Leading Today’s Crew Across the Generational Divide
Bundle and receive discounted pricing on Elena Joy’s most popular training of 2026.
Gen X 1965-1980
Boomers 1946-1964
Millennials 1981-1996
Gen Z 1997-2012
Four generations are sharing workplaces, families, and dinner tables, and mostly confusing each other. Gen Z is now the fastest-growing segment of your employee population, and they engage, communicate, and respond to leadership in ways that are genuinely different from every generation before them. Neurodivergent employees are no longer a small exception to plan around; they’re a significant and growing part of your talent pool. Your managers are navigating all of it while the change keeps coming.
A clear picture of Gen Z trends and what this generation actually needs to engage, perform, and stay
Practical tools for motivating a workforce no longer moved by the same levers as ten years ago
Strategies for leading neurodivergent employees with confidence, clarity, and genuine inclusion
$375 for cohort members and their co-workers · $450 public. Public sales open October 2. Capped at 25.