Exploring Leadership Under Pressure: Kate Pearlman-Shaw Opens Our Northern Forum Series

On Wednesday November 19th, Lead (our leadership development division) held our first ever Forum event in Manchester. 20 communal professionals from 13 different communal organisations based in Manchester and Leeds, came together at The Fed for a session on leadership through adversity and change led by inaugural speaker Kate Pearlman-Shaw. Although a clinical psychologist by background, Kate is an organisational development and leadership specialist who is also a former chair of the Leeds Jewish Housing Association.

Kate unpacked the psychological processes that take place when we are under stress affecting judgement and decision-making, and worked with the group on ways of remaining grounded, authoritative and discerning- even when facing multiple leadership challenges. The session was timely, given recent events, but also relatable and affirmative as Kate distilled some of the key concepts from her recent book, The Psychology of Effective Leadership: This Works.

The interactive session featured pairwork and group interactions- as well the opportunity to connect to the others in the room over lunch. We hope that this will be the first of a series of these gatherings, with the next due to take place in Leeds in early 2026. We mirrored a format that works well for groups that we run regularly in London which are based around professional areas such as marketing/comms, fundraising, finance, HR and safeguarding. Although this event had a more general leadership focus, subsequent occasions may be similarly geared towards specific areas of expertise and practice.

To find out more about our regular Forum sessions for Jewish communal professionals, please contact us at info@thejlc.org.