ASEAN Online Workshop: Collaborative Leadership & Conflict Resolution Practical Skills
📅 Date & Time: 1:00 - 4:00 PM, Saturday, May 23rd, 2026.
📍 Location: Online via Zoom
🎟 Admission: Free.
🌏 Language: English.
👉 Participants: ASEAN Leaders in ABCG - Academics, Business, Civil Society (Nonprofits, NGOs, grassroots communities), and Government.
Expand Your Impact Network
Connect with other impact leaders in the whole ASEAN region from the 4 cornerstones of our society: ABCG - Academics (schools & educational institutes), Business, Civil Society (nonprofits, NGOs, grassroots communities), and Government.
“Perhaps the secret of living well is not in having all the answers but in pursuing unanswerable questions in good company.” -Rachel Naomi Remen
“Eventually everything connects – people, ideas, objects. The quality of the connections is the key to quality per se.” -Charles Eames
About the Event
In an era where global challenges demand local action, the ability to lead across boundaries is no longer just an asset—it is a necessity; it is the bridge that transforms individual ambition into collective impact, ensuring that the solutions we build together are as resilient as the communities they serve.
Move beyond theory into action. This intensive 3-hour workshop is designed for leaders in Nonprofits, Government, Business, and Academics who manage complex stakeholders and diverse teams. As part of the Leaders Create Leaders education program, hosted by Sustainable Impact Leadership Network and University of Montana with the sponsorship from the U.S. Department of State's YSEALI Professional Program, this session provides the "on-the-ground" skills needed to turn friction into progress and foster high collaborative impact.
Who Should Attend?
Young and mid-career professionals in ABCG sectors - Academics, Business, Civic Society (NPO/NGO), Government:
NGO leaders driving social impact through community partnerships.
Young leaders leading youth communities aspiring to create positive lasting impact towards social and sustainable development.
Government officials managing multi-stakeholder public policies.
Corporate executives leading cross-functional or international teams.
Academics involved in collaborative research, projects and solutions towards sustainable development.
Certificate
Certificate of completion on Collaborative Leadership & Conflict Resolution Practical Skills are awarded at the end of the workshop by University of Montana and Sustainable Impact Leadership Network. Please make sure your full name in the registration is correct because it will be on your certificate.
What You Will Master
The Anatomy of Conflict: Identifying the root causes of friction in the private, public, and nonprofit sectors.
Interest-Based Negotiation: Learning how to move past "positions" to find the shared interests that unlock stalemates.
Designing Collaborative Processes: A step-by-step framework for facilitating meetings where every voice of the collective wisdom contributes to a viable solution to achieve impactful results.
The Neutral Advocate: Techniques for leading a team when you are in the middle of competing priorities.
The Collaborative Leaders: How to create and lead a culture of strong collaboration in your team, how to empower others to become leaders towards the shared goals and vision. The pros & cons of collaborative leadership – when it is suitable and when not.
Meet Your Trainers
We are bringing together world-class facilitators from the University of Montana and the Sustainable Impact Leadership Network (SILN):
Shawn Johnson: A renowned global expert in cross-sector collaboration, Shawn brings over 20 years of experience as a mediator and strategic planner. As the Director of the Center for Natural Resources & Environmental Policy at the University of Montana, he has spent decades resolving complex, high-stakes conflicts from local to international levels. He wrote the book on this topic—co-authoring Working Across Boundaries—and holds a Master’s from Princeton University.
Heather Stokes: With 25 years of expertise in behavioral health and public policy, Heather specializes in the "human element" of leadership. As the Managing Director of the Center for Natural Resources & Environmental Policy at the University of Montana, she has led strategic consultations for federal and state officials, tribes, and NGOs, focusing on building inclusive participation in complex environments. Her experience serving on the Leadership Council for the Association for Conflict Resolution and her Master’s of Science in Social Work from Columbia University allow her to teach leaders how to navigate high-tension stakeholder engagements with emotional intelligence and structural clarity.
Nghi Phan: An expert in Empowering Leadership, Nghi has trained over 500 executives and youth leaders in leadership, design thinking and applied psychology. As a YSEALI Fellow and founder of the Sustainable Impact Leadership Network, she bridge-builds between sectors with 13 years of experience supporting international exchange programs (including Princeton in Asia, Volunteers in Asia and University of Montana). She specializes in "leaders-create-leaders" frameworks, transforming operational systems into models of sustainable, collective impact.
About Leaders Create Leaders (LCL) program
The Leaders Create Leaders program is sponsored by the US Department of State through the YSEALI Reciprocal Exchange to promote collaboration and sustainable development between the US and Vietnam. The Leader Create Leader program is a nonprofit educational program of Sustainable Impact Leadership Network, focusing on collaborative leadership and collaboration towards sustainable development in multiple sectors (public, private, nonprofit) through nonprofit educational events and services for early and mid-career leaders in all sectors. The program offers free public talks, workshops, train-the-trainer training, mentoring and consultations on collaborative leadership & collaboration processes.
Are You a Leader Who Wants to Create Change?
Want to bring Collaborative Leadership & Conflict Resolution methods and practices to your team, organization, or community? Contact SILN for support in delivering tailored training programs, skill development events, and leadership coaching for your team. All of SILN's educational programs on collaborative leadership and conflict resolution aimed at community and sustainable development are entirely non-profit.
Join Sustainable Impact Leadership Network:
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Let's become leaders who create change! #LeadersCreateLeaders #YSEALI #CollaborativeLeadership #Sustainability #ConflictResolution
Trainer Bios
Shawn Johnson serves as the Director of the Center for Natural Resources & Environmental Policy at the University of Montana. He also serves as co-chair of the University's graduate certificate program in Natural Resources Conflict Resolution. Shawn has over 20 years of experience as a facilitator, mediator, instructor, consultant, strategic planner, and thought partner. He works at the local to international level on complex natural resource issues ranging from land use planning and forest management to conservation priority setting and cross-sector collaboration.
Shawn played a key role in establishing the North American Network for Landscape Conservation and serves on leadership committees for several landscape-scale conservation and stewardship networks across the Western USA. He is the co-author of Working Across Boundaries: People, Nature, and Regions, and has contributed to numerous articles and reports advancing the field of collaborative conservation. Shawn has a Master's degree in Public Affairs and a Certificate in Science, Technology, and Environmental Policy from Princeton's School of Public and International Affairs.
Heather Stokes is the Managing Director for The Center for Natural Resources and Environmental Policy at the University of Montana. She leads the strategy and implementation of the Center’s consultation projects. Heather facilitates public policy sessions and stakeholder engagement meetings across numerous complex issues including water policy resource management, watershed restoration, land use planning, public lands management, and human-wildlife conflict reduction.
Heather incorporates her 25 years of experience in the behavioral health sector into her work with federal and state officials, multi-interest groups, tribes, local government, community members, and non-governmental advocacy organizations. Through her expertise, Heather carefully designs processes that foster inclusive participation and shared understanding among stakeholders.
Heather serves on the Leadership Council of the Environment and Public Policy section for the Association for Conflict Resolution. She holds a Master’s of Science in Social Work from Columbia University and graduate certificates in Natural Resources Conflict Resolution from the University of Montana and Conservation and Environmental Sustainability and Conservation Biology from Columbia University’s Earth Institute.
Nghi Phan is the Founder of Sustainable Impact Leadership Network (SILN), Interdisciplinary Social & Sustainable Initiatives (ISSI), and Leaders Create Leaders program.
Nghi spent six years at RMIT University Vietnam as Supervisor of the Peer Assisted Learning Program where she built comprehensive operational systems that became models for other student-led programs. She has trained over 500 people, including CEO & executives, in empowering leadership, leaders-create-leaders leadership, design thinking, intercultural communication, conflict resolution, and applied psychology.
Nghi has deep roots in NGO and the social development sector, having worked with the Catalyst Foundation on women's empowerment and anti-trafficking education, supported intercultural education programs of University of Montana, Princeton in Asia, Volunteer in Asia, and Sarus Exchange Programs across 13 years, and founded BAN — a volunteer network supporting people with disabilities in English education. Her approach to leadership is grounded in empathy, systems thinking, and a genuine belief that strong communities and positive change are built by leaders who empower others to be leaders.
Through 14 years of working in nonprofits, Nghi was deeply touched by the highly negative cost of poor collaboration and divisive conflicts and decided to make collaborative leadership & conflict resolution the focus of her YSEALI Professional Fellowship in 2025. She founded the Leaders Create Leaders program to bring together other impact-driven leaders to co-create ways to collaborate better and how to empower more leaders in our communities working towards sustainable development in multiple sectors.