Leadership Summits

Leadership begins with strong roots. This summit focuses on grounding your leadership in purpose, values, and authenticity. Explore how cultural awareness, ethical decision-making, and personal integrity create a foundation for lasting impact. Through keynote sessions and small group discussions, you’ll learn strategies to lead with confidence and clarity while staying true to your core principles. Connect with local government leaders, gain actionable insights, and elevate your leadership journey. This full-day event will be a crowd pleaser. 

Dr. Julie Pham founded CuriosityBased to help people practice curiosity in the world, starting in the workplace. She wrote the #1 Amazon New Release and Bestseller, 7 Forms of Respect: A Guide to Transforming Your Communication and Relationships at Work, and gave a TEDx talk on "Curiosity as a practice." Dr. Pham is an award-winning leader who applies her community-building experience to strengthening teams. She worked as a journalist, historian, tech industry marketer, and nonprofit executive. She got her “real-life MBA” by running her family’s Vietnamese-language newspaper during the Great Recession. She earned her PhD in history at Cambridge University as a Gates Cambridge Scholar and graduated magna cum laude from UC Berkeley, where she studied history.

 
Keynote Speaker: Dr. Julie Pham of CuriosityBased, Author of 7 Forms of Respect

We are also pleased to have Kellye Mazzoli speaking at our spring conference. She will address The Likeable Leader Trap: Diagnosing Where Authority Gets Traded for Approval. Join us for this interactive, large-group session with live diagnostics, reflection, and facilitated discussion. Many capable leaders do not struggle because they lack competence or communication skill. They struggle because they have learned, often unconsciously, to trade authority for approval in order to remain likeable, agreeable, or low-friction.

Julie Pham’s keynote focuses on how respect is defined, interpreted, and negotiated between people. This session will address what leaders must hold internally when those differing definitions collide and no decision satisfies everyone.

Kellye Mazzoli is an executive leadership coach who works with city managers and senior city leaders navigating the real pressures of public leadership. A former assistant city manager with nearly 20 years in local government, she founded City Boss Coaching in 2022 and has coached city executives full-time for more than four years. Her work focuses on strengthening leadership judgment so leaders can exercise authority, set boundaries, and make difficult decisions with clarity and confidence.

Location: Mercer Island Community and Event Center 

Address: 8236 SE 24th Street, Mercer Island, WA 98040

Time:  9:00 AM – 4:00 PM (light breakfast and lunch provided)

Register here:  Washington City/County Management Association  All are welcome. 

• Cost: $200.00

WCCMA Summer Conference

NWWLA is hosting a half-day Summit on Wednesday, August 12, 2026, 8:00-11:45 am as part of the Annual WCMA Summer Conference, at Three Rivers Convention Center, Kennewick, WA. Tentative program includes:

Leadership Lab: Authority, Boundaries, and Making Hard Calls

Senior leaders in city management are not struggling because they lack competence, experience, or commitment. They are struggling because the role increasingly requires judgment under conditions where authority is contested, boundaries are porous, and decisions carry political, organizational, and personal consequence.

The Leadership Lab is a structured, executive-level working session designed to help participants diagnose what kind of leadership move a situation actually requires. Rather than offering advice, communication strategies, or generalized leadership frameworks, the lab focuses on sharpening judgment across three foundational leadership levers: authority, boundaries, and decision-making.

Participants will learn to distinguish whether a challenge is fundamentally about holding authority, reinforcing boundaries, or making and standing behind a decision. This clarity reduces overthinking, second-guessing, and unnecessary emotional and cognitive load. The session is deliberately designed for experienced leaders who value discretion, precision, and practical application.

Presenter: Kellye Mazzoli, City Boss Coaching (former Deputy City Manager, Bothell, WA)

The Ultimate Partnership: Combining the Superpowers of the City Manager/Administrator and Deputy

Are we still holding onto old models of leadership that espouse that the top seat is lonely? With this engaging leadership panel, learn why this old way of thinking no longer serves the leader. This panel of City Managers/Administrators and Deputies will share how they have combined their strengths (aka, superpowers) to form the ultimate partnership. In this fun, interactive session (think Family Feud), you will learn about the key benefits for having a strong CM-DCM relationship, and how to foster and cultivate it.

Moderator: Anya Warrington (HR Director, City of Lake Stevens & NWWLA Board Secretary)

Panelists: TBD

The full WCCMA summer conference is being held August 11 - 14, 2026. The Women's Leadership Summit is a half-day event that will be held on the morning of Wednesday, August 12, 2026 at the convention center.  Also on August 12, the WCMA Conference will include a keynote speaker at lunch, two sessions in the afternoon, including the NWWLA Cohort 7 presentation, and the NWWLA evening mixer, Uncorked. Join us!

Registration Cost - $75. You may sign up for just the Summit or the Summit plus the WCMA Conference. Registration coming soon! All are welcome.

Resilience is the hallmark of great leadership. This summit equips you with strategies to adapt, innovate, and thrive in times of uncertainty. Learn how to turn obstacles into opportunities, maintain well-being under pressure, and lead teams through transformation. With expert guidance and peer collaboration, you’ll strengthen your ability to rise above challenges and lead with courage.

This event will definitely be one you don't want to miss.

Date:  Friday, October 30, 2026

Location: Central Washington University 

Address: 400 E University Way, Ellensburg, WA 98926

Time:  9:00 AM – 4:00 PM (light breakfast and lunch provided)

More information and registration coming soon! All are welcome.