Susan Judd - Keynote Speaker

Susan Judd - Keynote Speaker Contact information, map and directions, contact form, opening hours, services, ratings, photos, videos and announcements from Susan Judd - Keynote Speaker, Business consultant, Port Macquarie.

EQ Nerd Meets People Whisperer | Author & International Keynote Speaker | Coaching Leaders to Lead Without Losing Their Minds | Founder, Hot, Foggy & Fabulous | Perimenopause & Menopause at Work Advocate

Emotional intelligence sounds very polished until you have to use it before your first coffee.It is easy to talk about s...
23/06/2026

Emotional intelligence sounds very polished until you have to use it before your first coffee.

It is easy to talk about self-awareness when everyone is calm, well-rested, and behaving beautifully.

Slightly different when:

Someone has misunderstood your email.
A meeting has gone sideways.
A team member says, “Can I be honest?” and you immediately know this will not be a two-minute conversation.
You are trying to listen while your brain is already preparing a TED Talk in your defence.

That is where emotional intelligence becomes practical.

It is not about being serene at all times.

Thank goodness, because some of us have calendars.

It is about noticing what is happening in yourself before it spills into the room.

It is about pausing.

Choosing your response.

Repairing when needed.

And remembering that leadership is not about being emotionless.

It is about being responsible with the emotion you bring into the room.

Which, frankly, is a lifelong learning project.

Difficult conversations rarely become easier because we avoid them.They usually become heavier.The longer a conversation...
22/06/2026

Difficult conversations rarely become easier because we avoid them.

They usually become heavier.

The longer a conversation is delayed, the more meaning people start to make around the silence.

A team member wonders if everything is fine.
A manager becomes more frustrated.
A colleague notices the issue but says nothing.
The team starts adjusting around the behaviour instead of addressing it.

And before long, the original issue has collected extra layers.

Confusion.
Resentment.
Assumptions.
Loss of trust.

This is why clarity matters.

Not harshness.

Clarity.

The goal of a difficult conversation should not be to win, blame, or unload frustration.

It should be to create understanding, name what needs to change, and give people a fair opportunity to respond.

That takes preparation.

It takes emotional intelligence.

And it takes the willingness to be kind enough to be clear.

Because silence might feel easier in the moment.

But it often becomes much more expensive later.

Things leadership books don’t always warn you about:You will repeat yourself more than you expect.You will have at least...
19/06/2026

Things leadership books don’t always warn you about:

You will repeat yourself more than you expect.

You will have at least one conversation that starts with, “I just want to check in…” and somehow becomes an entire emotional excavation.

You will wonder why people did not understand the thing you thought was very clear.

You will realise “just communicate better” is both excellent advice and deeply unhelpful when no one has explained what that actually looks like.

You will occasionally need to pause before replying because your face has already started a sentence.

And you will learn, usually the hard way, that leadership is not about having a perfect response ready at all times.

It is about staying aware enough to choose a better one.

That is why I love this work.

Leadership is human.
Sometimes messy.
Often funny in hindsight.
And always asking us to keep learning.

A good keynote should do more than fill time on an agenda.It should give people language for something they have been ex...
17/06/2026

A good keynote should do more than fill time on an agenda.

It should give people language for something they have been experiencing, but may not have been able to name.

That might be the pressure leaders are carrying.
The conversations teams are avoiding.
The behaviour patterns affecting culture.
The emotional intelligence needed to lead well under pressure.

When I speak with organisations, I want people to leave with something useful.

Not just inspiration.

Useful insight.
Practical reflection.
A better understanding of themselves and the people around them.

Because the best leadership conversations don’t end when the event finishes.

They continue in the meeting rooms, hallways, team discussions, and decisions that follow.

If your organisation is planning a leadership event, conference, or workshop and wants a conversation that is thoughtful, practical, and grounded in real workplace experience, I’d be glad to connect.

Leadership can look quite clear from the outside.Someone has the title.They make decisions.They guide the team.They are ...
16/06/2026

Leadership can look quite clear from the outside.

Someone has the title.
They make decisions.
They guide the team.
They are the person others look to when things feel uncertain.

But from the inside, leadership can feel very different.

It can feel heavy.

Not always in a dramatic way, but in that quiet, constant way responsibility tends to sit with you.

The conversation you know you need to have.
The decision that didn’t land quite as you hoped.
The team member who is struggling.
The conflict that isn’t fully visible yet, but is definitely there.

That is the part of leadership we don’t always talk about enough.

We often talk about leadership as though it is mostly technical.

Strategy.
Performance.
Planning.
Ex*****on.

All important, of course.

But leaders are also managing trust, emotion, behaviour, expectations, disappointment and change.

And often, they are doing that while managing their own reactions at the same time.

Delightful, really.

This is why emotional intelligence matters.

Not as a nice idea.

As a practical leadership skill.

Because leadership is not just about what you know.

It is about how you show up, especially when things are difficult.

One underrated leadership skill?Managing your face.Because sometimes leadership is less about having the perfect answer ...
11/06/2026

One underrated leadership skill?

Managing your face.

Because sometimes leadership is less about having the perfect answer and more about making sure your eyebrows don’t hold a staff meeting before you speak.

You know the moments.

Someone says, “Can I just quickly ask something?”
And it is not quick.

A meeting takes a scenic route through five unrelated topics.

A team member explains the decision they made, and your soul briefly leaves the building to assess its options.

Someone says, “I didn’t think that was important to mention.”

And suddenly your emotional intelligence is being tested in real time.

This is why self-awareness matters.

Not because leaders need to be perfectly calm, polished, or serene at all times.

But because people notice.

They notice our words.
They notice our tone.
They definitely notice our face.

Leadership is not about pretending nothing affects you.

It is about understanding the impact you have in the room, especially when you are surprised, frustrated, tired, or quietly wondering how many cups of tea are socially acceptable before 10am.

Sometimes the pause before responding is the leadership move.

Sometimes the breath is the strategy.

And sometimes the win is simply that your face did not say what your brain was thinking.

Small victories.

I’ve been talking with a lot of leaders about what it actually takes to create calmer, more effective workplaces.And I d...
03/06/2026

I’ve been talking with a lot of leaders about what it actually takes to create calmer, more effective workplaces.

And I don’t mean calm in the sense that everything is easy or everyone agrees.

Workplaces are full of pressure, different personalities, competing priorities, and conversations that sometimes feel harder than they should.

That’s normal.

What matters is whether leaders and teams have the tools to understand what is happening and respond well.

That’s really the focus of my Workplace Zen workshop.

It’s about helping people better understand themselves and others at work.

How they communicate.
How they respond under pressure.
How assumptions are made.
How small misunderstandings can become bigger issues.
How emotional intelligence can help teams work together more effectively.

Because a calmer workplace doesn’t come from avoiding the hard things.

It comes from building better awareness, better conversations, and more practical ways to work through them.

If your organisation is looking for a practical workshop on emotional intelligence, communication, and workplace behaviour, I’d be happy to connect.

Honoured (and still a little shocked) to receive the Gold Award for Social Change Maker of the Year 2026 at the Beam Awa...
02/06/2026

Honoured (and still a little shocked) to receive the Gold Award for Social Change Maker of the Year 2026 at the Beam Awards. ✨

What started as a personal experience with perimenopause & menopause has grown into a much bigger conversation about women, wellbeing, leadership and the workplace.

Thank you to everyone supporting the Hot, Foggy & Fabulous movement. 💛

SusanJudd

29/05/2026

I’ve been thinking about how often leaders are expected to stay calm simply because they have the title.

As though the title somehow removes the pressure.

But leadership does not make you immune to uncertainty.
It does not remove emotion from difficult decisions.
It does not make hard conversations suddenly easy.

What it does do is increase the impact of how you respond.

That is why self-awareness matters so much in leadership.

A leader’s frustration can become the room’s tension.
A leader’s avoidance can become the team’s confusion.
A leader’s clarity can become the thing that helps everyone breathe again.

This is where emotional intelligence becomes very practical.

Not soft.
Not fluffy.
Not simply about being nice.

Practical.

It is the ability to notice what is happening in yourself before it spills into the room.
It is the ability to pause before reacting.
It is the ability to have the conversation clearly, without making it unnecessarily damaging.

The leaders I respect most are not the ones who never feel pressure.

They are the ones who understand the responsibility of their response.

That is often where the real leadership work begins.

When I’m invited to speak with leaders, I’m always aware that the room is carrying more than the agenda.People bring the...
28/05/2026

When I’m invited to speak with leaders, I’m always aware that the room is carrying more than the agenda.

People bring their pressure with them.

The decisions they are sitting with.
The team dynamics they are trying to understand.
The conversations they know they need to have.
The responsibility of leading people through change, uncertainty, growth, and sometimes conflict.

That is why I believe leadership conversations need to be practical, but also deeply human.

A good keynote should give people more than a moment of inspiration.

It should give them language.
It should give them insight.
It should help them understand themselves and the people around them a little better.

If your organisation is planning a leadership event or conference and wants a conversation that feels thoughtful, grounded, and useful beyond the room, I’d be glad to connect.

Address

Port Macquarie, NSW

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Susan Judd - Keynote Speaker posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Shortcuts

Share

Category