Michelle Courtney Berry — the Workplace Doc™ and creator of the Working Well, one day at a time method™ (a research-informed approach to helping people recover, reset, and lead with greater resilience in stressful workplaces)— is a leadership strategist, doctoral scholar, and keynote speaker whose work sits at the intersection of workplace culture, psychological safety, communication, and organizational wellbeing.

“I use research-backed frameworks to identify the root causes of burnout, disengagement, and toxic dynamics — then prescribe strategic interventions that rebuild cultures where people actually want to stay. My speaking experience is detailed below.”

Michelle Courtney Berry is a bestselling author, two-time TEDx speaker, encore SXSW speaker, and doctoral scholar in Leadership Studies at LSU Shreveport, where her research examines how leadership behavior shapes employee coping, engagement, and agency. A Cornell MPS alumna in Organizational/Risk Communication and certified crisis communications expert, she has delivered more than 5,000 talks, trainings, and facilitated experiences across four continents — creating keynote experiences that are intellectually grounded, emotionally resonant, and deeply human.

Michelle's work helps organizations, conferences, and leadership audiences navigate:

• workplace stress, burnout, and disengagement leadership

• communication breakdown psychological safety and organizational trust

• storytelling as leadership and healing practice

• leadership re-imagined for complex environments workplace wellness and sustainable performance

Selected Recognition & Media

TEDx • SXSW • Good Morning America • O Magazine • Womenpreneur • Authority Magazine • Kivo Daily

Michelle is currently booking:

• keynote presentations

• leadership summits

• executive retreats

• wellness conferences

• facilitated conversations fireside chats customized organizational experiences

Signature keynote experiences generally begin at: $15,000–$25,000+

Select artistic, educational, nonprofit, and mission-aligned collaborations may be considered on a customized basis.

For speaking inquiries: michellecourtneyberry.com/contact

MICHELLE’S SIGNATURE TALKS

Real Talk About Toxic Work: Understanding Job Stress — and What Leaders Can Do About It

In this research-informed keynote, Michelle explores how chronic workplace stress impacts employee well-being, decision-making, and overall performance—and how these effects are often misunderstood. Drawing on her research, doctoral scholarship, and lived experience, she reframes common behaviors like disengagement, withdrawal, and burnout as adaptive coping responses to high-risk or low-trust environments. Audiences gain practical tools to better understand workplace stress, strengthen leadership awareness, and create conditions that support both well-being and sustainable performance. “What looks like disengagement is often self-protection in a system that doesn’t feel safe.” Ideal for: Hospitality and Healthcare Teams• HR Leaders • Wellness Conferences • Women’s Leadership Summits

Leading Without Losing Yourself: Expanding Your Capacity to Navigate Complexity

The higher women climb, the more they're expected to absorb — complexity, conflict, ambiguity, and the quiet weight of holding everything together. This keynote and workshop reframes what many high-achieving women leaders mistake for personal limitation as something else entirely: a signal that their leadership environment is demanding more than any single person was designed to sustain. Drawing on doctoral research in leadership studies and two decades of executive coaching, Michelle helps audiences identify the early behavioral and emotional signals of constrained capacity — before they become burnout, breakdown, or the decision to walk away. Participants leave with a practical framework for strengthening influence without overextension, regulating stress in real time, and building the kind of sustainable leadership presence that performs at the highest level for the long haul. "The goal isn't to do more. It's to lead in a way that doesn't cost you everything else."

Ideal for: Women's Leadership Conferences · Women's Executive Networks · Professional Women's Associations · Leadership Retreats for Women

When Your Team Goes Quiet: Reading Employee Behavior as Organizational Health Data

Silence. Withdrawal. Disengagement. "Quiet quitting." Most leaders label these as performance problems — and most interventions fail because they're treating the wrong thing. In this research-grounded keynote and workshop, Michelle introduces a fundamentally different lens: employee behavior is diagnostic data. Drawing on her original mixed-methods research (N=186) and doctoral scholarship in leadership studies, she reframes the behavioral signals leaders most often misread — withdrawal, reduced participation, presenteeism, peer-reliance — as intelligent, adaptive responses to leadership conditions rather than evidence of individual failure. Audiences learn how to identify early warning signs before turnover occurs, distinguish risk responses from skill gaps, and implement targeted leadership interventions that rebuild trust, restore engagement, and strengthen retention. This is not a talk about fixing employees. It's a talk about reading your culture before it costs you your best people.