You were promoted.
Nobody trained you.
Most managers were excellent at their jobs, so they got promoted into a different one. Managing people is not the same skill as doing the work. Management Excellence closes that gap with Everything DiSC® Management as the spine, eight weeks of live facilitation, and a small group of leaders doing this work together.
You did not fail.
You were set up to figure it out.
You were excellent at your job — so they made you responsible for other people doing theirs. That is not a promotion. That is a different job description with the same title.
Nobody handed you a manual. You learned by watching, guessing, and absorbing feedback — most of it indirect. You have been building the plane while flying it.
Some things are working. Some are not. And you cannot always tell which is which — because the tools you have been using were designed for someone else's style, not yours.
Your team has needs you cannot always meet, your organization has expectations you are trying to decode, and you are doing all of this in real time. It is exhausting.
"Management Excellence is not about becoming a different kind of manager. It is about becoming a clearer one — one who understands their own patterns, their team's patterns, and what to do when those patterns collide."— Nayli Russo Long, PharmD, MBA · Founder, Russo Leadership
DiSC, working as it should.
Every week. Every situation.
Most managers have taken a DiSC profile at some point. The profile is in a drawer somewhere. They could not tell you what it said. A profile in a drawer is not a tool. It is a souvenir. Management Excellence is built to make Everything DiSC® Management actually work in your real management life. Eight weeks, one situation at a time, until the framework becomes a practice you can use on Monday morning.
Your DiSC Management Profile
A personalized, research-backed profile that maps your natural management style. How you direct. How you delegate. How you motivate. How you develop. The starting point for every week that follows.
Directing & Delegating With Intention
The DiSC framework on directing and delegating, applied to the people you actually manage. How to flex when their style is different from yours. What to direct, what to delegate, when to get out of the way.
Motivating Each Person
What motivates each DiSC style is not what motivates you. You will leave with specific cues for each style. What to provide more of. What to remove. What to never do.
Managing Up With Clarity
Your manager has a style. Their style shapes how they want information delivered, how they decide, what they notice. Adapting your communication to their style is not manipulation. It is functional translation.
Feedback and Conflict You Can Use
WorkSmart action plans for the two conversations managers avoid most. Giving constructive feedback. Managing conflict before it manages you. Practical tools you walk out with, not theory you forget.
Productivity Through Working Genius
Everything DiSC tells you how you work with others. Working Genius tells you what kinds of work energize you and what drain you. Together, they show you where to spend your time, and where your team is missing gears.
Real shifts.
In their own words.
These are insights and commitments from leaders who completed the program — captured at the end of each session, in their own language. Not curated testimonials. Not edited for marketing. The actual record of what happens when leaders sit in this work for eight weeks.
Effectiveness
Content
Experience
Application
"My power is in shaping thinking, not taking over."
Operations Leader"My kryptonite is not a fatal flaw. It is something I can identify, be mindful of, and work through."
Talent Strategy Leader"It is not about intention. It is about the outcome. A capable team can fail to meet a goal simply because they have not learned how to navigate working with different styles together."
People Operations Leader"Good intent does not always generate good outcomes."
Sports Industry Leader"My threshold for letting others own outcomes without my direct grip — I had not named that before. Now I have. I commit to not intervening unless the outcome standard is at risk."
Operations Leader"Delegation is who owns the work. Direction is the how and the when. I had been collapsing them together for years."
Sports Industry Leader"You have to meet people where they are. I was uncomfortable watching a manager let a C-style start work independently — until I realized that was what would drive the best result from that person."
Talent Strategy Leader"Effective leaders adapt to their team's style and direct the work in the most effective way for that person — not the way that feels most natural to the manager."
Sports Industry Leader"Standards land best when I adapt delivery, not expectations."
Operations Leader"People motivate themselves. It is up to me to create the environment for that person to feel motivated. That changed what I thought my job was."
Sports Industry Leader"Motivation is fostered by environment. I had been treating it as something I deliver."
Sports Industry Leader"It is just as important to understand what demotivates people as it is to understand what motivates them."
Sports Industry Leader"Leadership exists in every direction. It is not limited to managing down."
Sports Industry Leader"I have to push against my defaults. My manager wants control, wants to stay in the loop, wants to be sought out for advice — and I am the antithesis to all three. I had not seen that clearly until now."
Sports Industry Leader"My manager and I are more similar than we are different — so leaning on the things I am uncomfortable with is exactly what helps when I bring him issues."
Sales Leader"Stick to short, clear opinions based on objective facts. And do not become frustrated when my boss takes longer than I would to make a decision. That is just his pace."
Talent Strategy LeaderWhat you are reading is the actual record. The commitments are specific. The insights are personal. Nobody walked out saying they wanted to be a better leader in general. They walked out with language, with structure, and with a behavioral commitment they could keep that week. That is what this program produces.
Eight Wednesdays.
One complete arc.
June 10 through July 29, 2026. Wednesdays 2:00 to 3:30 PM Eastern. Eight 90-minute live sessions. Each week builds on the last. The arc moves from knowing yourself to leading others to navigating conflict to integrating it all into how you actually manage on Monday morning.
- 01Wed · June 10Foundation — Your Management StyleThe four identity zones. Recognition vs. performance.Knowing Yourself
- 02Wed · June 17Directing & Delegating With IntentionLoyalty Asset. Where your loyalty actually sits.Managing Others
- 03Wed · June 24Motivating Each Person on Your TeamOverfunctioning Leader. The climate you create without knowing.Managing Others
- 04Wed · July 1Developing Your PeoplePermission Structure and Loyalty Tax. The unspoken contract.Managing Others
- 05Wed · July 8Productivity & Energy — Your Working GeniusThe Competence Trap. What you cannot stop doing, and why.Bonus · Productivity
- 06Wed · July 15Managing Up With ClarityAuthority Void. What you have been holding for someone else.Managing Others
- 07Wed · July 22Giving Constructive FeedbackAdaptive Authenticity. Staying yourself while adapting how you deliver.Feedback & Conflict
- 08Wed · July 29Managing ConflictFeedback Loop. Closing the program, opening the practice.Feedback & Conflict
Take the calendar with you.
One-page program calendar with all eight sessions, dates, focus, and what is included. Save it, print it, share it with your manager, attach it to a budget request.
Why DiSC works here
when it has not worked before.
DiSC is one of the most validated management tools in the world. It also sits in a drawer at most companies. The difference is not the framework. It is the facilitation. Most managers can describe their style. Few can describe why their style stops working in the moments that matter most.
Every week of Management Excellence delivers the DiSC content rigorously, then asks one harder question. Not just "how do you direct and delegate," but what stops you from delegating when you know you should. Not just "how do you motivate each style," but what kind of climate are you generating without knowing. That second layer comes from Identity-Centered Leadership™, the framework Nayli developed from twenty-five qualitative interviews with leaders across industries.
The named patterns you will encounter (Loyalty Asset, Overfunctioning Leader, Permission Structure, Loyalty Tax, Competence Trap, Authority Void, Adaptive Authenticity, Feedback Loop) are diagnostic categories, not metaphors. They are what makes DiSC stick after the cohort closes.
The Four Identity Zones
- FragmentedIdentity is incoherent across contexts. No stable internal sense of who you are at work.
- ShapedIdentity is being formed externally. You are operating from inherited scripts and what the room expects.
- PerformingIdentity is functional but maintained through effort. You have built a coherent self at work, held in place from outside, not within.
- AlignedIdentity is internally coherent. Behavior, values, and self-perception are integrated. The work and the person are no longer in tension.
You will leave with DiSC mastery and something more. A working diagnostic vocabulary. The ability to read any future leadership challenge through both layers, long after the cohort closes. That capacity is what travels. That is what makes this program stick.
Personalized assessments.
Included with your seat.
Most management programs offer one assessment, if that. Management Excellence includes two professional, research-validated tools that become reference documents you keep for your career, not one-time exercises.
Everything DiSC® Management
Your personalized management profile. Reveals how you naturally direct, delegate, motivate, and develop the people you lead — and what to flex when your default is not landing. The foundation of weeks one through six.
Included with enrollmentView Sample ReportThe Six Types of Working Genius®
A productivity and energy profile that names the kinds of work that energize you and the kinds that drain you. Used in week five as a productivity layer over your management foundation. You learn which gears your team is running on, and which gears are missing.
Included with enrollmentYou will receive your full Working Genius profile during week five of the cohort.
The Six Types of Working Genius® by Patrick Lencioni, The Table Group.
What is included
when you enroll.
The Live Experience
- Eight 90-minute live sessions with NayliWednesdays 2:00 to 3:30 PM Eastern. Twelve hours of facilitated work — not a webinar.
- Cohort capped at 12 leadersSmall enough to build real connection. Diverse enough to give you exposure to other styles.
- Breakout work and live practiceConflict and management practice happens with cohort peers, in real time, with coaching in the room.
- Session recordingsEvery session is captured and added to the academy. Miss one, return to one, share a moment with a peer.
Tools and Materials
- Two personalized assessmentsEverything DiSC Management and The Six Types of Working Genius, each with a personalized profile report you keep.
- Management workbook and WorkSmart action plansA program workbook covering the DiSC Management content, plus action plans for the WorkSmart modules on Giving Feedback and Managing Conflict. Yours to write in, return to, and reference long after the cohort ends.
- 90-day integration planCompleted independently after Week 8. Supported through the community where peers and past participants engage.
Undeniable Leaders Academy
- Lifetime access to all program contentRecordings, resources, and supplemental modules — yours for as long as the academy is operational.
- The community of leadersYou are not joining an empty room. The community is populated by leaders who have completed Russo Leadership programs over the years.
- Additional learning modulesIdentity-centered leadership, governance, and continuing development resources — released into the academy on an ongoing basis.
How Support Works
- Live facilitation is the primary containerYour direct work with Nayli happens in the eight live sessions — that is where the real teaching, practice, and feedback live.
- Community is the between-session channelQuestions, applications, peer support, and ongoing dialogue happen in the academy community — populated with other leaders doing the work.
- One-to-one coaching is not includedDirect private coaching is a separate Russo Leadership engagement. The cohort experience is intentionally peer-driven and group-facilitated.
If you recognize yourself
in any of these.
The Newly Promoted Manager
You are 1 to 3 years into managing people. Some days feel solid. Others you are not sure you are doing this right. You want a real foundation — not just instincts.
The Reactive Manager
You have been managing for a while but something keeps not working. You are stuck in a pattern you can feel but cannot name. You need a mirror, not more advice.
The Untrained Senior Manager
You have been doing this for years. You are effective. But you never got the formal foundation. You want to close that gap — on your terms, with real tools.
This program is not for everyone. If you are looking for a quick certification to put on your LinkedIn or a program that tells you what you want to hear, this is not that. Management Excellence requires you to look honestly at how you operate and be willing to change what is not working. That is the ask. The return is significant.
Russo
Long
Certified Everything DiSC Facilitator
Certified Working Genius Facilitator
Governance Architecture Advisor
Founder, Russo Leadership
Nayli Russo Long has spent her career at the intersection of clinical precision and human complexity — as a pharmacist who became an executive, as an advisor who has worked with boards and C-suites, and as a facilitator who has used these tools to change how leaders understand themselves and the people they lead.
She does not teach management theory. She facilitates management reality — the hard conversations, the team dynamics that do not make sense on paper, the moments when your style stops working and you do not know why. She has been in those rooms. She knows what it takes to move through them.
Nayli has delivered this work across healthcare, professional sports, arts and culture, and nonprofit governance. Her clients range from first-time managers finding their footing to senior leaders rebuilding their approach after years of managing by instinct alone.
Management Excellence is the program she wished existed when she was promoted. It is the one she built so you do not have to figure it out the way she did.
One cohort.
One investment.
Eight weeks of live facilitation. Two assessments. A program workbook and WorkSmart action plans. Lifetime academy access. The community of leaders who have done this work before you.
Management Excellence Live Cohort
The complete program. Eight live sessions, two assessments, a program workbook with WorkSmart action plans, lifetime access to Undeniable Leaders Academy, and the community of leaders. You are facilitated by Nayli every week, in a room of twelve.
Bringing Your Team
Enrolling 3 or more seats from the same organization unlocks group pricing at $1,997 per seat, a 20% discount that reflects what it means when an organization invests in its leaders together. Fill out the form below and we will send you an invoice within one business day.
You have been managing.
Now learn to lead.
The cohort starts Wednesday June 10. Eight weekly sessions, 2:00 to 3:30 PM Eastern. Twelve seats by design. This is not a webinar. It is a room where real work happens.
June 10 – July 29, 2026 · Wednesdays 2:00 PM ET · 8 Sessions · 12 Seats Maximum · Russo Leadership