The 5C Integration Leadership Lab | The Nightingale Way
The Nightingale Way

The 5C Integration Leadership Lab

Translate self-awareness into intentional leadership action.

An eight-week leadership-development experience for accomplished women in healthcare who want to lead with greater clarity, coherence, and alignment.

Founding cohort begins September 30, 2026Limited to 10–12 participants.

Enrollment is by consultation and invitation.


You are already accomplished.

You have developed expertise, earned responsibility, and become someone others rely on. You know how to make decisions, navigate competing priorities, and continue moving important work forward.

And leadership at this level can ask for more than knowledge, credentials, or experience.

It may ask you to:

  • Remain grounded while carrying significant responsibility.
  • Recognize when a familiar leadership pattern is no longer serving you.
  • Respond intentionally rather than relying automatically on the approach that has worked before.
  • Bring greater alignment between what you know internally and how you communicate, decide, and act.
  • Make room for discernment without losing momentum.
  • Lead with both strength and greater awareness of your impact.

The Leadership Lab is not designed to teach accomplished women how to lead. It is designed to help them integrate what they already know, strengthen how they respond, and translate self-awareness into intentional leadership action.

The Central Leadership Shift

The next level of leadership is integration.

Self-awareness matters. Yet insight alone does not always change what happens in the moment when the pressure is real, the relationship is complicated, or an important decision must be made.

Leadership growth at this stage often comes from closing the distance between what you recognize internally and how you respond externally.

The Leadership Lab supports that movement through a practical progression:

AwarenessDiscernmentChoiceIntegration

You learn to recognize what is happening, examine it more clearly, choose your response intentionally, and integrate what you discover into the way you lead.


A place to work with the leadership situations that matter now.

The 5C Integration Leadership Lab is an eight-week, facilitated small-cohort experience for women in healthcare leadership.

It combines practical leadership development with evidence-informed approaches to self-regulation, thought awareness, discernment, communication, and intentional behavioral change.

Rather than discussing leadership only in theory, participants bring real situations into the Lab. You may work with a decision you are facing, a relationship that requires a different approach, a communication pattern you want to change, or an opportunity to lead with greater alignment.

The 5C process gives you a repeatable way to examine what is happening, identify what may be influencing your response, choose a more intentional course of action, and integrate what you learn into your leadership practice.

The 5C Integration Leadership System

A practical process for turning awareness into action.

Foundation

Coherence

Return to greater physiological and emotional balance so that you can respond with more clarity and intention.

Coherence is a portable self-regulation skill. It can be used before a difficult conversation, between demanding meetings, during any part of the 5C process, or whenever you need to return to a more grounded internal state.

Step Two

Catch

Recognize the thought, reaction, assumption, emotion, or internal pattern that has been activated.

Step Three

Check

Examine what is accurate, what may be incomplete or distorted, what belongs to the present situation, and what requires deeper discernment.

Step Four

Change

Choose and practice a response that better supports your leadership intention, values, and responsibilities.

Step Five

Claim

Integrate the learning, take aligned action, and strengthen your capacity to lead from what you know to be true.

What Participants Will Strengthen

Develop a more intentional way of leading through complexity.

Through the Leadership Lab, participants will strengthen their ability to:

  • Remain grounded and available during demanding leadership situations.
  • Recognize internal reactions without allowing those reactions to direct the next decision.
  • Examine assumptions, interpretations, and familiar patterns with greater precision.
  • Make decisions that reflect both professional responsibility and personal values.
  • Communicate with greater clarity, steadiness, and awareness of impact.
  • Move from prolonged reflection into purposeful action.
  • Approach difficult conversations with greater preparation and intention.
  • Apply the 5C process independently to future leadership challenges.
  • Integrate self-awareness into everyday leadership behavior.

The goal is not to replace the leadership strengths you have already developed. It is to help you use those strengths with even greater consciousness and choice.


What the Experience Includes

Eight weeks of learning, application, and integration.

The founding Leadership Lab cohort will include:

  • Live facilitated virtual group sessions.
  • A professionally designed participant workbook.
  • Guided application of the 5C process to current leadership situations.
  • Practical coherence and self-regulation skills.
  • Reflection and application activities between sessions.
  • Leadership tools and supporting resources.
  • A small cohort designed to support meaningful participation.
  • A 30-day follow-up and outcomes reflection.

The Lab is designed to be active and applied. Participants will be invited to work with real situations, experiment with new responses, and return to the group with what they are learning.

Who the Leadership Lab Is For

Designed for women who already carry meaningful leadership responsibility.

The Leadership Lab is for women working in healthcare and related service environments, including:

  • Clinical and advanced-practice leaders.
  • Nurse managers, directors, and executives.
  • Healthcare administrators and operational leaders.
  • Behavioral-health and community-health leaders.
  • Educators and academic leaders.
  • Public-health and nonprofit leaders.
  • Women whose expertise and influence extend beyond their formal title.

You do not need to hold an executive title or supervise a large team. Leadership may be expressed through formal authority, clinical expertise, organizational influence, education, innovation, advocacy, or service.

The Lab is especially well suited for women who are willing to engage in honest reflection, apply what they learn to real situations, and experiment with more intentional ways of responding.

The 5C Integration Leadership Lab is a professional leadership-development experience. It is not psychotherapy, clinical treatment, or a substitute for individualized mental-health care.


Founding Cohort

Program details

Begins
September 30, 2026
Program length
Eight weeks
Format
Live virtual cohort
Cohort size
10–12 participants
Investment
$2,500
Enrollment
By consultation and invitation
Follow-up
30-day outcomes reflection included

Because this is a small founding cohort, participants will be selected with attention to readiness, fit, and the kind of experience each woman hopes to create through her participation.

The Founding Cohort Consultation

Begin with a conversation.

The Founding Cohort Consultation is an opportunity to discuss your current leadership context, the change or growth you would like to support, and whether the Leadership Lab is a strong fit for you.

During the consultation, we will consider:

  • What is bringing you to the Leadership Lab now.
  • The leadership situation or pattern you most want to address.
  • What you hope will be different by the end of the eight weeks.
  • Your readiness to participate in a reflective, applied small-cohort experience.
  • Whether the September founding cohort is the right timing and fit.

Following the consultation, you may be invited to enroll in the founding cohort or encouraged to consider a later offering.

Schedule My Consultation

Please share a little about your current leadership role and what you hope to strengthen through the Leadership Lab. Your responses will help make our consultation focused and useful.

Your information is used only to prepare for and schedule your consultation. Please do not include patient-identifying or protected health information in your responses.

Prefer to go straight to the calendar? Book a 30-minute consultation.

Created and Facilitated By

Sonia Luckey, DNP, MA

Dr. Sonia Luckey is a healthcare leadership educator, author, speaker, and Certified HeartMath Trainer. She is a board-certified Family Nurse Practitioner and Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner and previously served as an Assistant Professor and Associate Dean of Nursing for the School of Nursing at UMass Global.

Her experience includes designing and delivering more than 50 educational, professional-development, and leadership programs. She has also delivered programs connected to state and national programs, including First 5 California and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Across her clinical, academic, and leadership work, Sonia has helped healthcare professionals bring together psychological insight, evidence-informed practices, self-awareness, and practical action.

She created the 5C Integration Leadership System to help accomplished women move beyond insight alone and develop a repeatable process for leading with greater coherence, discernment, and intention.

DNP · MA · FNP-BC · PMHNP-BC · Certified HeartMath Trainer · Former Associate Dean of Nursing, UMass Global


Frequently Asked Questions

Before you schedule

Is the Leadership Lab only for nurses?

No. The Lab is designed for women working across healthcare and related service environments. Participants may come from clinical, administrative, academic, behavioral-health, public-health, nonprofit, or other leadership settings.

Do I need to hold a formal leadership title?

No. Some participants will hold formal management or executive roles, while others lead through expertise, influence, education, advocacy, innovation, or responsibility for important work.

Is this therapy or counseling?

No. The Leadership Lab is a professional leadership-development program. Participants will engage in reflection and self-awareness practices, but the Lab is not psychotherapy, clinical treatment, or individualized mental-health care.

What kinds of situations can I bring into the Lab?

You may work with a current decision, a difficult conversation, a recurring leadership pattern, a professional relationship, a communication challenge, a change you are leading, or another situation in which you want to respond with greater clarity and intention.

How is enrollment determined?

Enrollment begins with a consultation. The conversation will help determine whether the program fits your goals, readiness, and current leadership context. Because the founding cohort is limited to 10–12 women, enrollment is by invitation.

What is the investment?

The investment for the eight-week founding cohort is $2,500.

What happens if the September cohort is not the right timing?

A Leadership Lab cohort is planned for early 2027. When appropriate, you may be invited to remain connected for that offering.

What happens after the eight weeks?

Participants will complete a 30-day follow-up reflection to consider what they have continued to apply, what has changed, and how they are integrating the 5C process into their leadership.


Your leadership experience has brought you this far.

The Leadership Lab offers a structured opportunity to integrate what you already know, examine how you respond when leadership becomes demanding, and practice a more intentional way of moving forward.

The founding cohort begins September 30, 2026 and is limited to 10–12 participants.

Enrollment is by consultation and invitation.

The Nightingale Way

The 5C Integration Leadership Lab · Created and facilitated by Sonia Luckey, DNP, MA, FNP-BC, PMHNP-BC

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