Leadership Retreat in the EMBA Digital Leadership HWZ
Out of your comfort zone: reflecting on your own leadership role under pressure
As part of the Leadership & Culture module in the Executive MBA Digital Leadership at HWZ, participants spent two intensive days in a fortress overlooking Lake Thun together with Daniela Landherr, module leader, executive coach and keynote speaker. Under the motto “Become comfortable with being uncomfortable”, they took on leadership roles in a simulated company while facing time pressure, lack of sleep and constant cold. Above all, they learned one key lesson: how they themselves come across when it really matters.
Campus · September 23, 2026
The Leadership Retreat is a two-day practical format within the Leadership & Culture module of the EMBA in Digital Leadership at HWZ. Rather than merely discussing leadership, students experience it first-hand: they are encouraged to step outside their comfort zones, gain insight into their own emotional triggers and response patterns, and practise dealing constructively with challenging situations, preparing them for the complex demands of real-world leadership.
Initial situation and purpose of the retreat
For two days, the study group took on the roles of executive management and board of directors of a company. Their task was to develop a business plan for the fortress management, outlining how its vision could be scaled up and sustained under real-world conditions, using actual key figures and working to a strict deadline. This assignment was carried out under conditions of sleep deprivation, persistent cold, and recurring disruptions and surprises.
The primary focus was not on completing the task as perfectly as possible. Rather, it was about understanding one’s own role in the moment and acting effectively from that position. This involved recognising triggers, understanding one’s own reactions to them, identifying dynamics such as the drama triangle in oneself and others, and then translating these experiences into clarification and feedback.
Stefanie Schwärzli describes how directly these conditions affected the group:
33 hours awake at just 10 degrees. Despite the cold, tiredness and some emotional triggers, there was a strong sense of solidarity within our group – and in the midst of it all, the realisation that we are often capable of much more than we believe ourselves to be.
The work process
The journey began as a leadership task: the group first had to transport materials and equipment together across a bay on Lake Thun before the march to the fortress could begin. On site, they faced organisation under time pressure, ongoing disruptions, and decisions based on incomplete information, culminating in the presentation of business plans to the owner in the early hours of the morning.
For Maria Hagedorn, a student on the EMBA Digital Leadership programme at HWZ, it was precisely this unfamiliar situation that became a crucial part of the learning experience:
600 metres of elevation, twelve kilos of luggage and twelve minutes of sleep: not exactly what I had imagined an EMBA module would involve. And that is precisely why it was so valuable! The leadership retreat taught me more about my own triggers, my limits, and my behaviour under pressure than any lecture hall ever could.
The question of how leadership is practised under these conditions also became part of the learning process. For Tilia Schnarwiler, the contrast between different approaches to leadership proved particularly formative:
What I found particularly enriching was the direct contrast between traditional military leadership and a modern, participative approach to leadership. The Leadership Retreat demonstrated to me in a striking way how differently leadership can be exercised, and how crucial it is to consciously reflect on one’s own leadership style.
The programme concluded with a detailed, structured debriefing: self-reflection, clarifying discussions, and mutual feedback based on the SBII model, enabling students to translate their insights from the two days into concrete leadership lessons.
Bea Koens, a student on the HWZ EMBA Digital Leadership programme, also describes the location and the subsequent reflection as a central part of the experience:
Outside, Lake Thun; inside, the chill of the tunnels—guided through a place where the Swiss Army once secured the Bernese Oberland. And at the end, you hold a map of yourself in your hands. This retreat digs where you would not usually look, and in a single piece of feedback based on the SBII model, reveals more than an entire leadership book. Uncomfortable, honest, priceless.
A surprising insight
What became apparent during the reflection was remarkable: leadership emerged within the group very quickly and effectively. Certain individuals provided direction, structure, and made decisions early on, enabling the group to remain capable of action throughout. At the same time, a pattern emerged that became the central theme of the debriefing: the more clearly individual members assumed leadership, the less the rest of the group seemed to feel the need to take on leadership themselves.
Support and genuine engagement are not the same thing. The question that students took home with them was therefore not, “Who led well or poorly?”, but rather: Does my leadership inspire more leadership around me, or does it unintentionally relieve the group of its own independent thinking? Or, as Daniela Landherr, module leader of the retreat, puts it:
For Dominik Blöchlinger, too, a key insight lies precisely in how to deal with uncertainty and pressure:
The retreat showed me that good leadership does not mean always having the right answer immediately, but rather taking a moment to pause under pressure, correctly assessing the situation, making use of available resources, and finding the best solution together.
