The Challenge
Rethink Ireland (formerly the Social Innovation Fund Ireland) approached Natalie to support Kinia, an educational social enterprise that had recently undergone a merger, experienced leadership attrition, and undergone a rebranding. These changes had left the leadership team fragmented and under strain, just as they were preparing to deliver high-profile events in partnership with corporate sponsors like Meta and Google.
Tensions and conflict within the leadership team were spilling into these external engagements. A recent client event with Google had been marred by mistakes, creating awkwardness with corporate partners and raising questions about the future of the partnership.
Natalie was brought in to help Kinia’s leadership team build trust, work more cohesively under pressure, and strengthen their ability to lead collaboratively during challenging moments.
The Solution
Natalie began by conducting one-on-one conversations with each senior leader to understand their experience within the organisation and uncover the dynamics affecting the leadership team.
Drawing on Patrick Lencioni’s Five Dysfunctions of a Team model, she created an anonymous diagnostic survey to surface patterns and prioritise areas of support.
The Method
Based on the findings, she designed a three-part workshop series:
- 1Building Trust – Encouraging openness and candour, and creating a space where leaders could speak without fear of judgment or consequence.
- 2Resolving Conflict – Revisiting a previous event through a structured post-mortem to surface unspoken tensions and model productive disagreement.
- 3Creating Accountability – Using the growing trust within the team to introduce peer feedback, strengthen commitment, and co-create new ways of working.
The Result
By the end of the programme, Kinia’s leadership team had developed a deeper understanding of what was contributing to the dysfunction: unclear roles, weak communication, and an ongoing pattern of conflict avoidance. Through candid dialogue and reciprocal feedback, the team began to rebuild mutual respect and psychological safety.
Each leader committed:
Participation was maintained throughout the process. The leadership team left with a clearer sense of what had been missing and a renewed commitment to building a stronger, more aligned leadership culture.
Testimonials
”Natalie understood the brief and picked up on the dynamics within the team very quickly. The objective and professional approach modelled the effective leadership behaviours that we wanted to achieve without impeding the positive aspects to the culture we have in Kinia. She was also willing and easily able to adapt mid-workshop in response to feedback from our team and this really ensured ownership of the process for us internally. Overall Natalie was a pleasure to work with, we were kept on the brief with her warm professional manner and I would have no hesitation in making a referral or recommendation to any organisation.”
