Leading Through Crisis
The Challenge
A global charity entered the most serious organisational challenge in its history: its first-ever period of industrial action, triggered by a complex mix of pay negotiations, union relations, cultural tension and leadership misalignment.
Senior leaders were operating under intense pressure, managing legal risk, reputational impact and internal conflict while still trying to maintain day-to-day operations. Crisis communications capacity was stretched, relationships with unions had deteriorated, and governance structures lacked the clarity required for fast decision-making.
At a deeper level, the crisis exposed wider cultural challenges. Fear of conflict, blurred leadership roles, siloed working and hesitancy to set firm boundaries all undermined leadership confidence. Leaders described feeling powerless, isolated and vulnerable, struggling to hold both organisational integrity and empathy for colleagues at the same time.
The immediate need was twofold:
- Practical support to help leaders manage a live industrial relations crisis and stabilise communications, union engagement and internal coordination.
- Reflective leadership space to step back from firefighting, process what had happened, reset behaviours and rebuild collective confidence ahead of future negotiations.
Our Approach
The Good Change provided strategic crisis communications, industrial relations advisory and leadership facilitation to support the CFO, CPO and executive leaders through and beyond the dispute.
Our work combined real-time operational support with deeper organisational reflection:
1. Crisis leadership & communications support
During active negotiations we:
- Provided strategic advice on union engagement and negotiation posture
- Supported contingency planning and workforce communications
- Advised on tone, consistency and narrative across employee and leadership channels
- Helped leaders establish more joined-up working groups to improve coordination and reporting
- Acted as a trusted external partner to help navigate political sensitivities and decision-making under pressure
2. Leadership reflection & culture reset workshops
Once stability returned, we facilitated two bespoke away-day style sessions with senior leadership:
Session 1 – IR Reflection Workshop
Created a psychologically safe environment for those most closely involved in the crisis to:
- Share personal experiences for the first time post-crisis
- Reflect honestly on behaviours and decisions that helped or hindered progress
- Identify leadership, governance and communication gaps
- Rebuild trust within the group following a deeply bruising period
Session 2 – Culture & Leadership Feedback Workshop
In collaboration with an organisational psychologist, we broadened the conversation to focus on:
- How the dispute revealed deeper cultural patterns
- Leadership confidence and role clarity
- Fear of conflict and the consequences of inconsistent leadership behaviour
- What “good” leadership and organisational culture should look like going forward
Across both sessions, we used:
- Psychologically safe facilitation
- Structured reflection tools (emotion mapping, culture mapping, group diagnostics)
- Guided group dialogue rather than presentations
- Individual and group exercises to ensure inclusive participation
- Post-session synthesis reports capturing findings and recommendations
The Outcomes
The combined crisis support and leadership workshops delivered powerful results:
- Stronger leadership under pressure Leaders moved from reactive, fragmented working to clearer coordination, confident union engagement, consistent messaging and stronger collective accountability.
- An honest culture reset For the first time, leaders had space to process the emotional impact of the crisis together. This surfaced deeper cultural issues, including fear of conflict, blurred authority and tolerance of poor behaviour, creating clarity around the need for stronger challenge, role clarity and consistent standards.
- A practical roadmap for improvement The work generated clear priorities for strengthening crisis readiness, including refreshed governance and RACI frameworks, stronger decision-making protocols, earlier stakeholder engagement, more robust internal communications, consistent leadership behaviours, and increased focus on conflict and negotiation capability.
Renewed energy and lasting momentum Leaders reported greater confidence, improved psychological safety and renewed pride in rebuilding organisational culture. The engagement sparked ongoing leadership dialogue, increased challenge of established norms, and a long-term commitment to embedding stronger crisis management principles.
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