A CEO’s Journey Back to Restorative Leadership
A Case Study 

Abstract

This case study explores how TGTHR, a Boulder, Colorado-based non-profit working to end youth homelessness, navigated a period of acute organizational crisis through restorative leadership and courageous self-awareness at the executive level. Rather than offering a traditional turnaround narrative, the story highlights the CEO’s willingness to lead vulnerably, acknowledge ruptures, and engage deeply in restorative work even as conditions worsened. Through its partnership with Intersectional Innovations, a leading EBI consulting firm, TGTHR stabilized not by bypassing conflict, but by embracing a relational, equity-rooted approach to repair and culture-building. As the organization enters its next chapter, the CEO is intentionally returning to restorative practices: underscoring their value not just in recovery, but in long-term cultural stewardship.

This case study offers rare and practical insight into what it looks like when active restorative leadership chooses transparency, humility, and restorative over performance and perfectionism. It explores TGTHR’s transformation through a restorative lens and centers Annie’s personal journey as CEO highlighting her emotional toll of the crisis, the self-reflection required to show up differently, and the courage it took to choose vulnerability when conditions continued to worsen. This article exposes the messiness of true cultural change and how restorative leadership rarely looks clean and tidy and how returning to the “why” after conflict can rebuild trust one conversation at a time.

Context and crisis

TGTHR, a Boulder-based nonprofit dedicated to ending youth homelessness, entered a period of profound organizational destabilization amid rising external demand and internal strain. What initially appeared as growth masked deeper misalignments in structure, communication, and decision-making authority. Staff burnout intensified, trust eroded, and leadership became increasingly reactive as the organization outpaced its relational and operational supports.

An organization-wide environmental analysis facilitated by Intersectional Innovations helped TGTHR understand that the instability was not the result of individual failure, but layered stressors interacting with underdeveloped relational and accountability infrastructure. The analysis surfaced trauma responses embedded in communication norms, unclear roles and power dynamics, inconsistent feedback processes, and reliance on top-down leadership during moments requiring shared sense-making.

For Annie, TGTHR’s CEO, this reframing was pivotal. What she had internalized as personal failure emerged as evidence that the organization had reached the limits of its current design. The analysis also named the physiological toll of prolonged instability, positioning dysregulation not as a leadership weakness, but as data on an organization operating beyond its relational capacity. This marked a turning point: from crisis containment toward restorative action grounded in regulation, relational accountability, and equity-centered redesign.

As organizational strain intensified, Annie reframed the crisis as a critical juncture requiring deeper alignment with TGTHR’s commitments. She recognized her internal reactions as“two sides of the same coin” of “trauma responses.” These reflections illuminate how organizational crises are experienced as an embodied leadership challenge. Naming these patterns marked a shift from reactive to restorative, values-aligned leadership, laying the groundwork for TGTHR’s repair, stabilization, and cultural renewal.

Leadership turning point

Annie’s realization that the organization could not move forward without changing leadership practices became a catalyst for transformation. She chose to slow down, listen, and adopt a restorative stance, even when countercultural.

“Stepping away was the hardest thing to do. I wanted to force a solution rather than allowing the process to unfold. People I trust would reflect back to me and help me see blind spots.”

Practices of regulation, rest, and trusted reflection sustained her leadership endurance. Over time, Annie distinguished responsibility from self-blame and cultivated accountability grounded in care. She notes:

“There was validation that it wasn’t my fault even though it was my responsibility. I made myself separate from work. It helped me approach each week with a fresh mind though it was hard to give myself permission to do this.”

Through her work with Intersectional Innovations, Annie’s leadership shifted. Instead of projecting certainty amid restructuring, she used her regulated presence as an intervention. Supported by restorative, trauma-informed practices, she prioritized honesty over reassurance, emotional congruence over composure, and shared endurance over control, showing that trust and accountability are built through values-aligned action, not urgency or authority.

Reflecting on this shift, Annie described vulnerability and transparency as necessary leadership commitments during a crisis.

“I felt vulnerability and transparency. I stopped telling staff it was ok and acknowledged how difficult these changes were and showed up to hard conversations. I did my best to stay regulated, and when I didn’t, I did my best to repair and be accountable.”

As this leadership adaptation took root, its effects extended beyond the organization. The crisis became the starting point for change. Annie began to consider public honesty as credibility rather than risk. Managing perception and minimizing exposure was becoming laborious and unsustainable. She departed from performative leadership norms toward restorative practice rooted in values, communication, and action. Annie described how embracing visibility reshaped her sense of leadership and TGTHR’s relationship with its broader community:

“Some of the gifts of a de-stabilizing crisis is that everything is out in the open. I started to embrace this. I didn’t need to defend or justify what I was doing. I needed to own it. [It] is hard, and we’re still here, we keep showing up.”

These reflections illustrate how restorative leadership operates through sustained presence, patience, accountability, and deep relational trust. In choosing authenticity over performance, Annie modeled executive leadership that strengthened legitimacy and collective resilience.

Restorative analysis and trauma informed recommendations 

The restorative environmental analysis facilitated by Yeruwelle de Rouen of Intersectional Innovations activated restorative leadership through insight and embodied practice. Rather than treating instability as a technical problem, the assessment approached TGTHR as a relational system shaped by cumulative stress, unresolved harm, and adaptive responses to prolonged uncertainty. This aligns with trauma-informed and restorative leadership, centering regulation, accountability, and shared meaning as foundations for lasting change.

Restorative assessments treat lived realities, stories, and complaints as essential data about how an organization functions. Rather than privileging intent, hierarchy, or abstract metrics, this approach centers what people experience in their bodies, relationships, and identities—especially where race, power, and harm intersect. By listening to these accounts, restorative analysis reframes them as indicators of structural misalignment and invites organizations to move from defensiveness toward accountable, equity-informed action.

Data collection across roles and tenure surfaced patterned responses such as defensive communication, role confusion, and urgency-driven decision-making, alongside sources of relational resilience and shared values. This supported Annie in shifting from symptom management to structural and relational root-cause analysis.

Annie was positioned as a co-interpreter of meaning, operationalizing restorative leadership principles in real time. Her regulated presence became a stabilizing force. The environmental analysis clarified that transformation requires sustained relational practice rather than episodic intervention. By linking insight to immediate action while holding long-term change collectively, the process supported Annie in embodying restorative leadership, balancing authority and humility, urgency and care.

Annie sought support from Intersectional Innovations because she believes in the efficacy of restorative practices. She notes:

“I deeply felt the impact that changes, decisions, and communication were having on staff, particularly staff of color. I couldn’t always mitigate the hard or save people’s jobs, but I believe deeply in restorative conversations, reflection and acknowledgement. I couldn’t always fix it, but it felt important to bear witness to the experience of others.”

For Annie, practicing restorative work was transformative. While much literature emphasizes dialogue and repair, she encountered disagreement, harm, and unresolved tension, prompting her to interrogate her assumptions about repair and reflect on responsibility, ownership, and the emotional labor of leadership.

“It grounded me in the experience of others. Intention doesn’t equal impact. Holding space for conflict and uncertainty can open the door to healing. Rupture is harder. Restoration isn’t owed. When repair doesn’t happen, I had to find ways to do my work in ownership and accountability.”

It is crucial for leaders to learn how restorative leadership functions under pressure and resist performance culture in favor of honesty and repair. The TGTHR case study demonstrates endurance during conflict and change, how honesty and action complement each other in crisis, and how organizations can stabilize by choosing relational courage over speed.

Annie highlights a lesson for leaders navigating instability: silence undermines trust. She notes:

“Not talking about it doesn’t make it go away, it makes people trust you less.”

Annie realized how accountability plays a transformative role within her team. Her efforts to repair relationships trace back to consistent restorative leadership practices. She notes:

“Ruptures will happen, harm will happen. What matters is how we deal with this, how leaders are accountable, transparent, and kind. I was surprised by how people responded to restorative conversations with grace and kindness. They were healing.”

Restorative leadership is most powerful when visible, consistent, and rooted in accountability. For executive, EBI, or DEI practitioners, and teams facing disruption, the TGTHR case study shows that relational courage over expediency can stabilize organizations and foster sustained culture change.

As Annie reflected, showing up, acknowledging difficulty, and modeling repair reinforce organizational integrity and collective confidence. The future looks brighter for TGTHR. Annie shares:

“We didn’t have a strong foundation before this crisis; now we have the opportunity to rebuild from a strong foundation, and that has to include more equitable and restorative work and leadership.”

Moving toward stabilization

As TGTHR enters its next chapter, Annie is recommitting to restorative practices, signaling a long-term belief that restorative work is foundational to culture, accountability, and belonging. Annie reflects on what helped her and the team stay anchored:

“For me, my family was the anchor, being outside, taking care of myself, stepping away. I tried to model this. The youth, our values and mission are what anchored us to one another during this crisis and knowing that we were all showing up for them.”

For Annie, consistency mattered as much as any decision. The shift was less about dramatic interventions and more about what was modeled during the toughest moments. In describing what anchored trust, Annie emphasized daily presence and emotional regulation as the foundation of her leadership practice:

“There’s no path to operational stability if the leader isn’t regulated. Once I made aligned decisions and communicated them with confidence, operational stabilization followed. Long-term stabilization takes years, but it helps to do this work outside of crisis mode.”

Looking back, Annie saw that daily presence drove this shift, showing that restorative leadership is about reliability, presence, and care, not perfection.

Bibliography

1. Polyvagal Theory: Current Status, Clinical Applications, and Future Directions
2. Leadership is associated with lower levels of stress
3. Coregulation: A Multilevel Approach via Biology and Behavior
4. A Beginner’s Guide to Jungian Shadow Work: How to Integrate Your Dark Side

Photo by Ian Schneider on Unsplash