Leading Together: How Inclusion Education Built a Cohesive Executive Team Using the Five Behaviors®

The Five Behaviors Model

Overview

As Inclusion Education expanded its impact and reach, its leadership faced a familiar challenge: the organisational mission was accelerating, but the executive team needed to evolve. They needed to work as a leadership unit that could model psychological safety, accountability, and shared clarity.

Recognising this, CEO Cheryl Edwards took a courageous decision: to invest in behavioural development, not just operational systems. Over nine months, IE transformed from high-performing individuals to a collaborative executive team, guided by the Five Behaviors® framework and facilitated by Natalie Simms of Scenario One | Di5B.

This case study documents that journey—authentic, evidence-based, and rooted in IE’s values.

Why This Mattered — IE’s Strategic Context

Inclusion Education champions inclusive learning environments where dignity, autonomy, and belonging are central, both for students and staff. As the organisation scaled, its senior team faced growing complexity:

• High-stakes decisions across multiple programmes

• New stakeholder accountability

• Increased demand for efficiency and impact

  
  

IE’s leadership team had expertise, but not always cohesion. Deep reflection and team development were essential to reinforce their culture of support, dignity, and shared leadership across strategy, delivery, and governance.

“We were scaling the business, but not scaling how we worked together.”—  Cheryl Edwards, Founder & CEO

A Strong Starting Point—With Room to Grow

This was not a dysfunctional team. In fact, based on the global Five Behaviors® database of over 29,000 teams, the IE Executive Team started ahead of the curve in many areas:

• Stronger-than-average scores in 14 out of 20 behavioural categories

• Top three strengths: clarity of direction, public celebration of others' achievements, and unguarded authenticity

• Above average percentile rankings in all five behaviours:

  
  

  • Trust (87%)

  • Conflict (76%)

  • Commitment (74%)

  • Accountability (59%)

  • Results (86%)

    
    

However, high percentile rankings don’t necessarily equate to readiness to scale. This was a team with potential, but also a team in transition:

• Three founding members

• One newly promoted leader

• Two new joiners within six months

  
  

Cheryl recognised that if the organisation was going to scale, the executive team had to scale together, on purpose.

The Journey: Five Behaviors® in Action

A Phased, Reflective Intervention

• September–November Workshops: Three in-depth sessions unpacking each dimension of the Five Behaviors®, supported by DiSC® profiling, real-life team examples, and IE’s data.

  
  

• Behavioural Reinforcement: Between sessions, leaders practised shared language and commitment across meetings and programmes.

  
  

• June 2025 Progress Review: A half-day facilitated reflection comparing June insights to baseline, celebrating progress, and co-creating next steps.

  
  

What the Progress Report Revealed

The June assessment showed the team had made substantial gains in Trust, Accountability, and Results, with smaller improvements in Conflict and Commitment. This was a natural pattern for a team still deepening trust and forming new working relationships.

The next stretch for the team became clear:

• For Conflict, the focus would be on building comfort with challenge earlier in discussions—raising objections before decisions are made, not after. While surface-level tensions had eased, the team acknowledged that deeper, values-based debates were still underexplored.

  
  

• For Commitment, the emphasis was on clarity in decision-making. The team noted a tendency to “move on too soon” without checking for shared understanding. The progress session introduced practices to slow down at the point of decision, allowing space for final questions, alternative views, and confirmation of ownership.

  
  

These shifts were not course corrections—they were signs of a team ready to take its cohesion to the next level.

“A key change I’ve seen is the greater emphasis on securing buy-in and clarity before moving forward…”— Matthew Atkinson

Behaviour-by-Behaviour Transformation

Trust

Team members grew more willing to share mistakes and ask for support, building a stronger foundation of openness.

“What’s really stayed with me is the way our team has grown in trust and cohesion, and apologising to one another. That kind of vulnerability was rare at the beginning.”— Marie Greenhalgh

Conflict

The team shifted from quiet avoidance to thoughtful challenge and productive dialogue.

“The single most tangible shift is the professional deliberate use of Five Behaviors language to proceed into difficult conversations…subsequent conversations are more direct, shorter, and desensitised.”— Kristian Still

“Staff refer to DiSC categories…it is so good to hear staff discussing what they have learnt about themselves.”— Liz Cooper

Commitment

Meetings were increasingly concluding with a shared understanding and transparent decision-making.

“I felt there was a significant change…structure and vigour…space to debate…commitment to a shared goal.”— Liz Cooper

Accountability

Constructive peer feedback and challenge became part of the team culture.

“One shift…is the growing confidence…in holding each other accountable…people are more willing to question assumptions or challenge ideas, always with good intent.”— Marie Greenhalgh

“Team members are more willing to recognise their own shortfalls…when held accountable…less defensive.”— Kristian Still

Results

Success shifted from individual contributions to shared achievement.

“We’re now far more intentional about what we’re aiming for—as a team, not just as leaders of functions.”— Matthew Atkinson

“Team members don’t want to let one another down and are prioritising collaboration and working towards shared goals.”— Cheryl Edwards

A Co-Created Scorecard

Creating a Collective Results Scorecard marked a pivotal shift. It wasn’t a compliance tool—it was a visible, shared definition of what success meant. It enabled the leadership team to embody IE’s values—mutual respect, dignity, and belief—and made Cheryl’s vision a team priority.

The Impact: What Changed in Nine Months?

Despite starting ahead of the average in most areas, the team achieved measurable and meaningful growth across all five behaviours:

• Trust: +14%

• Conflict: +5%

• Commitment: +2%

• Accountability: +30%

• Results: +17%

  
  

“There is widespread use of shared language around trust, vulnerability and commitment. Leaders are now role-modelling the principles.”— Cheryl Edwards

What Made This Work — The Secret to Sustainability

1. Leadership, Courage, and Intentionality

   
   

   This wasn’t remedial—it was strategic. Cheryl led boldly, not out of necessity, but out of foresight.

   
   

2. Tailored to IE’s Culture

   
   

   All interventions aligned with IE’s values of inclusion, dignity, and teamwork, not generic corporate jargon.

   
   

3. Real Leadership Accountability

   
   

   Progress wasn’t handed down—it was owned. The team built and reinforced their behavioural agreements.

   
   

4. Visible Progress Over Time

   
   

   Quarterly reporting and honest reflection ensured that behavioural change didn’t recede when operational pressures rose.

   
   

What Comes Next: Embedding the Change

With the baseline and progress phases complete, the Executive Development Team at Inclusion Education is now entering a critical next chapter: embedding the behavioural shifts they’ve committed to.

The Five Behaviors® progress workshop concluded with a clear action plan—team-agreed priorities across each of the five behaviours, along with three core focus areas identified as most critical for continued improvement. These commitments now serve as a behavioural roadmap, enabling the team to move from insight to practice.

The team can also continue using the Five Behaviors® Progress Report tool for future self-assessment and reflection. Provided the team composition remains at least 60% consistent, this can be repeated at intervals to track development over time. To ensure depth and continuity, these future progress cycles are best facilitated by their certified practitioner—ensuring consistent interpretation, structured reflection, and alignment with prior phases. If more than 40% of the team changes, a whole team reset using the baseline Five Behaviors process is recommended.

While the Five Behaviors® framework can deliver significant results as a standalone intervention, Inclusion Education has chosen to go further. Recognising that the real challenge lies not just in understanding behavioural change—but in embedding it consistently within the flow of demanding leadership roles—CEO Cheryl Edwards has committed to deeper support.

From September to November 2025, the six members of the current EDT—joined by three additional senior leaders—will complete the Conversations That Matter programme, facilitated by Scenario One. Where Five Behaviors® revealed the team’s current dynamics and created a shared language, Conversations That Matter offers a practical toolkit to bring those behaviours to life in everyday leadership conversations, over 12 weeks, leaders will focus on how to drive ownership, clarity, and accountability through the way they engage with colleagues—ensuring the leader’s role shifts from solving problems to enabling performance.

This approach builds habits around the very behaviours the team has prioritised: trust, constructive conflict, commitment, peer-to-peer accountability, and shared results. It is not a reset—it’s reinforcement. A deliberate choice to maximise progress, create continuity across the wider senior team, and ensure that leadership at Inclusion Education evolves in line with its mission.

Conclusion: A Model of Inclusive Leadership

Inclusion Education’s journey shows that high-performing organisations do not just scale operations—they scale culture. Their leadership team didn’t need fixing—but they needed honing. They chose to evolve their approach, not just their work.

This work isn’t exceptional—it’s essential for organisations that seek to model the values they stand for and lead with integrity at scale.

“What makes me proud is not just the progress we’ve made—but the way we’ve made it: openly, respectfully, and as a team. This work has helped us stay aligned through change, and I believe it’s part of what makes Inclusion Education stronger.”— Cheryl Edwards, Founder & CEO