Executive Team Retreat
In partnership with Build Hope, Inc.
CONTEXT
Build Hope, Inc. engaged Untapped Leaders to design a focused, in-person executive team retreat to align leadership practice with the organization’s values as it scaled. The engagement was scoped as a full-day retreat grounded in the Untapped Leadership framework.
INTERVENTION
Untapped Leaders facilitated a custom full-day retreat that blended short teaching moments, inquiry-based dialogue, reflective practice, and real-time application. The day was sequenced to move the team from individual leadership awareness to shared norms and future-oriented commitments:
Framing the Day — Grounding in context and introducing inquiry as a leadership stance and the Untapped Leadership through-line (Lived Insights / Systems Thinking / Personal Agency / Shared Vision.)
Interpersonal Leadership Styles — Shared language for how style and identity shape leadership and collaboration. (Individualized ILS reports and team analysis provided.)
Trust & Culture Alignment — Co-creating a Team Trust Charter using the T.R.U.S.T. framework, with story-sharing and concrete “what this looks like in practice” commitments.
Reflective Practice: Inquiry in Action — Short practice to reinforce inquiry as a leadership muscle that supports candid, careful dialogue.
From Feedback Fatigue → Feedback Fluency — Reframing feedback as a relational, equity-centered practice; links to ILS and trust work so leaders can give/receive feedback with care and clarity.
Visioning for Collective Leadership — Aligning on an executive ethos and activating a shared future vision for leadership across Build Hope.
The retreat used a mix of mini-lectures, dyadic and small-group dialogue, group share-outs, and tangible deliverables. Materials distributed included ILS reports/packet, a Team Trust Charter template, a Container of Trust diagnostic, T.R.U.S.T. framework overview, Trust Check-In prompts, and CCC planning tools to support post-retreat activation.
IMPACT
The retreat produced concrete artifacts and practice shifts that executives could operationalize immediately:
Shared frameworks and language (ILS + T.R.U.S.T.) that helped the team translate personal leadership tendencies into predictable team practices and clearer expectations for feedback.
A clarified executive ethos and vision from the closing visioning session, paired with toolkits (e.g., CCC planner, Trust Check-In prompts) to embed the learning in weekly rhythms and meetings.
PARTICIPANT REFLECTION
“We really appreciated the way you helped us discover our leadership styles and created space for honest, healthy conversation. It was such a valuable experience for our team, and we’re excited to build on the insights moving forward.”
This reflection sits at the heart of the retreat’s success. Participants named the discovery of leadership styles (ILS) and the deliberate creation of a safe, inquiry-based container as the most valuable elements of the day. The format enabled leaders to both see how their styles shape interactions and experience different ways of engaging that promote candid, caring conversation, ultimately helping the team convert a powerful day of learning into durable next steps.
OUTCOME
By the end of the day ,Build Hope’s executive team left with: concrete trust commitments; a shared feedback protocol and language to practice feedback fluency; and an aligned leadership vision paired with practical tools (ILS reports, diagnostics, and planners) to integrate practices into regular executive and staff rhythms. The retreat format—rooted in the Untapped Leadership framework and designed for inquiry and application—created a durable platform for leaders to model new habits that scale across the organization.
WHO SHOULD CONSIDER THIS APPROACH
Executive teams that want to translate values into reliable leadership practice (trust, feedback, and shared decision norms) will benefit from a full-day retreat that combines context-aware leadership awareness (ILS), trust alignment (T.R.U.S.T.), reflective inquiry, feedback practice, and visioning—delivered with a short prep call, tailored materials, and clear, meeting-level activation plans. Untapped Leaders designs these retreats to foster interpersonal alignment and deliver practical artifacts that teams can use immediately.