Case Study: When Leadership Starts with Purpose
Sandbox Case Study
Client: Sandbox, a scaling boutique consulting firm serves founders, CEOs, business operators, nonprofit executives, and values-driven leaders who need effective back office systems and support.
Engagement: Leadership Team Alignment (Leadership Workshops, Executive Coaching, Strategy Advisory)
Duration: 6 Months
The Client
Sandbox helps growth-stage companies navigate the often overwhelming and complicated world of growing and scaling a business by offering advisory and outsourced business operations, finance, accounting, HR, and recruiting services. As the company continued to grow, its leadership team recognized that the next phase of the business required stronger alignment, deeper trust, and greater clarity in how they led together.
The Opportunity
As leadership responsibilities expanded, the team wanted to invest in becoming more intentional leaders. They weren't looking for a traditional team-building exercise. They wanted to strengthen the foundation of their leadership team by understanding one another more deeply, developing shared ways of working, and gaining an experienced outside perspective on both leadership and business strategy.
The Approach
Control Y designed a six-month engagement that combined facilitated leadership workshops, one-on-one executive coaching, and strategic advisory.
The workshops helped the team explore the factors that shape how they lead and collaborate:
Define the shared purpose that connects the leadership team to the company's mission.
Explore individual values, leadership styles, and non-negotiables to establish stronger working agreements.
Understand each leader's unique strengths while identifying key leadership polarities across the team.
Apply those insights to real business challenges, practicing new leadership behaviors and team norms in the context of day-to-day decisions.
Between workshops, leaders participated in one-on-one coaching to strengthen individual leadership skills and accelerate personal growth. Control Y also reviewed the company's strategic direction, interviewed members of the leadership team, and provided recommendations on near-term business priorities.
"We came to Chrissy as a three person leadership team with very different personalities and leadership styles, and each of us was at a different stage of our own leadership journey. With her help, we got aligned on a language that actually resonated and she helped us recognize the polarities that were quietly working against us. Control Y provided a mindful experience with a lot of tactical takeaways we still use."
— Jill Lemon, Co-Founder & Partner, Sandbox
The Results
By the end of the engagement, the leadership team had established a stronger foundation for leading the business together.
Key outcomes included:
A shared leadership purpose that connected individual motivations to the company's mission.
Leadership team norms that created greater trust, accountability, and consistency in how leaders worked together.
Deeper understanding of each leader's strengths, leadership style, and complementary capabilities.
Practical tools for navigating leadership differences and making better decisions together.
Strategic recommendations that helped the leadership team prioritize opportunities for the next phase of growth.
Most importantly, the engagement strengthened the relationships at the leadership table. By investing in greater self-awareness and alignment, the team developed a stronger foundation for leading the organization through continued growth and change.
Ready to Strengthen Your Leadership Team?
As your business grows, your leadership team needs to grow with it. Control Y helps leadership teams build the clarity, alignment, and confidence needed to lead the next stage of growth.
