Kindness in Action
KindFrame is dedicated to building kinder, higher-performing, trust-driven cultures. It is informed by research-grounded expertise in leadership development, team culture strategy, and relational governance, ensuring that kindness transcends mere values.
Who I am
I’m Nicki Macklin (PhD) - advisor, speaker, facilitator, and researcher focused on the role of kindness in organisational life. I live in Nelson, New Zealand, with my family, but travel often within Aotearoa and internationally.
My work has been featured in the Harvard Business Review, Forbes, and the British Medical Journal Leader, where I also serve as an Associate Editor, supporting global research on kindness, human connection, and relational leadership through to publication.
I founded KindFrame to help teams and leaders bring more kindness, trust, and humanity into the way they work. My PhD research explored organisational kindness as a form of social capital - something that can be designed for, measured, and embedded into team culture and leadership practice. I specialise in helping organisations turn values into action, especially in complex systems like healthcare, law, and public service.
At the heart of everything I do is this belief: kindness is not soft. It can be structured. And when it’s built into the way we lead, relate, and hold each other accountable, it delivers real-world results.
Why I started
KindFrame
I started KindFrame because I kept seeing a gap - between what organisations say they value and how those values are actually experienced by their people. I also began noticing that many culture efforts out there are still sold as a 'one size fits all' approach, and lack a strong grounding in research. Every workplace culture is different, and requires its own unique set of solutions. I believe that if you are going to invest in your team's culture, you should be accessing quality and tailored expertise informed using up-to-date research.
Kindness is often talked about as a personal quality or a cultural ideal, but rarely treated as something that can be structured, supported, and made visible in the day-to-day work of teams and leaders. And yet, when kindness is missing - when people don’t feel safe, seen, or respected - performance suffers, relationships fracture, and culture becomes something you have to manage instead of something that helps you lead.
KindFrame exists to close that gap and help organisations design for kindness - not as an add-on, but as part of how accountability, professionalism, trust, and performance are built. It’s about making the invisible architecture of culture visible. And making kindness work for you.