This presentation explores lessons in leadership, culture and service reform emerging from a major Australian healthcare scandal. The Oakden Older Persons’ Mental Health Service was a state-run specialist residential service in Adelaide, South Australia, for people with dementia or an enduring mental health condition. Failures in governance, safety and quality were underpinned by an absence of person-centredness and resulted in public outrage, political fallout and triggered the Australian Royal Commission into Aged Care Safety and Quality. Drawing on lived experience, co-design, reflective practice and embodied scholarship, the presentation presents a practical framework and actionable tools for leading meaningful, sustained, person-centred culture transformation in health services through a comprehensive, story-informed model that integrates philosophy, principles, and practices. Building on an ontological foundation of personalism, the presentation illustrates the value of an articulated philosophy of person-centredness that is translated into guiding strategic principles. These principles, including cultivating psychological safety, fostering relational presence, supporting work-life integration, promoting workforce democratisation, and balancing quality, safety, and risk, are explored for their leadership relevance and to consider how they inform translation through repeatable, active practices in teamwork and care. The presentation will focus on real-life illustration of the framework, emerging from the reform period after The Oakden Report and subsequent scholarly work, inspiring confidence in practitioners and clinical leaders seeking to achieve similar values-based, person-centred change processes in other service settings.