Pat Skalsky

Executive & Leadership Coach

FOCUS

"To help perfect self-awareness."

We overplay our strengths, underestimate our development needs, repeat patterns and biases, and misjudge how others perceive our actions. Pat provides a forum and an approach to improve self-awareness along these dimensions to help leaders bring a more balanced approach to their work and relationships, which in turn makes happier and better leaders.

As executives get promoted to the most senior leadership positions they find it more and more difficult to find opportunities to reflect on their leadership. Pat supports these leaders in identifying and attaining their goals especially in the areas of:

Developing "Executive Presence" (confidence and visibility, self-awareness, profile and personal branding)
Surviving promotion (stress, work life balance, new relationships and team dynamics)
Moving from Management to Leadership (creating a vision, managing the energy, enabling action)
Career Advancement (visibility, influence and perception)
Influential Leadership (reputation, enhanced skill set and presence).

Pat is also known as a designer and leader of highly impactful mentoring programs that cost-effectively lift leadership skills and engagement across organisations.

QUALIFICATIONS

Master of Business Coaching, University of Wollongong
Leadership Profile Certification: Level 1
Leadership Circle Culture Certification: Level 2
European Mentoring and Coaching Council (EMCC): Master Practitioner

CONTACT PAT

BACKGROUND

An Executive Coach with AltusQ since 2008, Pat works alongside organisations to support their successful leaders and high potential employees in achieving positive, long-term, measurable outcomes for themselves and their teams.

Pat previously held a series of senior positions within global hospitality firms and her journey saw her work alongside a number of large multi-national organisations including the Commonwealth Bank, McDonald’s, AMP and IBM. More recently she supported the merger and integration of three newly acquired specialist businesses into a single niche business for the Flight Centre Group.

In her spare time Pat is a Board Director at the Darlinghust Theatre Company, a voluntary mentor with TIME (Travel Industry Mentoring Experience) and a volunteer coach with the Marketing Academy.

CLIENT STORIES

DEVELOPING FUTURE LEADERS VIA MENTORING

Brickworks

AltusQ developed and delivered a managed mentoring program pilot for Brickworks where 100% of the participants ended up saying they would recommend the program to a colleague. As a result 2019's follow-up program has been massively over-subscribed. A good problem to have!

Find out more

START AT THE TOP

Genesis IT

Get the leader right and the business will follow - at least that's the theory being followed by Jon Hampson, NSW State Manager of Genesis IT, and his coach Pat Skalsky. It's an approach that already paying big dividends.

Find out more

TESTIMONIALS

"I had the pleasure of working with Pat during a critical time for my business. I had a key focus and high expectations around the development of my leadership objectives and importantly the strategy associated around the successful deployment and implementation of key initiatives. I found that Pat's coaching was crucial in my development both personally and professionally."

Jennifer Wood

Regional Sales Manager, Bankwest

"I always look forward to our sessions and I could not have hoped for someone better than you to take me along this journey, I feel you keep me honest and challenged. I know you are truly listening, your advice is practical and your suggestions always make sense. Thank you!"

Thibault de Polignac

Head of Sales, SAI Global

"I look back at how far I have come from when I first started my coaching sessions, to where I am now. The changes I have made are now embedded and I'm really enjoying my renewed confidence levels and the benefits that come with being more confident. I am on the brink of securing a new role of which was one I truly thought out of reach and I can now see exactly where I want to be and what I want to achieve over the next 12 months."

Kylie Dinwoodie

Director Private Banking East Coast, Bankwest

"As a female in a male dominated environment and industry, personal positioning and emotional management is key to being a successful leader. Coaching gave me context on this and provided me with strategies on how to position myself and manage my emotions. These are important skills to have when wanting to progress in an organisation."

Elaine Brodie

Reckon

PAST & CURRENT CLIENTS INCLUDE:

ARTICLES + EVENTS

Modern Mentoring

Nov 26, 2019

Modern Mentoring “There’s more than one way to skin a cat, my father used to say; it bothered me, I didn’t see why they would want to skin a cat even one way.” – Margaret Atwood And so it is with Mentoring Programs. No longer is the traditional model of ‘learned leader’ inspiring ‘aspiring leader’ the…

Why you would and why you wouldn’t

Nov 18, 2019

Why you would (that’s easy) and why you wouldn’t introduce a Mentoring Program into your organisation “There’s nothing we take pride in more than watching people escalate their careers inside the company,” said Sam. “When we have great internal talent, we want to build that out.” A robust and effective mentoring program is a great…

Why some mentoring programs “fizzle”

Mar 11, 2019

Why some mentoring programs “fizzle” Mentoring Programs can be an extremely cost effective and valuable professional development intervention yet, there seem to be more stories and anecdotal evidence of mentor program ‘flops’ that successes. This is not because mentoring as a concept is flawed or “doesn’t work around here”. More often than not, the cause…

Going to the source of employee engagement

Mar 23, 2016

Going to the source of employee engagement Thank God It’s Monday (TGIM) is a research project, now in its fifth year, aimed at uncovering just what it takes to create a business that employees love to work for. We started the TGIM project looking for “leading indicators” of engagement – organizational characteristics (skills) that, if…

Uninspired? The Big 5 executive coaching strategies

Feb 2, 2016

Uninspired? The Big 5 executive coaching strategies Executive Coaching takes on a number of tasks but most assignments fall into 2 categories: Developing high potential executives and Facilitating a transition into a new position or upwards into a more senior role Coaching is less about fixing problem behavior rather more about enhancing the performance of…

Everyone, always, has something to learn: An executive coaching case study (Part 2 of 2)

Jan 6, 2016

Everyone, always, has something to learn: An executive coaching case study (Part 2 of 2) And so our journey together began. From my point of view in the main I found Arif very coachable and by this I mean he really took on board the models I presented and would use them rigorously. It seemed…

Everyone, always, has something to learn: An executive coaching case study (Part 1 of 2)

Dec 22, 2015

Everyone, always, has something to learn: An executive coaching case study (Part 1 of 2) When my colleague Vanessa Fudge introduced me to a new client, an ASX listed company, 16 months ago I couldn’t help but giggle. A Jewish girl was being asked to coach a South Asian practicing Muslim gentleman! This was going…

Cultivating criticism through coaching

Aug 13, 2015

Cultivating criticism through coaching We all know that feedback is crucial as a means of measuring how we are performing, being perceived and to help us develop. Yet we have a love-hate relationships with it; we love hearing were doing well and are on track for the next promotion and yet hate it when it…

Delloitte Women in Consulting - Executive Presence Workshop

So what’s the big deal about executive presence?

Dec 17, 2014

So what’s the big deal about executive presence? The concept of “executive presence” is getting quite a lot of chatter around it as a development for leaders getting to the next rung. The problem is that most people don’t even know what the heck it is but rather it falls into the “I’ll know it when…