About
Meet the Founder
Chelley Patterson shares her three decades of experience helping clients realize planned change and transformational goals through leadership development, team building, culture strengthening, and change management expertise. Whether working with the CEO or C-suite on large-scale changes that impact everyone, or focusing on improvements in a single department, or building one or two strategic capacities, Chelley maintains a focus on system-wide development and strategy execution. This happens through a combination of
- Advising and challenging senior leaders (individually and collectively) to tighten alignment and work through differences and obstacles so they present a united front.
- Building skills and capacity for changing-at-pace among leadership and internal change agents through dedicated roll-out sessions and improvised learning opportunites.
- Consulting with the teams driving change to identify levers and obstacles and to build and maintain momentum through the thick of change.
- Relentlessly resolving fear, uncertainty, and resistance related to change by providing a trackable roadmap and by supporting managers' efforts to make sense of change day-to-day.
- Rolling up her sleeves, Chelley jointly executes with leadership, project teams, and communication staff to amplify clear, aligned, relatable, and elevating change messages about the current reality and desired future state across the organization. Creating feedback mechanisms is key to Illuminated and responsive leadership.
Influences & Background
Chelley has scientific roots in meaningful research including …
- An MS and PhD in Organizational Behavior from the Robinson Business School at Georgia State University. Her dissertation was a meta-analysis of decades of research on the causes and effects of employees' organizational commitment and job satisfaction.
- She learned from great faculty including Bob Vandenberg (organizational research methods guru), Lynn Shore (author of numerous articles on Inclusive Leadership), Rodger Griffeth (expert on the causes of employee turnover), and Vida Scarpello (researcher on job satisfaction, strategic justice, and interorganizational relations).
- Spent 3 years, while working full-time in the corporate world, as a member of the Innovation Research Group designing and conducting Harvard’s Team Study -- reported in the book The Progress Principle by principal investigator Teresa Amabile, PhD.
- Did a deep dive into leadership development for 8 years as a leadership coach, consultant, and research director at the evidence-based Center for Leadership and Strategic Thinking, a self-sustained center of excellence in UW’s Foster School of Business. Chelley worked alongside and published with Bruce Avolio, PhD, who is among the planet’s top 1% most-cited researchers across all disciplines, and is #25 among over the 36,000 researchers in the category of business & management. Bruce is best known for his work on Transformational and Authentic Leadership, but also writes on transformative change in organizations, leaders' psychological capital and developmental readiness, and the return on investment in leadership development.
Chelley’s practical approach stems from hands-on experience …
- Client Organizations (select list)
- Alaska Airlines
- Amazon
- BNBuilders
- Catholic Health Initiatives
- Sound Healthcare Project (three large healthcare providers in the Puget Sound)
- UW Facilities Services
- UW Medicine
- Veterans Administration of New England (VISN 1)
- Corporate Roles
- NASCO – a BlueCross BlueShield company in Atlanta
- NCR – in Atlanta and London
- Vanstar – in Atlanta
Approach
Chelley thrives on being an ensemble player, working in collaboration with others rather than competing. This stems from years of dance starting as a youngster (she's still tap dancing), where excellence comes through synchronizing rather than competing. This willingness to share the stage, allows her time for listening deeply and asking insightful and timely questions. Despite loving creative teamwork, you can count on Chelley to shine as a solo performer when the situation calls for a diva to deliver. She enjoys being heads-down when there is data to analyze and display, or when sketching a program arc for a people development project. She can also step into the spotlight and facilite large groups, keeping them leaning in.
