Patricia Burgin, MA
About Patricia Burgin, MA
Patricia Burgin has helped to develop a generation of coaches and coaching leaders.
As a leader, facilitator, speaker, supervisor, and coach of leaders, Patricia (“Patty”) Burgin has advised and mentored thousands of individuals and teams toward better performance, communication and meaning. She is the author of the new and best selling overview of leadership coaching, The Essential Coaching Leader, and of The Coaching for Leader’s Playbook.
Following stints in the international leadership of a Christian non-profit, as a campus chaplain, conference speaker, as a tour leader in the former Soviet Union, and as a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, Patty founded SeattleCoach in 2002 and began to coach and facilitate exclusively in 2005. She holds two master’s degrees, one in Theology and a second in Applied Behavioral Science. In addition, she has joined the top three percent of credentialed coaches worldwide to have been awarded the title of “Master Certified Coach” by the International Coaching Federation (ICF).
In 2008 she launched The SeattleCoach Professional Coach Training and Development Program for executives who see coaching as an extra–and increasingly essential–gear in their leadership engine. The program is accredited by the ICF, and over 500 “SeattleCoaches” who have completed the training, or soon will, are having an impact on the West Coast and beyond as both external coaches and as better leaders on the inside of great companies and organizations, including the customized Coaching for Leaders programs at Microsoft and Vulcan.
Whether it’s a class or a keynote, Patty values insight-creation as the crucial component of content delivery. “I love it when my brain lights up,” she says, “And it’s even better when everyone else’s brains light up.” She works with an approach that is warm, practical, innovative, direct, playful, and generous.
With Patty’s background as a competitive rower, and as past president of Interlochen Rowing Club in Seattle, she sometimes takes executive teams out on the water with her. When a team sits together to find balance in a racing shell (60′ x 18″), the experience quickly produces both soggy metaphors, and spectacular team learning.
Her faith still informs her life and work, helping her to explore how human brains and bonds flourish, how we make sense of the tough stuff, and how we live out the big “what’s-it-all-about” questions that we share through the arcs of our lives. She thinks excellent coaching is like grace: rarely intrusive, usually disruptive, more nuanced than announced, and just as much about “how” as “what.”
The Essential Coaching Leader: The Brain-Friendly Practices for State-of-the Art Leadership in the 21st Century
Business Leader to Patty in 2003: “What do you do?”
Patty: “I’m a coach.”
Business Leader: “Cool What sport?”
This conversation used to happen all the time. But in the years since, more and more business leaders have experienced executive coaching, which has become a thing. A valuable and professional thing.
Now the question business leaders regularly ask Patty is, “How do I learn to do what you do?”
That’s why in 2008 she launched the SeattleCoach Professional Training and Development Program, hosting hundreds of entrepreneurs, executives, and organizational leaders as they’ve learned to “do the craft and be the coach.”
Today, when you search “SeattleCoach” you get Pete Carroll, Coach of the Seahawks. And you get Patty.
The Essential Coaching Leader is her introduction to a way of leading that finds its evidence and examples in neuroscience, in 21st-century business effectiveness, in history, and even in good theology. It is a way of leading that is both ancient and new.
The five essentials found in The Essential Coaching Leader will help you explore and begin to practice coaching leadership in this time of relentless and historic change.
Buy The Essential Coaching Leader:
The Coaching for Leaders Playbook
Great leaders in the 21st Century are learning a new leadership “gear.” Beyond telling, directing, fire-fighting, coming to the rescue, and reminding, the most successful people managers are learning to coach their teams, and even their customers and leaders. This Coaching for Leaders Playbook, and the program it supports, will help you to master the personal presence, the skills and behaviors, and the rewarding outcomes of leadership coaching. To the journey then!
Buy The Coaching for Leaders Playbook:
Interviews & Articles
Interviews & Articles
Publish Your Purpose - Author Interview with Patty Burgin, Author of The Essential Coaching Leader
What People Are Saying
What People Are Saying
Patty, your amazing interactions with these extraordinarily talented people was terrific—and so heartfelt to observe. [As we continue to partner together], our messaging and interactions are coming into focus and there are many topics to pursue. I’d do it again in a heartbeat.
The power of coaching can be a transformational and fundamental part of leadership. What I learned through Patty Burgin at SeattleCoach is that coaching allows the person you’re working with to feel heard on a real and deep level and, through the power of questions, identify lightbulb moments that forward action in a profound way. I worked with Patty to bring coaching to a few select HR and Marketing leaders at Microsoft. These leaders then incorporated coaching into their day-to-day roles and made a significant impact on their teams and mentees. I loved hearing the positive feedback about their experience and I plan to continue the coaching philosophy and mindset at F5.
As a Leadership Coach, Patty is hands-down the most gifted person I have seen at facilitating meaningful conversations for groups. She holds people accountable to the impact they are having on others and helps them make movement as both individuals and teams. I couldn’t write a strong enough recommendation for how much I admire Patty’s skill and talent here.
