Career Leadership Alignment, LLC

Hi! I’m Amy Kay Watson, and I coach purpose-driven, socially conscious, soulful leaders to discover their destiny, own their power, and stand their sacred ground with humor, courage, and compassion.

My path to coaching began in a chaplaincy program called Clinical Pastoral Education, where for a year I worked with hospital patients, nurses, physicians, and other staff members and, through both action and reflection, learned about the power of how we show up in conversation. This is something I bring to my work as a coach and is part of what I teach to clients. I found myself wanting to help people develop the insight and skills to surpass their struggles. This desire triggered curiosity and study over the next several years and feeds my current coaching practice.

Life gave me my next opportunity to learn through doing when I moved into corporate management where, like most American managers today, I was given the responsibility but none of the insight or skills to manage other people well. As in the classic metaphor, I was given a hammer, and I went around hammering everything until some things were broken beyond repair, such as relationships, trust, and eventually confidence.

Never satisfied with easy answers, I have pursued deeper understanding around these matters for fifteen years. I have studied, observed, listened, challenged, and constantly reflected on my experiences and how I can use them to help others.

Starting in 2009, a lot changed for me. I studied relationship systems through Bowen Family Systems Theory, Healthy Congregations, Art of Hosting, and Senn Delaney Culture Shaping—all of which supported me in developing new ways of thinking about people and organizations. I developed expertise in personal and organizational transformation and effectiveness. In that work I was privileged to support thousands of people in becoming more self-aware and professionally effective.

In 2015, I added coaching to my consulting business. I’ve been training congregational leaders in healthy leadership systems since then, and I started coaching ministers in 2016. I also coach executives in nonprofit and corporate sectors, helping them create order out of chaos, as well as individual contributors seeking purpose and groundedness in their vocational lives.

“Amy Kay Watson is a stellar coach in the best sense of the word. She listens deeply, asks powerful questions, and has offered extraordinary resources as I needed them. She has helped me break through some sticky places that I had all but given up on ever changing. Organization, time management, energy management, self-compassion, and goal-clarification all came into clearer focus with her gentle encouragement of curiosity and honesty. She really knows her craft, and I am deeply grateful for the work we have done together.” - Tracy Keenan, Senior Pastor / Covenant Presbyterian Church, Columbus, OH