In this episode of The Entrepreneur to Author Podcast, your host Scott MacMillan speaks with leadership coach, speaker, and facilitator Kylie Paatsch about her new book, The Connect Effect: How to Build Loyalty, Ownership, and Engagement with Your Leaders. Drawing on three decades working with senior leaders across Australia and internationally, Kylie explains why she focuses on “leaders of leaders” and how often mid-to-senior level leaders are underdeveloped and left to “just know” what to do. She unpacks her core Know–Show–Grow framework, revealing that even experienced leaders frequently don’t know their people as deeply as they think they do—beyond surface-level details to what truly motivates them, worries them, and helps them thrive. Kylie also explores the risks of stepping in and micromanaging instead of intentionally growing each leader based on their confidence and capability.

Kylie shares the vulnerable bathroom-floor moment that opens her book and why she chose to lead with such a personal story: to prove she understands the pressures of senior leadership and to model the kind of real, relational connection she advocates. She talks candidly about her writing journey—from trying to cram “20 leadership books into one” to narrowing in on the critical role of one-on-one relationships—and how the process sharpened and expanded her thinking, including evolving her “show you care” ideas to include presence alongside kind love and firm love. Kylie explains why she chose a book as a scalable, permanent resource and how she now uses it as both a companion to her coaching, workshops, and keynotes and a door-opener into new industries. For listeners sitting on a book idea or framework of their own, she offers a clear challenge: stop waiting for the perfect moment and just start, because writing will deepen your framework, strengthen your voice, and grow your impact.

SHOW LINKS
To receive a chapter sample head to https://kyliepaatsch.com.au/book/  

GUEST BIO
Kylie Paatsch is a Leadership Coach, Speaker, and Author of The Connect Effect: How to Build Loyalty, Ownership and Engagement with Your Leaders.
With three decades of leadership experience and twenty years of coaching and facilitating, Kylie has worked with thousands of senior leaders, their teams and their organisations across a wide range of industries throughout Australia and internationally. She has led at every level from frontline through to executive and knows firsthand what it takes for leaders to get the best out of themselves and the people they lead and work with.  

CONNECT WITH KYLIE
Website: kyliepaatsch.com.au
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/kyliepaatsch
Instagram: instagram.com/kyliepaatschleadership    

CONNECT WITH SCOTT
entrepreneurtoauthor.com
grammarfactory.com

LinkedIn (@scottmacmillan): linkedin.com/in/scottmacmillan
Instagram (@scottamacmillan) instagram.com/scottamacmillan