About Debbie

Debbie Hixson

President, PhD, Nautilus Associates

Debbie works with organizations to develop greater leadership competence and build an organizational culture capable of thriving in fast-paced, complex and competitive environments.  With her 23 years of experience as an organization consultant and manager of leadership development at Kaiser Permanente, a major healthcare organization, she helped teams and executive management achieve record growth and saw the organization through many chapters of change. Debbie has a PhD. in Organizational Leadership from the University of Maryland Eastern Shore, in addition to her M.Ed. in Counseling from the University of Missouri-Columbia, as well as a B.A. in psychology from the University of Maryland.

Debbie’s expertise is focused in three major areas:

1. Designing and implementing change management approaches that accelerate organization adoption of changes (whether in health care or other industries)

2. Development of leader capacity and effectiveness to fuel growth – whether it’s high potential managers, middle management or executive level leaders

3. Design and facilitation of leadership development programs

Debbie spent the early part of her career as a vocational rehabilitation specialist whose research and program development produced an award-winning school to work transition program for young adults with disabilities at Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, DC. Because of the cutting-edge work developed at Children’s, she was often tapped to present at hospitals and national meetings about the need to provide vocational services for young adults with disabilities. She was a featured speaker at national conferences and association meetings, and that led her to return to school and earn an M.A. in Training and Development to prepare for a career in the field. She was hired by Kaiser Permanente in the Mid-Atlantic to develop Career Management, Talent Management, Leadership Development and Succession Planning programs. This work included the development of career ladders and a competency based leadership development system.

As an academician, Debbie is publishing her doctoral research on leadership and change, and teaching at the graduate level to equip future leaders for increasingly complex and competitive environments.

Debbie has a pragmatic, down-to-earth approach which clients appreciate – whether she is engaged as a coach, or a consultant.

Additional Certifications:

• The Leadership Circle Profile (A 360 Feedback and Leadership Development Instrument)
• Hogan Assessments
• Situational Leadership II Program (Blanchard Companies)
• Principles of Persuasion (Influence at Work)
• Managerial Style Questionnaire
• Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument
• MBTI, MBTI Step II and FIRO-B instruments
• Confronting Difficult Issues
• EQI Emotional Intelligence Assessment
• The Leadership Challenge (Kouzes and Posner)