Hello there! I’m Pilar Dostal, a sought-after Integral Coach®, leadership facilitator, and speaker; the creator of the Aligned Leaders Lab™, a leadership lab for executive teams; a former strategy consulting Partner at EY and EY-Parthenon; and a champion for leading from the inside out.

I help executives and the teams they lead do the work that strategy alone can't do. Together, we build the self-awareness, trust, and courage that let good strategy fully take hold. I bring more than two decades inside complex organizations and the depth of multiple developmental methodologies, including Integral Coaching®, the Enneagram system of personality, Conscious Leadership, Whole Brain Thinking®, Leadership Circle Profile®, and more.

How I Got Here

I’ve always had a passion for people and the systems they live in. At a very young age, I noticed my ability to discern when someone or a group of people is surviving or thriving, and I was drawn to helping them grow. I studied interpersonal and nonverbal communication receiving my BA from the University of Colorado at Boulder and followed that with my MBA in corporate strategy and organizational behavior from the University of Michigan Ross School of Business. That got me started.

For twenty-five years as a strategy consultant, predominantly at EY, I supported executive teams as they shaped strategy and worked hard transforming their organizations. The longer I did that work, the clearer one pattern became. The real indicator of a successful leadership team is not the strategy or the structure. It is the people leading it, their capacity for self-awareness, their willingness to examine their own assumptions, and their courage to lead authentically. That noticing changed the direction of my life.

I trained at New Ventures West, the internationally-renowned school for Integral Coaching, built on the belief that you can’t coach someone else well unless you do your own work of self-inquiry and self-knowing. I am certified by NVW through their robust Professional Coaching Certification (PCC) methodology.

What I Believe

I believe the development of the leader is the biggest lever for change in any organization, more than strategy or structure — a bold claim after working on strategies and operating models for 25 years!

That belief led me to Integral Coaching, a coaching methodology that honors the whole person. It does not ask a leader to simply try harder or think differently. It asks how someone actually sees themselves, others, and the systems they operate in, and it works with the whole of it, the body, the emotions, the intellect, the relationships, and the environment.

Leaders are under more pressure than ever. I bring a deep respect for that pressure and what it takes to slow down and do the vulnerable work of becoming.

The world gets better when leaders genuinely know themselves and lead with courage and authenticity. Trust grows from that kind of leadership, and when trust grows, people come alive in their work, collaborate more honestly, and build things worth building. The result? Humanity flourishes.

Closer to Home

I live in Colorado, where the mountains give me space to breathe, reflect and reset. My husband and son are my truest sense of purpose, and the reason all of this matters.

I am not a finished story, and neither are you. We are not meant to be finished. Becoming never really is.