A guide to difficult conversations, building high-trust teams, and designing a life you love | Rachel Lockett

Nov 23, 2025 1h 45m 10 insights Episode Page ↗
Rachel Lockett, an executive coach and former HR leader at Pinterest and Stripe, discusses critical leadership skills like knowing when to coach versus advise, avoiding burnout by aligning with gifts, fostering healthy co-founder relationships, and improving interpersonal communication for more effective and fulfilling work.
Actionable Insights

1. Shift from Advising to Coaching

Equip your team to solve problems by coaching them instead of always providing answers, which fosters their brilliance and motivation. Reserve direct advice for urgent issues or when skills are genuinely lacking, but avoid making it a guessing game.

2. Master Global Active Listening

Practice “level three listening” by observing body language, tone, and context to understand underlying emotions and unspoken communications. This deep engagement fosters connection, motivates your team, and reveals deeper insights into situations.

3. Ask Powerful GROW Questions

When team members bring problems, use the GROW model (Goal, Reality, Options, Way Forward) to ask insightful questions that help them uncover their own solutions. This approach empowers them and clarifies their thinking, even if you initially disagree with their ideas.

4. Align Work with Your Gifts

Combat burnout by identifying your natural strengths and what energizes you, aiming to spend 80% of your time in these “gifts.” Track daily energy, seek feedback, and communicate your interests to your manager to align your role with your zone of genius.

5. Nurture Co-Founder Relationships

Build strong co-founder relationships through deep self-awareness and understanding each other’s strengths and weaknesses, using tools like the Enneagram. Consciously commit to the relationship with regular check-ins and “balcony time” to discuss alignment and address unspoken issues.

6. Navigate Conflict with NVC

Approach difficult conversations with the goal of mutual understanding, not proving your point, using the Nonviolent Communication (NVC) framework. State factual observations, express your feelings without blame, articulate your unmet needs, and make a small, achievable request to foster empathy and open dialogue.

7. Implement a One-Page Plan

Create a simple, one-page plan that clearly outlines your company’s vision, values, strategic intentions, KPIs, and goals from top to bottom. Combine this with a regular operating rhythm for reflection, discussion, and addressing “inconvenient truths” to foster clarity and alignment.

8. Apply “Enthusiastically Rehire” Test

When evaluating team members, ask if you would enthusiastically rehire them for the same role; a “no” indicates a need for action. This binary question provides clarity on talent fit, prompting necessary changes like re-evaluation, performance plans, or role adjustments to maintain a high-performing team.

9. Embrace Fear as Growth Compass

View things you fear or avoid, especially in interpersonal dynamics, as opportunities for growth and learning. Lean into these moments, acknowledge your feelings, and ask “What’s important here? What do I have to learn?” to build skills and foster deeper connections.

10. Actively Foster Team Connection

Recognize that business building is a human endeavor in an increasingly lonely world, and actively foster connection within your teams. Create environments where genuine human interaction is inevitable to build healthier teams, have more fun, and achieve better business outcomes.