Navigating Change: Arielle Lechner on Coaching, Startups & Personal Growth (Ep. 87)
How do founders become great CEOs—and keep teams thriving as stakes rise? Executive coach Arielle Lechner (founder of NewPo) shares the critical levers leaders can pull to unlock outsized results: accelerating growth, strengthening teams, and making high-stakes decisions with clarity. Her path spans politics → SaaS/Web3 startups → executive coaching. Known for being “extremely demanding and extremely supportive,” Arielle believes discomfort is the compass and experimentation is the engine. We dig into the founder-to-CEO transition, culture as a mirror of the leader, and why scheduled recovery is a performance strategy—not a luxury.
What You’ll Learn
- Founder → CEO: letting go to empower leaders
- Culture design: why your org reflects your habits (good and bad)
- Coaching vs. therapy: where they overlap—and where they don’t
- Leadership experiments: rapid tests to unlock stuck teams
- Breaks, pace, perspective: sustainable high performance
- Navigating fundraising, scaling, acquisitions, and new bets with less friction
Key Quotes
- “Everything is an experiment.”
- “Velocity is everything.”
- “Begin before you’re ready.”
Chapters ⏰ 00:00 – Intro to Arielle Lechner ⏰ 01:56 – From Politics to Startups ⏰ 04:25 – Lessons from the Startup Trenches ⏰ 09:32 – Pivot to Coaching: Why Founders Need It ⏰ 12:14 – Founder-to-CEO: The Hard Transition ⏰ 14:32 – Culture as a Mirror of the CEO ⏰ 16:32 – Coaching Techniques That Move the Needle ⏰ 19:12 – Leadership = Continuous Experimentation ⏰ 22:44 – Scheduled Breaks as Strategy ⏰ 26:43 – Seven Years of Coaching: Patterns & Wins ⏰ 29:09 – Coaching vs. Therapy ⏰ 31:21 – Personal Growth Through Experience ⏰ 35:25 – Final Advice: Start Before You Feel Ready ⏰ 41:24 – Subscribe & Outro
Connect with Arielle
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ariellethecoach/
- Website (NewPo): https://www.newpo.io/
- X: https://x.com/aShnaidman
Listen & Subscribe
- YouTube: https://youtube.com/@DustinCSutton
- Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tools-talents-and-techniques-with-dustin-sutton/id1692838507
- Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7pQZ551Ct4jVRQ2BqB7Zr2
Question for You What’s one leadership experiment you’ll try this quarter to level up your team?
