Unlocking Leadership Potential: Rachel Honoway’s Blueprint for Transformative Success

From 25 years in corporate leadership to founding Delta Catalyst Lab, Rachel Honoway transforms organizational chaos into streamlined success. Her firm empowers CEOs of small to mid-size companies to realign their purpose, priorities, and people. As part of the Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur Spotlight series, Rachel reveals how a pivotal LinkedIn connection confirmed her entrepreneurial leap and the power of radical candor in leadership coaching. Her journey underscores the importance of consistency and courage, offering insights into bridging gaps for leaders ready to elevate their impact and steer their companies with renewed clarity.

Hi, Rachel! Thanks for joining us today. Tell us about your business. Who do you serve, how do you serve them, and what's the impact that your business and work makes?

I’m the founder of Delta Catalyst Lab, an executive advisory and coaching firm. I work with CEOs and presidents of privately owned, small to mid-size companies who are in a period of transition. Some are driving a major growth effort while others have just taken the seat from a founder or a previous CEO.

They usually arrive with big plans to run the company differently. But they feel like they can’t get momentum going because not everyone is on board. Departments pull in different directions and the CEO gets pulled into day-to-day decisions. They are overwhelmed, feeling like the only person who can see all the moving pieces.

I help them rewire the organization around three things, in this order:
Purpose: what the company is really here to do
Priorities: what matters most because of that purpose
People: aligning the leadership team, then the whole company, through clear communication, clear decision-making, and simple systems

The result is a company that moves faster and a team that makes good decisions on its own. The CEO gets back to leading the plans they came in to execute.

Tell us about the moment you finally felt like you went from wantrepreneur to entrepreneur.

It was the day that a CEO I’d never met hired me.

My first clients came from my network. Some knew my work from previous roles. Some had wanted to hire me full-time and could finally bring me in fractionally. I’m grateful for every one of them. Still, there’s a question in the back of your mind: are they hiring me, or supporting me?

Then a company leader I’d never met found me through my outreach on LinkedIn. They read my reviews, got on a call, and signed. There was no shared history and no favor involved, just a business decision that I was worth it. That’s when this stopped feeling like a career change and started feeling like a business.

Describe the moment or period in your life/career that motivated you to make the entrepreneurial leap.

I spent about 25 years in corporate leadership, almost always in companies that were growing, scaling, or merging. Along the way I held CEO, CMO, and CPO roles. I was part of eight or nine mergers and acquisitions, on both sides of the table.

It was exciting work. Watching two organizations come together and form new goals is fascinating. But it takes a huge mental toll. The bigger deals almost always ended in “restructuring,” which is the corporate word for letting people go. After the last one, I knew I didn’t want to walk into another company only to do it again.

So I took stock of what I had loved. It was never the deals, it was the people. I loved taking someone from finance, operations, or the front lines and helping them earn a seat at a leadership table they never expected to reach. What held them back was rarely talent. It was an information gap. They didn’t know what they didn’t know, or which questions to ask. Once I set clear expectations and showed them the map, the ones willing to do the work found their way to the table.

The same was true for the founders and CEOs that I had worked with over the decades. Many of them were in the top seat for the first time. They didn’t know what they didn’t know. I was able to help them see potential outcomes and communicate effectively to the organization, our customers, investors, and the market. They were able to lead with more confidence and stronger teams behind them.

I truly love bridging that gap so that people can achieve what feels just out of reach. I decided I wanted to do that full-time. That’s what led me to coaching, and to building my firm.

Describe a tool, service, or software that has been a game-changer for your business. How does it contribute to your success?

This might sound boring, but it’s my iPhone, and the ability to shoot videos on the spot.

My background is in marketing, and I’ve written hundreds of pieces of content over the years. Long blog posts could win Google’s attention. Short posts and photos might earn a few likes. But none of it truly connected in B2B.

Video has changed that. Now I can record a few takes, edit, add captions, and share a leadership idea on LinkedIn, TikTok, and YouTube the same day. People see my face, hear my voice, and get a feel for how I think before we ever speak. There is an element of humanity that comes across that just doesn’t appear in writing.

But the tool only works because of one thing, and that’s consistency. Everything in my business runs on a schedule and a template, including client check-ins, social posts, email follow-ups, and contractor updates.

It’s draining at first. Posts get no engagement for months, and client updates start to feel repetitive to you. Then things start to happen. The followers and commenters show up. Clients tell you that the steady rhythm is exactly what makes them feel taken care of. I feel like consistency is a constant battle with myself to do the boring things over and over again, but it has been the biggest driver of my results.

We know that success is very often a non-linear path. Tell us about a failure, pivot point, or lesson that changed your course or direction and helped to get you where you are today.

My hardest lesson was learning to say no.

My early career was in marketing. So when I launched my business, people asked me to build their websites, run their social campaigns, and write their copy. I was nervous about landing enough coaching clients, so I agreed to take on the work.

I was allowing fear to make the decisions. I was back doing work from my early career - it was work I was overqualified for and didn’t enjoy. And at some point in hating the time I was spending doing the work, I realized that every hour I spent building someone else’s website or campaigns was an hour I wasn’t building my own.

So I started declining those projects and referring them to people who love that work. The first few nos were hard. Each one got easier, and each one gave back time and energy for coaching. That’s when my practice finally got my full attention.

What unconventional strategy did you employ that significantly impacted your business?

I tell clients what they may not want to hear. I do it kindly, but I do it early.

Many coaches let leaders arrive at insights on their own over time, and there’s a place for that. But I’ve sat in my clients’ seats. I know what it’s like when the board meeting is coming and the numbers aren’t where they need to be. I know what it’s like when three departments won’t see eye to eye and the same three goals have sat on the list for three quarters. Leaders in that spot don’t have time to tiptoe around each other’s feelings.

So before we start, I set one expectation: if you want different results, things will need to change, including at the top. One leader told me that wouldn’t work for her. She was sure her leadership team needed to change, but not her, and she didn’t have time for anything else. I let her know we weren’t a fit and recommended she find someone else.

A few months later she called back. She had hired someone else and gotten no results again. She asked if I’d reconsider if she was willing to do her own work too.

For me, this comes down to radical candor. It is the difference between nice and kind. Nice protects everyone’s feelings in the moment. Kind says what needs to be said so the team comes out better on the other side.

What’s something you wish you knew sooner that you’d give as advice for aspiring or newer entrepreneurs?

Plant seeds, then stop digging them up.

I heard this quote from Steven Bartlett that really stuck with me, “You wouldn't plant a seed and then dig it up every few minutes to see if it has grown. So why do you keep questioning yourself, your hard work and your decisions? Have patience ... and keep watering your seeds.”

New entrepreneurs feel pressure to be doing something every minute. That urge is often the problem.

Think like a farmer. You plan, you plant, you water, and then you wait and tend what comes up. Now imagine digging up your seeds every morning to check whether they’re growing. Or planting new seeds on top of them every week. At harvest you’d have nothing, or a tangled mess you can’t sort out.

Business works the same way. Launch the offer, start the outreach, post the content, then give it time to take root before you rip it out for the next idea. Be deliberate. Be consistent. You can’t make things grow faster than they grow.

Want to dive deeper into Rachel's work? Check out the links below!

• Visit Delta Catalyst Lab's website: deltacatalystlab.com/
• Connect with Rachel Honoway on LinkedIn: Rachel Honoway