Field Notes
Notes from the sideline.
Essays on founder coaching, leadership, and building your own system for winning — the way we develop elite athletes in sport.
- / Coach Leighroy
Why founders need a system for winning
Most founders lead without a system — or borrow someone else's. Here's how elite-sport coaching builds a system that's actually yours, across company, leadership, and self.
#founder coaching #leadership #performance - / Coach Leighroy
The org chart is dead
AI exposed the fundamental weakness of the org chart: it's built around humans who self-upgrade at their own pace. Welcome to the Company Model era.
#company model #leadership #ai - / Coach Leighroy
The systems lesson that cost me my company
I built a product that honoured an unstructured industry, then ran my company like every problem was a product problem. It was a systems problem — and AI is about to repeat it at enterprise scale.
#company model #founder lessons #ai - / Coach Leighroy
Why tactical advice hurts most founders
There's a huge difference between doing something and helping someone else do it. Elite athletes know this. Most successful business people don't — and their advice misfires because of it.
#leadership #coaching #performance - / Coach Leighroy
You can't control the win — only your game
How you think you'll win is generally not how you win. You can't control the outcome, only your game. Athletes know this. Be an athlete, not a founder.
#leadership #performance #founder coaching - / Coach Leighroy
Why leadership at 40 needs a system, not aspiration
Subjective feedback systems hit you harder at 40 than at 20. Your system for leadership is what defines you — and getting it right compounds results an order of magnitude faster.
#leadership #company model #performance - / Coach Leighroy
You can't be great playing an average game
In 2017 the venture-backed company I co-founded failed because I made average CEO decisions under the pressure of growth. Here's why 99% of capable founders do the same — and how to see the patterns first.
#founder lessons #leadership #performance