Leadership coaching for founders and managing directors – Stop firefighting.
Start leading.

Every business eventually reaches the point where it’s limited by the person running it. This is the work that changes that.

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Who this is for

You’ve hit a ceiling you can’t work your way through.

You’re running a business that works. A team, a track record, a model that holds up. And you’ve hit a ceiling you can’t work your way through.

You’re probably still the person everything runs through, despite genuine attempts to hand things over. You’re working harder than anyone else and the business still can’t move without you. You’ve already tried the obvious things – the books, the processes, the right hires – and now you’re starting to wonder whether the problem is you, not them.

This isn’t a business strategy or team coaching programme. If that’s what you’re looking for, there are better options out there. This is for people ready to do the personal work first, because they’ve worked out, or are starting to work out, that everything else follows from it.

The ones who get the most from this arrive already suspecting the answer involves them. They’re usually right.

What the problem actually is

It looks like a delegation problem. It’s almost never just that.

Most coaches will tell you that delegation is a skills problem: better systems, clearer processes, a stronger team. That’s not wrong, but it’s not the whole picture.

The harder truth is that you don’t step back in because you have to. You step back in because letting go is genuinely frightening. So much of your identity and self-worth is tied to the business succeeding that relinquishing control feels like an existential risk, not just a business one. But if the business can’t survive without you, is it truly successful?

So you try to delegate. And when the first small thing doesn’t go to plan, a missed deadline, a decision made without you that goes sideways, you step back in. Your team learns you’ll always catch it. You learn they can’t be trusted. Neither is true: you created the first, and you never tested the second. But both keep getting reinforced, and nothing changes.

This isn’t a process problem. It’s a control problem, rooted in identity. You can’t solve it with another framework. You have to do the personal work first, understand what’s really driving the grip, before the structural changes stick.

How the programme works

Ten weeks. Four phases. Each builds on the last.

It’s built on the principles I learned at PwC: one thing at a time, then a week in the real world to find out whether it held.

About Rory

A decade of developing others – in business and in education.

I spent five years at PwC as a Perform Coach, inside major financial services firms, helping leaders spend less time doing the work and more time enabling their teams. Not strategy at a distance: 12-week programmes, each week introducing a new element. A training session to begin the week, then a week of coaching and support to embed that element, before the next one built on top of it.

What I took from it is that almost nothing changes because it was explained well. It changes because someone gives it a go, then keeps practising until it works for them. That principle is what this programme is built on.

Testimonials

What the work has looked like for others.

His ability to reframe things so that you leave with a clear next step has been a huge part of getting to where I am now. Calm leadership, still with ambition, but measured. Running a business from true confidence, not from panic, not from fear of failure. People who've known me for years have seen the change — and that's the biggest proof that something has actually worked.

Luke Ashworth, Founder, Adviser.ai

I came to Rory feeling stuck. In just one session, he helped me clarify what was really bothering me and what was in my control to address it. He challenges you in the right way while still being empathetic and supportive.

Graham Paterson, Founder, Jitty

Founding client note

The practice is new. The work behind it isn’t.

I’m taking founding clients at a reduced rate until the first programmes are finished and written up. Not a discount, but a structured trade: detailed feedback after every session, an introduction to someone the work would suit, and a recorded conversation at the end about what changed and what didn’t – written up as a case study, with your permission.

The rate is discussed on the call, once we both know whether this work is right for you.

Book the conversation

If the problems feel familiar, the next step is a 60-minute conversation.

I’ll ask a few questions when you book, so we can get straight into it. If at the end I think I can help, I’ll tell you what that looks like. If I don’t, I’ll tell you that too.