Leading Beside, Not Above — and Why Every Team Needs a Ringo.

Published 13.10.2025 

I’ve always seen leadership as something you do with people, not to them.

That applies just as much when I’m managing a team as when I’m supporting a founder, a director, or a board.

As an operator, my role isn’t to take control — it’s to create the kind of structure, rhythm, and confidence that allows a founder to step back without ever feeling left out of their own business. I treat every company I work with as if it were my own, but with full respect for the fact that it isn’t. The founder built it. My job is to protect, elevate, and extend what they’ve created — not rewrite it behind closed doors.

I’ve been on both sides of the micromanagement coin. In my earlier years, I wanted to know everything — every invoice, every temperature log, every decision. It came from a good place: pride, care, a belief that perfection only came through total control. But over time I learned that kind of control limits growth — not just for the team, but for the leader too.

Now, I lead through inclusion. Whether it’s building SOPs, refining a brand manual, or writing a cultural manifesto, the founder’s voice stays in the room. Every system or process should reflect who they are and what they stand for — my role is to make sure that vision runs through every detail of the operation, consistently and measurably.

To me, leadership at this level isn’t about ego or ownership. It’s about alignment.

It’s about making the founder’s vision sustainable and scalable — without losing its soul.

That’s the space where I do my best work: shoulder to shoulder, translating vision into structure, helping great founders trust their own systems enough to breathe again.