Coaching for Founders and Managing Directors in the Growth Phase
Growing into the leadership role as the company scales. From my own experience as a founder and managing director, including Lichtvision and LIZ Smart Office, I support you on that path.
Why the growth phase calls for a new role
You built or took over a company and carried much of it yourself. Now the team is growing and the skills that got you here no longer suffice. Delegation feels like loss of control. Letting go feels like a betrayal of your own standards.
Your company scales, but your role has not grown with it. You are stuck in the operational weeds and never get to the strategic work that is now needed.
Shareholder conflicts, team fatigue, the question of purpose when the initial fire fades. The topics founders rarely talk about openly.
You are looking for someone who understands the founder day-to-day from experience, not from a textbook.
From my own entrepreneurial experience
I coach founders from a position I know myself. Building, leading, and redefining your own role during growth are things I have experienced twice as founder and managing director, together with building digital businesses from a position of personal responsibility.
Founded twice, led twice as managing director
With the Lichtvision Group I built an owner-managed company with six international locations that still exists today. My second founding, again as managing director: with a co-founder I built INTEGRATED Innovation & Design and developed a lighting portfolio for a Korean electronics corporation for the global electrical wholesale market. I know building, managing, and international scaling from a position of personal responsibility.
Digital business models built from experience
With LIZ Smart Office I built a SaaS business as a corporate venture, from idea to product. At Waldmann, as CDO, I was responsible for a combined value proposition of IoT sensors and software, i.e. digital transformation in an established company. I pass on this perspective as a lecturer on digitalisation and transformation. For founders in a technology-oriented environment, this means a conversation partner who has personally been through the jump into software business and scaling.
How founder coaching connects delegation, scaling, and purpose
Start with Why (Sinek)
Purpose as an anchor that holds even when the market shifts radically. With firsthand experience from the Lichtvision purpose workshop.
Start with Why: purpose workshop at LichtvisionPurpose in a BANI world
How a clear “why” carries a startup through a crisis nobody could have foreseen. Using LIZ Smart Office and COVID as a case.
Purpose as anchor in a BANI worldThe harbour-master principle
Why focus on one thing is faster than parallel processing and how prioritisation becomes a leadership task.
The harbour-master principleFirst Who, Then What (Collins)
Get the right people on board before the strategy is set. With Laloux' organisational colours as a compass for team composition.
First Who, Then WhatWhat clients say
Coaching as it should be
„Through many smart, challenging, interesting and honest questions, Thomas guided me to the best solution for me. I was very fortunate that Thomas accompanied me as a coach for almost 10 months. Through his always empathetic and understanding manner, I was able to develop enormously as a leader and as a person. His incredible methodological knowledge is always applied exactly where it is helpful. I thank Thomas for a very intense, emotional and successful journey – and look forward to reconnecting in due course!"
I could not have asked for a better coach
„I could not have asked for a better coach than Thomas Knoop. I took away a great deal. The concept works brilliantly – provided you choose the right coach."
A clear mind that helps you think clearly
„I really appreciate how Thomas listens and guides you to think deeply and structurally in your own way. He does not impose a standard approach for you to follow. Instead, he first helps you understand, and then over time it becomes your own way of thinking. I think this is much more powerful than simply forcing yourself to see things in only one way. Thomas has a very clear mind and is very good at helping you think clearly."
Further insights
Start with Why: Purpose Workshop at Lichtvision
Purpose workshop based on Simon Sinek's Start with Why: how we developed the Golden Circle for the Lichtvision leadership team in two days.
Purpose in a BANI World: The LIZ Case
On the story of LIZ Smart Office, Jamais Cascio's BANI model as the successor to VUCA, and the three functions of a precise Purpose in uncertain times.
Harbour Master: Why Parallel Means Late
On Eliyahu Goldratt's Theory of Constraints, Critical Chain Project Management, WIP limits in agile software development, and the courage to bundle resources instead of running everything in parallel.
First Who, Then What: People before structure
On Jim Collins' surprising principle, Frederic Laloux' organisational colours, and a connection rarely drawn: who is “right” for a team depends on the colour of the organisation.
Common questions about coaching for founders and managing directors
- What is the difference between coaching and mentoring?
- In mentoring, someone shares their experience and tells you what they would do in your place. In coaching, you develop your own solutions through targeted questions and methods. In practice there are moments where I deliberately switch between the two roles when it helps you. In my article Coach with leadership experience I describe how that role switch works.
- Can coaching help with shareholder conflicts?
- Yes. I have experience with conflict coaching in partnerships, including a renowned law firm. The methods (Thomas-Kilmann model, iceberg model) transfer to shareholder conflicts. More: Conflict coaching at the law firm.
- Do you understand the founder reality?
- From my own experience. I co-founded Lichtvision in 1997 and built it into an international group with six locations. Later I built the corporate venture LIZ Smart Office with Bridgemaker. I know the tension between founder energy and corporate structure.
- Do you coach in English?
- Yes, in German and English. Many of my founder clients have international teams and work in English-speaking contexts. Online coaching offers maximum flexibility.
- Industry and technologyMore than twenty years of my own leadership responsibility in international industry and technology companies. A short briefing is usually enough for me to understand the context of a leadership situation.
- Digital transformationMy own responsibility as Chief Digital Officer, in the technology shift at Philips and in building a digital corporate startup. I know the leadership dynamics of digital transformation from several perspectives.
- Law firms and partner teamsI know the dynamics among co-owners from my own entrepreneurial experience and from working with several partner teams in law firms. You will not need to explain the logic of partnership leadership to me at length.
- Succession and family businessesFrom working with young CEOs after a family-internal handover and from my own biographical proximity, I usually grasp the role and loyalty dynamics of a succession quickly.
- Innovation and product ownershipI know the responsibility behind product, portfolio and innovation decisions from my own experience. You will not need to explain your context to me at length.
You built a company. Now it is about being able to lead it.
If you really could let go tomorrow: which task would you hand over first?
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