What one founder did instead of firing their team

“I need to fire most of my leadership team.” 

It may or may not surprise you how many times I have heard this before. I’ve heard it A LOT. And for many different reasons. 

Sometimes they are right, they chose the wrong people or they don’t fit where the company is now and can’t make the leap. But more often, it’s that the system is off, not the people.

I worked with a founder, let’s call them Ash, who told me they needed to fire most of their leadership team (“LT”). The company was growing, revenue was up, everything should be great. But the LT couldn't seem to deliver on the milestones, velocity slowed, misses increased, and groups were pointing fingers at one another. 

A few examples from their 2 weeks prior to our session:

• Engineering waited for a green light that had already been given… verbally… to one person who was sick the following 4 days. This meant an important fix didn’t get put in place for their largest client when they needed it.

• Marketing and Product assumed different timelines—for the same launch. The delayed launch meant they missed a critical event. 

• Different people, under the same leader, were working towards different priorities—which became evident during a partnership meeting where they became misaligned with an important potential partner. The partnership did not move forward and the company’s image was damaged in the eyes of this influential partner.  

• Three managers and two leaders came to Ash to complain about and blame the others.

  
  

Ash was frustrated with their LT and couldn’t understand what was going on. Things were working great a few months ago before hiring 25 more people... 25 people can’t make that big of a difference. 

Ash’s instinct was to get new people. 

But it wasn’t the people.

They were trying to move without a shared map. Nothing clear, lived, or company-wide to guide them. 

We looked at the system first, not the people.

What emerged was friction:

• Too many “soft” approvals not properly communicated—no clear line.

• Comms optimized for founding-stage, not growth.

• Ownership defined by assumption, not agreement.

• Strategy and OKR docs existed, but no one referenced them.

  
  

We co-designed stage-appropriate, practical changes that brought clarity into the system.

Here’s what we shifted:

• Rewrote how decisions traveled (and who made them).

• Turned comms into asynchronous alignment tools.

• Tightened roles and clarified interfaces between teams with clear ownership.

• LT syncs every week focused on OKRs, collectively removing blockers, and wins.

• Built time into Ash’s workflow to focus on purposeful LT development and cohesion.

• Brought the OKRs into daily life for everyone.

  
  

The Outcome

• Clarity and consistency across the company. Priorities and OKRs were front and center for everyone.

• Velocity increased.

• Teams understood their roles and what was expected of them, which sped up their deliverables. 

• The team grew closer and looked to support one another to achieve an outcome collectively, not do their own thing. 

• New hires were up-to-speed quicker and contributing faster.

• Ash stopped being the referee and focused on providing clarity and setting his team up for success.

  
  

The Lesson
Internal friction often lives in the gaps between what’s said and what’s assumed.

Don’t fix it with more hustle.

Fix it by making the system smarter.

#ExecutionDesign #FounderStory #StartupOps #LeadershipDesign #InternalFriction