ADHD Coaching for Entrepreneurs & Leaders: Lead Without ADHD Getting in the Way
Leading teams or building businesses while navigating ADHD presents unique challenges. Through certified ADHD coaching, I draw on my experience in technology leadership, including managing teams and building companies, to understand the complexity of making decisions for others while managing your own executive function challenges.
Understanding ADHD in Business Leadership
Many entrepreneurs and leaders discover how ADHD affects their business leadership responsibilities the hard way, as they build businesses or advance to senior positions, with initial ideas and excitement turning to stress and overwhelm.
- You make impulsive business decisions that seemed brilliant at the time but create problems later
- Strategic thinking comes easily, but implementation feels impossible - great vision, endless execution struggles
- You feel like you're managing two jobs - the actual leadership role plus managing your own ADHD symptoms
- Everyone else seems to make leadership look effortless while you struggle with basic organisation and follow-through
- You avoid the boring but essential parts of running a business, leading to cycles of crisis management
- Despite the challenges, sustainable leadership is possible when you understand your patterns and develop approaches that work with your brain
ADHD can affect how you process information, weigh multiple options, and make timely decisions when the stakes are high. Understanding decision-making patterns helps develop approaches that work for you
Providing direction and consistent communication while navigating your own attention and energy challenges requires strategies that honour both your needs and your team's need for reliable leadership
Many ADHD leaders excel at big-picture thinking but struggle with implementation, or get absorbed in specifics and lose sight of goals. Learning to balance these or re-structuring your role are essential
Clearly conveying expectations, providing consistent feedback, and delegating effectively can be complicated when ADHD affects your own organisation and communication patterns.
Building systems and processes that support long-term success while accommodating how your brain works day-to-day, including managing energy levels and maintaining focus
Saying yes too often, despite having agency to say no, finding daily administrative tasks excruciating, working under extreme pressure as deadlines near, often leads to cycles of burnout that take a while to recover from
Energy, Not Time Management
Recognising when you're most effective for different types of work and re-structuring your schedule accordingly.
Team Building and Delegation
Developing teams that complement your strengths while providing support in areas where ADHD creates challenges.
Communication Systems
Creating consistent methods for sharing information and maintaining accountability that are manageable.
Decision-Making Frameworks
Developing structured or collaboratative approaches that account for ADHD challenges while maintaining business agility.
Authentic Leadership Development
Building leadership approaches that work with your natural patterns rather than forcing conventional leadership styles
Practical System Building
Developing systems that support your success while meeting needs, adapting to systems that never worked for you
Team Dynamics and Communication
Improving how you work with others while being appropriately honest about your needs and working style as needed
Sustainable Success Strategies
Creating approaches that don't require constant masking or exhausting self-management, fitting in as you already are
My Experience in Business Leadership with ADHD
My journey with ADHD and leadership spans 15 years in technology, including founding and scaling a successful UX and development agency in Ireland from 2011 to 2018.
What began as a thriving business with rapid growth, building a great team, and winning high-profile clients across diverse industries imploded after I made increasingly impulsive growth decisions. The traits that fuelled the business's creation now had it under threat. By the end, I had to sit people down who had worked with me for years and tell them they'd lost their jobs. The experience left me searching for answers about what had happened.
Despite being diagnosed with ADHD in 2013, I didn't have the awareness to understand what was happening when it mattered most. The patterns I now recognise as ADHD-related affected critical business decisions. Losing a business that had brought such personal pride felt like I'd thrown it all away for reasons I couldn't understand.
Following this experience, I held two director-level roles, including Managing Director of an international SaaS platform. Despite what others may have seen as career success, I was completely burned out and living without any spark.
A decade after my initial diagnosis, I finally accessed the specialised support that transformed my understanding of myself. Taking time to pause and find effective support, including adult ADHD coaching, I retrained as an ADHD coach and launched something completely different, learning to work with my natural patterns rather than against them.
My experience navigating business leadership with poorly understood ADHD helps me support others facing similar challenges. Through ADHD-specific training and years of management experience, applying a certified ADHD coaching approach helps you explore your patterns and develop sustainable approaches that fit both your responsibilities and how your brain actually works.
Through compassionate, non-judgmental exploration, we collaborate through ADHD coaching to develop personalised strategies that work with your unique brain patterns. It can get better, and I don't believe ADHD has to feel like a curse.
Considering whether ADHD coaching feels right for your situation?
The main ADHD coaching page provides a comprehensive overview of the approach, includes experiences from other clients who've worked through similar challenges, and answers common questions about the coaching process.
Learn more about the ADHD coaching approach
