350th Post: A Zoom Lens Won’t Help You See “Good Leadership”

By Linda Fisher Thornton

Leadership is multifaceted, but leadership books are not often written about that. Many use a “zoom lens” approach to take you very close to one aspect of leadership. This close-up view can be helpful for fine-tuning our leadership skills, but then we may begin to think that this close-up view is all there is to good leadership.

A zoom lens won’t help you see good leadership – it is multifaceted.

Sometimes, when we zoom in to get a closer look at one aspect of leadership, we look away from the complete picture. If we focus on self-development, we may neglect our interpersonal impact. If we focus on bringing out the best in other people, we may lose sight of our impact on the environment and the community.

As useful as zoomed-in leadership information is, we need to understand it in the “wide angle” context. As we seek to improve our leadership and our leadership development, we should remember that there is a bigger picture.

Seeing good leadership requires us to step back and see the full context.

We have many constituents, and their expectations are high. They are concerned about our ability to see issues clearly, take responsibility and lead ethically in a broad array of settings and roles. Learning how to balance the needs of all of them at the same time takes a wide-angle view.

This week, look for books and articles that help you balance competing interests and multiple responsibilities – get the complete, uncut picture of good leadership.