Leadership is a constant exercise in perspective. You have to be able to zoom in—getting granular, analyzing the daily execution, spotting inefficiencies, and understanding the inner workings of your team. But you also have to zoom out—looking at the bigger picture, identifying trends, evaluating long-term progress, and making strategic decisions.
If you don’t toggle between the two, you’re leading with blind spots. And blind spots are where businesses stall, teams lose momentum, and leaders get stuck.
When You’re Too Zoomed In
Picture yourself with a microscope, fully dialed in to the highest magnification. You see everything—every tiny imperfection, every misstep, every inefficiency. This can be useful… until it’s not.
Leaders who live in this hyper-detailed space tend to micromanage. They spend their time correcting individual mistakes, fine-tuning processes, and obsessing over what’s not working. At first glance, this might look like great leadership—being in the trenches, hands-on, actively involved. But over time, this level of focus can create a bottleneck. It slows down decision-making, disempowers your team, and keeps you reactive instead of strategic.
If you find yourself constantly fixing things at the ground level—rewriting emails, nitpicking minor client interactions, or overanalyzing every deal—it might be a sign you’re too zoomed in. You’re so busy adjusting the pixels that you’ve lost sight of the entire picture.
And what’s worse? If you stay in this mode too long, your team starts to shrink back. They hesitate. They second-guess. Because why take ownership when the boss is just going to come in and fix it anyway?
When You’re Too Zoomed Out
Now, let’s pull the lens way back. You’re at 30,000 feet, looking at the whole business. You’re focused on big goals, long-term vision, and high-level metrics. You assume your team is handling the execution—after all, you’ve hired great people, right?
Leaders who stay in this space might sound inspiring, but they can be frustrating to work under. They talk about scaling and hitting new revenue benchmarks but don’t notice the cracks forming at the foundation. They make sweeping decisions without understanding the implications on the ground. They assume things are happening that, in reality, are falling through the cracks.
If you’ve ever felt like your team just isn’t delivering the way you expect them to, or if you’re constantly surprised by problems that should have been obvious, it might be a sign you’re too zoomed out.
Great strategy without great execution is just a bunch of good ideas that never actually happen.
The Best Leaders Toggle
The best leaders know how to shift perspectives. They zoom in to diagnose, then zoom out to decide.
- They know when to get into the details, sit in on a client call, or analyze a pipeline report.
- They also know when to step back, look at trends, and ensure they’re solving the right problems.
- They don’t micromanage execution, but they also don’t assume everything is fine just because they said it should be.
Here’s the key: zooming in helps you understand. Zooming out helps you lead.
If you’re feeling stuck as a leader right now, ask yourself:
- Am I too zoomed in? Am I obsessing over details that my team should be handling?
- Am I too zoomed out? Am I missing key execution gaps that are holding us back?
Neither view is enough on its own. The magic happens when you use both.
