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The most effective leaders are too busy directing the narrative to get lost in the tiny detail. In this regular column, Executive Coach Marion Gamel explores how managers can take a step back from the floor to focus on the bigger picture and make a real impact on strategy.
Once, the best leaders were the sharpest experts in the room. Today, their edge comes from something harder to measure – empathy, curiosity and the ability to ask the right questions at the right time. In a world where knowledge dates fast, soft skills are the real currency of leadership.
Seeking advice and guidance from the elderly is something humans have done for as long as we have a trace of our species. We still witness it in villages and communities, in religious groups, within families… When we think of an ‘elder’ who supports their community with guidance and food for thought, advising on topics as wide-ranging as marital affairs all the way to business practices, do we need to know what job this person was doing before?
In truth, it doesn’t matter if they were a carpenter or an accountant because what’s being sought after by people who come for guidance is not training, nor is it expertise. It’s wisdom.
What happens in companies is quite similar to how we’ve been functioning as humans for thousands of years. As corporate leaders become more and more senior, they gradually lose touch with the technicalities of the department they lead. They may also lose a particular expertise as they are no longer aware of the latest tools or techniques. It’s a step that can be uncomfortable for many leaders I coach, as they become fully aware of what they are losing (expertise, details, contacts). However, they don’t yet fully realise that what they are gaining is perspective.
Separating the work from the strategy
During my years serving as Chief Marketing Officer at Betsson, I had already worked for some 15 years as a marketer. There came a point when I no longer had knowledge of the intricacies of the new technologies that were shaping marketing work, such as how programmatic advertising actually functions. At this point, I was faced with two options.
The first – and easier one – would have been to panic, because I was conscious that I had lost touch with day-to-day marketing work. I was no longer in a position of stepping into any of the shoes of my 200+ team to do their work. If the leadership team that I was part of needed to understand how something worked, I had to call in one of my experts. They would do a much better job than me at explaining the intricacies of their speciality. And the question would pop unbidden: am I still a ‘marketer’?
But there was another option. Taking a deep breath to realise that this distance between me and the actual marketing work was allowing me to gain perspective, to consider the impact of marketing within the entire organisation, rather than simply looking inwards at how it’s done.
When the leadership team wanted to dive into a marketing sub-function, I was proud to shine a light on the work of my team’s amazing branding, analytics, performance, PR, and social media marketing specialists.
Positioning yourself to see the bigger picture
Leadership is sometimes explained using the ‘dancefloor to balcony’ analogy. Your team is on the dancefloor. They dance together. They see each other in detail. They cannot see the entire club.
You are the leader, you are on a balcony. You see your team dancing. From where you stand, you can’t see the details. But you are in a position to see further into the club, to appreciate how busy the bar is, the queue at the cloakroom, etc.
Your leadership team is on the highest balcony. They don’t see any of the details of the dancefloor. But they see the entire club as well as what’s going on outside, the line of people who want to get in, how big the line in front of other clubs is… in short, the full picture.
As a leader, you occasionally need to go down to the dancefloor to understand your team’s reality. You also need to regularly invite them to your balcony, so they understand what’s happening in the company beyond your function.
This works across all levels. You are also occasionally invited by the leadership team to join them on the highest balcony, to discuss the broader context, market trends, the competition, and the changing legislation.
I find that this analogy often helps leaders I coach understand that – in order to do their job well – they must stay on the balcony most of the time. Indeed, spending too much time on the dancefloor can be lovely as you bond with your team. But it will also prevent you from gaining the broader perspective granted by the balcony. Not to mention leave you exhausted, as you’d need to keep running back and forth between your balcony and the dancefloor.
Splitting yourself between the ‘how it’s done’ (executed by your team) and the ‘why it’s done’ (the broader reality of your leadership team) is exhausting and not intellectually sustainable. Think of it as zooming in and out too fast, causing you to get seasick! Something has to give.
Signs that you should distance yourself from the daily details
If you think of the ‘why’, the ‘what’ and the ‘how’ of a company’s operations, I would go so far as to say that – in order to fluently focus on the why and elevate the what – a leader has to distance themselves from the how.
We commonly hear about the fact that our brain is not designed to multitask efficiently. I would add that our brain is not designed to multilayer efficiently, either.
Now, when should knowledge turn into wisdom for leaders? When should expertise make room for perspective, analysis, long-term thinking, intuition, and foresight? What are the signs that indicate it’s time for a leader to let go of the expertise and to focus on longer-term planning, strategic thinking and the broader picture?
In my experience as an executive coach, I would say that there is not one sign to look for, but many. Here are a few:
• Having the feeling that you’re banging your head against a glass ceiling. Missing promotions even though you and your team have been delivering on point. This is, in my experience, a sure sign that you should let go of details so you have enough space to crack that ceiling open.
• When you receive feedback from the top about the need to become ‘more strategic’. This type of vague feedback can be frustrating, because it does not feel as sufficiently prescriptive for you to act on it concretely. You can translate ‘being more strategic’ as staying on your balcony more, and to stop spending most of your time down on the dancefloor. You also need to be ready to climb up and visit the highest balcony at a moment’s notice.
• When your peers, other functional leaders, think that you don’t understand their work or goals or challenges.
• When your team of experts and specialists complains that you’re micro-managing them.
A simple way to shift from expert to wise elder is to be more explorative, more curious, to ask more questions. This helps you, and your colleagues think further. In short, turn 50 per cent of your affirmations into questions.
You’ll notice that the wise elders – the ones we were talking about earlier – often ask a lot of questions. This is not so they understand your predicament better (they got it from the first minute!). It’s in order to help you think from a broader perspective, without fixating on what happened or on feelings. Thus, the focus turns to values and ethics, to the example you want to set, the impact you want to have and the reputation you want to build or preserve.
Marion Gamel has over 20 years of experience in executive settings, having worked with Google, Eventbrite and Betsson Group. Got a question? Email Marion on marion.gamel@gmail.com.
This article first appeared in the iGaming Capital 2026 edition. For more information on the iGaming Capital 2026 edition or on www.iGamingCapital.mt, get in touch via email on info@contenthouse.mt or on +356 2132 0713. Additionally, readers can visit the iGaming Capital portal at www.iGamingCapital.mt to stay updated on the latest developments in Malta’s iGaming industry.
Featured Image:
Marion Gamel / LinkedIn
