Ben Morton argues that leaders who get stuck solving daily problems lose strategic control. He draws the lesson from military history: commanders positioned themselves on high ground to see the whole battlefield. His rule from Army experience: if you're fighting, you're not commanding.
Now I was watching a series on TV recently about that period in history, and one thing really stood out for me. The two kings, Harold and William, they weren't constantly in the thick of the fighting. Instead, they took a position on higher ground. They took a vantage point so that they could see what was happening across the entire battlefield. Because if you're in the middle of the fighting, You start to lose sight of the bigger picture, and you can't see what's unfolding. Ultimately, this means you lose control. And this is something I was taught very early on in my Army career. If you're fighting, you're not commanding. And the same is true for us as leaders today, right? If we're constantly in the weeds, doing the doing, solving every problem and issue for our team, then we start to lose perspective.
