Attention to detail - friend or foe of the leader? Leadership lessons from design

I have often heard people negatively assess someone’s ability to think strategically and see the big picture if they come across as a person with strong attention to detail. Intuitively, this has never resonated with me and it prompted me to dig deeper. More and more I hear successful entrepreneurs and leaders talk about their obsession with detail. Steve Job’s obsession is a cliche. But cliche or not, attention to detail is at the heart of great design. It is this invisible thing that gives us the feeling that something is right.

I have been fascinated by the Pixar’s creative process where the director and the team go through excruciating detail in every single scene to make it feel right as the tinies incongruencies create the feeling of something being fake.

This is true in leadership, too. Judging someone’s leadership ability by their attention to detail is the wrong thing to do. It is not the attention to detail but the need for a lot of detail which makes it difficult for some people to navigate times of change and uncertainty and thus lead the way.

Attention to detail is a crucial skill for leaders because it is a source of insight. The greatest insight comes from our ability to observe, pay attention and connect the dots. Not being able to discern some small but critical details leads to losing valuable information and being unable to quite understand why something does not work.

Think about body language. Observation and paying attention to small details is paramount if we are to read someone correctly and it is critical for a leader to be able to understand the mood of their team.

So, attention to details - a friend or foe? It depends on which details leaders pay attention to and their need for detail to make decisions. Leading an organisation calls for the ability to quickly switch between paying attention to the important details when gathering information and trying to get insight and seeing the big picture when setting the vision.