Unfortunately, when leaders are overwhelmed by constant disruption, they're more likely to do the opposite. Talented leaders don't fail for lack of intelligence or experience. They fail because they make decisions based on a partial view of their environment and miss critical insights.

Drawing on decades of experience coaching top executives through uncertainty and change, Cornelia Choe and Marshall Goldsmith introduce a timely antidote to perspective blindness—a new model for leadership that expands how we see, think, and decide.

In The Panoramic Leader, you'll discover the mental map guiding your decisions, shaped by the lessons and patterns of your life and work. Blending research, insight-generating tools, and illuminating stories from Fortune 500 CEOs and visionaries across industries, The Panoramic Leader is a powerful guide to expanding your vision and making better decisions. Whether you're a seasoned executive or a new manager, this book will transform how you approach challenges, relationships, and achieving your full leadership potential.

The excerpt below, from the book's first chapter, "The Missing Piece," explains the importance of…

Tuning In to What Matters Most  

Ironically, we have more data available to us than ever before. But much of it is conflicting, misleading, or simply distracting. As a result, we can't see clearly through the fog. This can lead us to focus only on the part of the landscape we do see clearly—acting only on that information—at the expense of making needed changes that reside in those "foggy" areas of our perception.  

For example, the communications app Skype was once so popular it was a verb, but by 2015, competition from WhatsApp and Snapchat had eroded its dominance, especially among younger users. Microsoft, which owned the service, revamped the platform. In doing so, the com­pany excessively focused on the look of the app and on creating features, neglecting to improve its service reliability. 

A flashy 2017 redesign was intended to make the service look cooler. A number of the popular features of the competitors were added, such as "mojis"—short TV and movie clips—and a Snapchat-style feature called "highlights," which made "disappearing" photos and videos available to share with selected contacts. But those new features were unpopular—users found them difficult to navigate—and the redesign missed Skype's core objective of providing users with a dependable communication platform. Then, when COVID-19 hit, making reliable video communication essential, millions of users jumped ship to Zoom and WhatsApp, a shift that ultimately led to Skype's retirement in 2025. 

Many leaders are surprised to discover that another potential road­block in our quest to obtain the right data is gatekeepers—the well­-intentioned people who guard precious access to our time: executive assistants, chiefs of staff, and other advisers. They screen messages, sort through a daily myriad of requests, and help establish priorities. Yet whether to manage agendas, reduce overload, or promote what they be­lieve is most relevant, these gatekeepers may filter out important people and information. The result is that leaders often miss opportunities to gather valuable insights.  

Others try to actively "filter" what we see, either to please us, be­cause they want to make themselves look good, or to avoid delivering bad news. This filtering means that we often miss important insights from those around us.  

We're often given the advice to get on the balcony so we can survey the dance floor, meaning we should step back to get a big-picture per­spective. This is extremely helpful advice and should be our first step.  

In times of constant and unpredictable change, however, when we get to the balcony, there may be so many people on the dance floor that we can't see through the swirl of activity to spot important events. We may perceive that everything's going well even as some troublemakers quietly infiltrate the party. 

To get a meaningful panoramic view and spot significant devel­opments, it's important to invite others up to the balcony with us. We've got to consult with people who understand varied aspects of the complex dynamics we're contending with—people who see the world differently —and can add their perspectives to our maps. They may already know the majority of the guests and help us notice that the party's being taken over by gatecrashers.  

To help leaders get on the balcony with others who understand different dynamics on the dance floor, Cornelia brings together small groups of carefully selected leaders—whom she calls peers—in her Leaders' Circles. Together, they work through issues that are critical to their companies' success, and sometimes to their own survival as top executives … . Connect­ing with peers who have shouldered comparable responsibilities, have grappled with similar challenges, and yet bring different experiences and perspectives is essential to gaining deeper insights into our problems and seeing the full panorama of possibilities.  

These leaders often uncover the real issues that lie beneath their initial diagnosis by sharing their challenges openly with trusted peers. In one Leaders' Circle, a newly appointed CEO, formerly the COO, was struggling to understand why employee engagement remained par­ticularly low in certain areas of the company, especially the marketing department. Having built his career in operations, he was unfamiliar with the dynamics of some other departments and, as a result, was misreading their cues.  

The peers in his Leaders' Circle weren't convinced by his framing of the problem, and they shared many other potential reasons for dis­engagement beyond the "unmotivated" employees that he saw. They recommended that he conduct an in-depth listening tour with depart­ment heads to hear, without judgment or agenda, the real challenges they faced. These meetings exposed a web of deeper issues—including delayed decisions and blurred accountability—prompting the leader to initiate transformative, company-wide change, starting with rebuilding trust and cohesion within his senior leadership team.  

Sometimes to get the information we need, we must leave the bal­cony and step onto the dance floor. By working the floor and talking to lots of guests, including the uninvited ones, we can make vital dis­coveries that give us a clearer understanding of what's really happening and what to do next.  

If we want to grow our panoramic leadership, we need to get up close and speak with lots of different stakeholders, both inside and outside the organization, and incorporate their viewpoints into our maps. This may be uncomfortable at first, because the information we discover doesn't always confirm what we want to believe. But surprising news is often the most valuable news.  

At a Leaders' Circle meeting, Kate, an executive recently promoted into a demanding role, shared her frustrations about the lack of support she was getting from a few colleagues. When one of her peers asked whether this was an attempt to sideline her influence, she contemplated this unsettling possibility—but after weighing the situation, responded that although difficult, things hadn't gone that far. But the question lingered in her mind.  

When she returned to work, she reached out to some of her key stakeholders and discovered that quiet efforts were underway to un­dermine her reputation. Kate brought this conflict out into the open, and within weeks, the dynamics shifted. At the next circle meeting, she expressed her gratitude to the group for their candor in challenging her perspective and motivating her to act before the situation escalated.  

Experiences like these remind us that true panoramic leadership isn't just about seeing more—it's about seeing differently: noticing what's been overlooked, questioning our assumptions, and expanding the perspectives that shape our decisions. A central mission for both of us—Marshall and Cornelia—has been helping leaders gain the insights they need to see clearly and make better decisions. In this book, we've joined forces to guide you toward becoming a panoramic leader: some­one who takes into account the full spectrum of stakeholder perspectives, both inside and outside the organization, to drive smarter choices and powerful results. With that broader lens, you'll be equipped to steer your company toward greater success.  

We've seen many leaders experience powerful "aha" moments as they move through this process—discovering not only how quickly they can build their panoramic leadership, but also how rewarding the journey can be. Engaging with different perspectives expands our mental maps, creates energy, and enriches our lives. 

Excerpted from The Panoramic Leader: How Great Leaders See Differently by Cornelia Choe & Marshall Goldsmith, from 100 Coaches Publishing. All rights reserved.

About the Authors

Cornelia Choe | International Adviser and Speaker on Leadership, Thinkers50 Radar Honoree

Cornelia Choe is an international leadership expert and keynote speaker who has advised hundreds of senior leaders globally, helping them operate with clarity in complex environments. Her TEDx talk has been viewed more than two million times.

A Thinkers50 Radar honoree, she is the founder and CEO of The Leaders Alliance, where she works with CEOs and C-suite executives across five continents. Cornelia’s work focuses on helping leaders expand how they see so they can make better decisions, align teams, and lead effectively in rapidly changing environments.

Drawing on experience across multilateral institutions, government agencies, and global companies—from start-ups to Fortune 500 corporations—she brings a deep understanding of leadership in complex, high-stakes contexts.

Her perspective is shaped by a life lived across three continents and seven countries, and by early experiences connecting people across cultures. At eighteen, she led an initiative linking CEOs across continents, and at nineteen, she was invited to speak at a landmark United Nations conference on leadership and development.

A graduate of Georgetown University and the Harvard Kennedy School, Cornelia now speaks globally on leadership, decision-making, and the power of perspective in an increasingly complex and interconnected world.

Marshall Goldsmith | #1 Executive Coach in the World and #1 New York Times bestselling author

Marshall Goldsmith is the founder of the Marshall Goldsmith Group and 100 Coaches. The inaugural winner of the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Institute of Coaching at Harvard Medical School and a Thinkers50 Management Hall of Fame inductee, he has advised more than 200 major CEOs and their management teams over the course of his career. A New York Times bestselling author, he is the author or editor of more than thirty-five books, including What Got You Here Won’t Get You There.