The Strategic Discipline of Widening Attention
I keep seeing a pattern in my work with cross-agency groups and leadership teams. One part of the system pushes hard on its agenda.
The work is important. The rationale is sound. The leader is doing what they believe they are accountable for.
And yet, things begin to fray.
Conversations narrow. Positions harden. Energy shifts from shared purpose to advocacy. The wider system starts to fragment, even while everyone insists they are acting responsibly.
The issue is not ambition. It is the absence of relational and systemic sensitivity.
When we over-index on our part, we can lose sight of the collective opportunity emerging across the system.
The Discipline: Attending to Both Part and Whole
What I'm noticing is that leaders who navigate complexity well have developed a dual awareness.
We hold responsibility for our part of the system. And we remain attentive to the whole.
This is less about agreement and more about flexibility of attention.
Where is your attention sitting?
Is it fixed on protecting your mandate, your budget, your team? Can you also flex to see the interdependencies, the second-order effects, the broader future that is forming?
When attention collapses to the part alone, connectedness disappears. When attention widens, new possibilities become visible.
The work is not to abandon our part. It is to situate it within a larger frame.
The Trap: Finite Reflexes in an Ongoing Game
Most of the complex challenges we face today are not one-off contests. They are ongoing conditions: digital transformation, service reform, workforce sustainability, public trust.
These are long games.
I wrote previously about the difference between finite and infinite games, and why leadership in complexity requires us to know which game we are playing.
Yet under pressure, it’s easy to default to short-game thinking.
Secure the funding. Win the argument. Protect the territory.
There are short-term gains in doing so. Finite strategies can deliver immediate clarity and control.
But the risk is that they don’t also build the conditions required for the future we say we want to create together.
If the goal is enduring impact, the question shifts. It is no longer, how do I win this round? It becomes, what future are we shaping collectively?
The Move: Lifting Attention Beyond the Boundary
The shift is subtle but demanding. It's a felt sense as much as a cognitive move.
It involves lifting attention beyond the immediate boundary of your role, while still honoring it.
Can you notice when you are stuck in your part? Can you widen your frame without diluting your accountability? Can you inquire into what the whole system might need that your position alone cannot see?
When leaders develop this capacity, rooms change. You can feel the quality shift. Shoulders drop. Breath deepens. The space opens.
Debate becomes exploration. Defense becomes curiosity. Difference becomes information rather than threat.
The system becomes more adaptive because its leaders are less confined by their vantage point.
The Resistance: The Cost of Leaving Certainty
If this shift is so powerful, why is it not everywhere?
Widening attention can take us beyond what we immediately control.
When we move beyond defending our position, we step away from the comfort of being right. We enter a space where our assumptions may not hold, where our authority may feel less solid.
This is where inner coherence becomes critical.
The move into the unknown is not always comfortable. It can feel destabilising. It requires steadiness. It requires the capacity to hold tension without rushing back to familiar ground.
Most systems reward certainty. Complex futures require something else.
Developing the Capacity to Widen Attention
In my work with executive teams and cross-boundary groups, we focus on building this capacity deliberately. Not by asking leaders to step away from their mandate, but by helping them situate it within the wider system.
We examine where attention narrows under pressure. We create containers where it becomes possible to hold both part and whole at the same time - without collapsing into defense when tension rises
When leaders can move fluidly between their own remit and the broader environment, the system becomes more adaptive. Trade-offs are addressed explicitly. Assumptions are tested. New pathways become visible.
The complexity does not disappear. But the capacity to navigate it increases.
If part and whole remain in tension, it is often a sign of the system’s capacity to hold multiple perspectives without collapsing into defense.
Warmly, Claire
If this resonates, there are a few ways to deepen the work together
For executive teams navigating cross-boundary complexity, the Strategy Lab is designed precisely for this challenge. It is where we work at the level of the system, not just the plan.
I only take a small number of 1-1 coaching clients and these spots are currently full but if you would like to join the waitlist for the next intake, you can register your interest here.
I’m designing bespoke leadership programs for a number of public sector organizations – reach out if you’d like to explore what this could look like for your organization.
