Last Friday’s (9/5/2025) Frances Hesselbein Leadership Forum email tip was on “Seeing Things Whole.” Hesselbein wrote in Leader to Leader (Vol. 2005, No. 37) that "Pulling out one piece, one action, one aspect of the leadership challenge is like playing a one-string guitar—noise but not much music."

The Leadership Challenge is five practices of exemplary leadership, described by Kouzes and Posner (2017, 6th ed.). It reminds leaders to model desired behaviors, communicate a vision people can buy into, challenge the status quo, empower action and collaboration, and recognize and celebrate achievement.

Sometimes we can get in a habit of using our leadership strengths to view issues and problems. We fail to see the full picture, and can make uninformed decisions, if we don’t purposefully step back and try to see all aspects of an issue, problem or opportunity. I have seen individuals make this mistake lately in several different circumstances. Seeing that has been a reminder to me to strive to see the full picture. Thus this reminder.

Contemporaries of Kouzes and Posner, Lee Bolman and Terry Deal in Reframing Organizations, encouraged leaders to view issues through four different frames—like looking out of windows in a building, each on a different wall, each with a different view.

I have found their model useful. It encourages looking at things in four ways. The Structural frame considers organizational relationships and needs—think organizational chart or a machine, for example. The Human Resource frame focuses on people needs, much like the dynamics of a family. The Political frame considers competition for scarce resources (think of a jungle), power relationships, conflicts, negotiation and compromise. The last frame is the Symbolic or Cultural frame and considers ritual, ceremony, storytelling—those things that reflect “how things are done around here” within our “tribe.”

I don’t know about you, but it’s rare that I have all of the information I would like to have when working through problems or considering opportunities. Though they have been around a while, models like the Leadership Challenge and Reframing Organizations, can still help us to see a fuller picture as we L.E.A.D.!