Keep Your Eye On The Objective

Leading in complex environments requires discipline and focus. To navigate challenges, leaders can use a deceptively simple discipline that Ironman swimmers rely on called “sighting.”

In open water, there are no lane lines to guide an Ironman swimmer. They only have a distant buoy marking the path forward. Left unchecked, even the strongest swimmers will drift off course due to stroke imbalance, current, or waves.

To correct, simmers use a principle called “sighting.” They keep their focus on the buoy or another distant fixed object aligned to it.

But sighting often creates its own problems. Lifting the head too high or too frequently disrupts rhythm, drops the hips, and increases drag. Keeping the head down too long for speed risks added and unnecessary distance.

The best swimmers master the balance. They keep their stroke strong and efficient, but periodically lift their eyes just enough—“crocodile eyes”—to lock onto a fixed point, then return to their rhythm.

Leadership requires the same discipline.

In the Best Boss Effect, we describe leadership as navigating tensions rather than choosing sides. Sighting offers a powerful metaphor for one of the most important tensions: people and outcomes.

Leaders who focus too heavily on outcomes are constantly “looking up.” They check, correct, and intervene, often with good intentions, but at the cost of their team’s flow, ownership, and confidence. Progress slows, and energy is wasted.

On the other hand, leaders who focus solely on people, without referencing their shared objectives, may create a positive environment. However, without consistent alignment to clear goals, teams can drift.

Best Bosses does neither.

Instead, they establish clear points of reference—vision, priorities, and what we often call commander’s intent. These become the fixed “buoys” for the organization. Then, they focus on their people and trust their teams to execute between those points, stepping in not to control every movement, but to develop people and periodically realign direction.

Managing these tensions requires both humility and discipline.

Humility to recognize that drift is inevitable. No leader or team stays perfectly on course without correction.

Discipline to resist the urge to overcorrect, allowing momentum and capability to compound.

Ultimately, effective leadership like sighting is not about stopping progress to check direction. It is about maintaining progress while ensuring direction.

You set the destination. You build your team’s capability. You trust their stroke.

And you look up just often enough to ensure you and your team are still headed where it matters most.

That is the essence of a Best Boss.