Stay in your lane.

We hear this often. Pick a thing and be brilliant at it. Focus. Specialise. Stay in your lane

And for some roles, in some contexts, that's exactly right. The specialist has real value. Depth and expertise matters. I mean, nobody wants a generalist surgeon, right?

But leadership, it’s different.

What I've noticed, over and over again, is that the leaders who lead best aren't the ones who went deepest in one direction. The ones who only lived in the operation don't always see the commercial picture. The ones who only lived in the numbers don't always understand what they're asking of the people delivering them. And the ones who only lived in the strategy don't always know what it feels like to be at the sharp end of operations.

And then there are the ones who understand multiple layers of what running something involves. Not a jack of all trades. Not someone who knows a little about everything and not enough about anything. Someone who has gone deep and wide.

David Epstein made a similar argument in his book Range - that in complex, unpredictable environments, breadth of experience consistently outperforms narrow specialisation. The specialists win in predictable, rule-based fields. In everything messy, human and uncertain - which is to say, leadership - the generalists tend to thrive.

Hospitality and retail are all of these things. Messy, human and uncertain. The pace is demanding, the variables are constant and the margin for error is tight. And the leader who only understands one part of it - who knows the operation but not the numbers, or knows the numbers but not the people, or knows the strategy but has never actually run a site - could be operating with one hand tied behind their back.

And when I think about this in the context of how our industry develops leaders, we're pretty brilliant at promoting people who are excellent at one thing. The best operator becomes the area manager. The GM with an excellent marketing and events calendar becomes the marketing manager. The best salesperson becomes the head of sales. And then we're surprised when the transition is hard - not because they aren't brilliant, but because brilliance in one lane doesn't automatically translate to the breadth that more senior leadership actually requires.

I've worked with leaders who've been called a generalist. Sometimes it's meant as a compliment. Sometimes it clearly isn't. But what I've noticed consistently in the ones who lead best is that the breadth isn't a weakness - it's exactly what makes them effective. The ability to see the whole picture. To understand what it feels like to be the operator under pressure and the GM making the call and the person in the room who has to deliver the news. To know that the operational detail matters as much as the vision. That the people stuff and the numbers stuff are the same stuff, just seen from different angles.

That's not being a jack of all trades. That's range. And in this industry, right now, I think it might be the most underrated leadership quality there is.

PS - Staying in your own lane when it comes to other people's dramas, minding your own business, and not getting pulled into things that aren't yours to carry - that's equally important. And I'd invite you to stay in your lane then.

I'm Sarah Clark, an executive and leadership coach for hospitality and retail leaders. If this resonated with you, I'd love to have a conversation. Book a free consultation at nineyardscoaching.co.uk