We are now one year removed from the start of the catastrophic BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Looking back at how the company responded in the first weeks and months of the spill, Harvard Business School professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter says the company CEO, Tony Hayward, failed to lead effectively because he did not "zoom out" and look at the big picture. Kanter argues that successful business leaders need to be able to zoom out and zoom in. They need to be able to take in the big picture, and they need to see the details. Kanter writes in the Harvard Business Review : The lens through which leaders view the world can help or hinder their ability to make good strategic decisions, especially during crises. Zoom in, and get a close look at select details—perhaps too close to make sense of them. Zoom out, and see the big picture—but perhaps miss some subtleties and nuances. Zoom buttons on digital devices let us examine images from many viewpoints. They also provide an apt metaphor for modes of strategic thinking. Some people prefer to see things up close, others from afar. Both perspectives—worm’s-eye and bird’s-eye—have virtues and pathologies. But they should be vantage points, not fixed positions. Leaders need multiple perspectives to get a complete picture. Effective leaders zoom in and zoom out. Here Kanter discusses the strategy: