At some point in your career, you'll probably ask yourself: Should I be doing the work, or should I be leading the work? Or, should I be doing both?

This came up in a recent conversation I had with some friends about what makes a great senior leader. It all boiled down to this: knowing when to roll up your sleeves and when to guide from the sidelines.

This is where the player-coach dynamic comes in.

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In the business world, a player is in the trenches. They're writing the code, closing the deal or putting together the presentation. In other words, they're on the field, moving fast and solving problems in real-time.

A coach, on the other hand, zooms out. They focus on vision, strategy and team development. Coaches help set the playbook and motivate others to execute it well. They're still in the game, just from a different angle.

But unlike in sports, where players often become coaches when their bodies give out, business folks don't age out of being players. That's the tricky part. The best leaders don't fully abandon the "player" mindset. They just get smarter about when to tap into that mentality.

Think about it like this: if you're always buried in the daily details,........

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