Better Than Master Of One
You were hired for your expertise. Business acumen. Product strategy. Technical expertise. But leadership quickly asks more of you. Suddenly you’re expected to facilitate alignment across foreign disciplines, make decisions in areas beyond your domain, and coordinate teams who speak entirely different languages.
That’s the reality of modern leadership: pushed beyond the box outlined in your job description. Budgets are tighter, teams are leaner, and shipping meaningful outcomes requires breaking down silos and orchestrating disciplines that don’t naturally align.
For years, I wrestled with how to describe this work. When people asked what I did, I would shrink: “I design apps and websites.” It was clean, simple, safe. But it minimized decades of strategy, technical problem-solving, and stakeholder coordination that actually made the work succeed. I simplified my story because it felt like specialization was the path to credibility.
The phrase that haunted me - Jack of all trades, master of none - reinforced that hesitation.
Breadth as Leadership
But let’s be clear: being a “generalist” isn’t about dabbling. It’s about developing enough fluency across disciplines to integrate perspectives while also maintaining depth in your core domain. The leaders who create momentum aren’t the ones who micromanage others or delegate away everything outside their lane. They’re the ones who:
Translate between design, engineering, and business to align teams
Accelerate decisions by seeing across boundaries and challenging assumptions
Mentor others to stretch beyond their role, multiplying capability across the team
When I recently coached a UX director through leading our program team’s research initiative, it transformed our larger team’s delivery. Within weeks, he was presenting tested prototypes every sprint - validating concepts, fueling delivery, and accelerating more innovative releases. That’s the multiplier effect of breadth.
Why It Matters Now
Today’s business reality leaves no room for silos. My client partners - funded startups and enterprise leaders alike - can’t afford $300K executives or $500K agencies that don’t cultivate internal capabilities. They need leaders who wear multiple hats, coordinate across functions, level up teams, and ship results.
That’s the generalist advantage: breadth fuels resilience. Lean teams achieve big outcomes. And the integrator in the room makes the specialist-versus-generalist debate irrelevant. This is exactly the edge my client partners rely on at critical inflection points.
My Own Evolution
Looking back, I’ve been practicing this all along. From artist to product designer, I never stayed in one lane. I learned code, tested products, talked to customers, won new business, and negotiated partnerships. I have led massive programs in industries I knew nothing about on day one - energy, healthcare, sports, and many others - and I succeeded precisely because I could listen deeply, learn fast, and adopt new perspectives.
That range carried into building companies of my own. I’ve designed products end-to-end, built robust prototypes, recruited co-founders, structured pricing to ensure profitability from day one, and structured legal agreements to keep it all working. Each step forward wasn’t about narrow expertise - it was about connecting the dots across disciplines.
Integration Is Our Edge
Only recently did I learn the full saying: Jack of all trades, master of none, but oftentimes better than master of one. That last part changes everything!
If you’ve ever felt uneasy about not fitting neatly into a box, know this: the very breadth that makes you harder to categorize is what makes you indispensable. The leaders who deliver breakthrough outcomes aren’t masters of one - they’re masters of integration. They cultivate capability, accelerate progress, and ship measurable results by embracing the full spectrum of what they and their teams bring.
That’s not dilution. That’s leadership. That’s better than master of one.