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If you ever get a chance to visit an exhibition by Olafur Eliasson, you may find yourself standing in front of a deceptively simple installation: a large circular lens framing another illuminated disc beyond it.
At first glance, it is minimalist – almost clinical. But in shifting one’s position, colours emerge, dissolve and reassemble. What appears fixed is anything but. The work didn’t change. You (and your negotiable vulnerability) did.
Eliasson is a Danish-Icelandic artist renowned for large-scale installations that explore perception, light, colour and the relationship between people and their environments. Born in 1967 in Copenhagen, he founded Studio Olafur Eliasson in Berlin, working across art, architecture and environmental projects to create immersive experiences challenging how viewers see and interpret the world.
Any exhibition’s accompanying text will explain how Eliasson uses filters and natural phenomena (light, water and air) to alter what we see depending on where we stand. Movement is not incidental to the work – it is required. Without it, Eliasson’s art remains incomplete.
That conceit is informative because leadership scholars have long valued incorporating multiple perspectives. From strategic management to organisational behaviour, the literature is saturated with calls for diversity of thought, cognitive flexibility and “both/and” thinking.
We know, intellectually, seeing a problem from different angles improves decision-making and that organisations benefit when leaders avoid rigid, single-frame interpretations of complex challenges.
But in an Eliasson gallery, a different question emerges – one asked far less often: How do leaders learn to see differently?
The limits of “perspective by proxy”
In recent years, many global organisations – particularly in sport – have leaned heavily into diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) as the primary mechanism for expanding perspective. Building diverse teams (i.e. backgrounds, experiences, identities) has been essential. Variety surfaces blind spots, challenges assumptions and enriches decision-making.
But there is risk embedded in this approach. It can allow leaders to outsource perspective.
If they are not careful, they begin to assume simply being surrounded by difference is enough. That others will do the work of challenging our thinking. That diversity, in and of itself, guarantees insight.
It doesn’t. Diversity creates the conditions for perspective but doesn’t ensure it. That responsibility still sits with the leader – to actively engage, question, interpret and ultimately (if not ideally), to transform how they see their organisation’s challenges.
Eliasson’s installation makes this explicit. Viewers of his work must move and adjust their position, participating in the act of generated perception. Leadership is no different.
Training the eye (and mind)
How then can leaders develop this capacity for altered perception? One answer may lie outside the traditional domains of leadership development altogether.
In medicine, there is a growing body of work exploring the role of art in clinical training. Programmes such as The Art of Seeing at Canada’s McMaster Museum of Art in Hamilton, Ontario, expose medical residents to visual art, asking them not simply to observe, but to interpret, describe and discuss what they see.
The results are striking. Participants demonstrate improved diagnostic accuracy, heightened attention to detail and enhanced communication with patients.
This is because art trains perception. It slows the viewer down by forcing repeated viewing. It reveals that what was initially seen is often incomplete, if not wrong. It teaches that holding ambiguity (to entertain multiple interpretations and an openness to revision) develops the capabilities we claim to value in leaders.
Sport’s blind spot
For leaders in sport, this is particularly important.
Sport, by its nature, is deeply embedded in tradition. Many leaders – whether executives, coaches or administrators – have come up through the system as athletes. They have internalised its norms, rhythms and ways of knowing. This creates unique strength: deep expertise, tacit knowledge and a strong sense of identity.
But also, blind spots. When everyone in the room shares a similar formative experience, the range of perspectives can narrow – often without anyone noticing. What feels like common sense may become collective habit.
This is where exposure to outside influences like art, music, dance, theatre, even architecture and design, become critical. These are not distractions from leadership – they are extensions of it. They provide alternative ways of seeing, thinking and feeling by disrupting worldview default settings.
Eliasson’s work is powerful precisely because it destabilises perception. It reminds viewers what they take as “reality” is often contingent with angles, context and movement. For sport leaders operating in increasingly complex, technology-driven, and globally interconnected environments, that’s not a trivial insight. It’s a strategic imperative.
Of course, simply visiting a gallery is not enough. Just as diversity does not automatically produce perspective, exposure does not automatically produce insight. The key lies in practice. When engaging with art, leaders might ask:
- What am I noticing first – and why?
- What changes when I shift my position, literally or metaphorically?
- What am I missing?
- How might someone else interpret this differently?
- What assumptions am I bringing into this experience?
These are not questions about art alone. They are questions about leadership. They translate directly into organisational contexts:
- How am I framing this problem?
- What perspectives are absent from this discussion?
- Where might my own experience be limiting what I see?
- What would this look like from another vantage point?
In this sense, art becomes a training ground – a low-stakes environment in which to develop high-stakes capabilities. Interestingly, then, the most striking feature of Eliasson’s installation may be that it refuses passivity. The viewer cannot stand still and fully experience the work. They must move.
That, too, is a lesson for leadership.
In a world often described as VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity) or increasingly BANI (Brittle, Anxious, Non-linear, and Incomprehensible), static perspectives are liabilities. Leaders who remain fixed in a single interpretive frame risk missing emerging opportunities, misreading threats and reinforcing outdated assumptions.
Movement, in this context, is not just physical but cognitive, emotional and relational … a willingness to step outside one’s habitual vantage point and see what becomes visible from elsewhere.
A simple provocation
It delivers a simple question for sport leaders: When was the last time you deliberately placed yourself in a context designed to change how you see?
Not a conference or strategy session. Not another conversation with people who share your language and assumptions. Something different. Like a gallery or performance. An unsettling piece of music or an experience capable of resisting easy interpretation.
And when you did this unusual act, what was revealed? Did it challenge or reveal something not seen before?
We often look to sport for lessons about leadership – and rightly so. Sport inspires, unites and transforms. But for those leading within it, the most valuable insights may lie beyond its boundaries.
Art, as Eliasson clearly demonstrates, is not simply something to be viewed. It’s something to be experienced, interpreted and learned from. It reminds us perception is not fixed and that reality is often negotiable. What we see depends, in part, on how – and where – we choose to look.
For leaders navigating complexity, that’s more than an aesthetic insight. It’s a capability. And like any capability, it can be developed – but it requires a willingness to move.
John Cairney is the head of the University of Queensland’s School (UQ) of Human Movement and Nutrition Sciences. In August of this year, he will become the next dean of the School of Kinesiology at the University of Michigan. Rick Burton is an honorary professor at UQ, Syracuse University’s David B. Falk Emeritus Professor of Sport Management and co-author of The Rise of Major League Soccer.