By Daria Guristrimba
Daria Guristrimba, founder and CEO of Globe7, challenges the modern obsession with KPI-based leadership. She argues that heavy reliance on KPIs signals a dangerous loss of professional judgment and proximity to one’s craft. Her column explores how metrics create a vacuum of expertise, advocating for strategic logic over the abstraction of spreadsheets.
A few years ago, I sat in a leadership meeting reviewing a dashboard that looked immaculate. Conversion rates were stable, response times were improving, and satisfaction scores were consistent. By all means, the business appeared efficient, and everyone was convinced it was thriving.
What concerned me was how little those numbers revealed about the actual work.
As I’ve learned, KPIs tend to appear at the moment a leader loses proximity to the craft. They create a sense of control when judgment no longer feels reliable. In many organizations, metrics fill the space where expertise has receded.
When metrics replace judgment
When you understand a process deeply, you evaluate quality in real time. You recognize whether a client interaction reflects care or routine execution. You hear it in the language your team uses. You see it in the questions they ask. A spreadsheet becomes merely a secondary reference point.
When that understanding is absent, though, leaders look for something concrete. They look for percentages, trends, and targets. Here’s where KPIs come in. But while they offer structure, they do not offer in-depth comprehension.
I have observed founders build companies in industries they never worked in. They hire specialists and depend entirely on those specialists to interpret performance. Over time, the business becomes mediated through reports. The founder cannot independently assess whether the work is exceptional, adequate, or deteriorating. The only visible reference point is the dashboard.
At that stage, teams adapt to what is measured. They learn what to present. Metrics begin to reflect performance against reporting criteria rather than performance against the underlying standard of the product. Reports grow detailed and indicators remain steady. The flip side is that strategic drift can, and likely will, continue unnoticed. When a leader does not understand the process, communication shifts toward outputs instead of substance.
KPIs are useful diagnostic tools. They help detect patterns at scale and surface areas that require attention. The problem begins when they become the primary instrument of management.
That’s why, at Globe7, we have approached this differently. Instead of measuring people against universal KPIs, we match personalities. Some clients want speed. Others want depth. The wrong match creates friction. The right match creates loyalty. That alignment determines whether a relationship compounds or quietly erodes.
Mastery changes the equation
In high stakes industries, leadership requires radical familiarity with the product. A founder should be the most informed person in the room about what constitutes excellence. That level of fluency alters the dynamic of management.
You do not need to wait for a quarterly review to sense whether a project is misaligned. You recognize it in the reasoning behind a proposal. You identify it in the structure of a decision.
In my own work, I know the services we offer in granular detail. I understand every stage of the experience we deliver. Because of that, I can evaluate quality through conversation. When a team member outlines a plan, the clarity of their logic signals whether they grasp the objective. Their questions reveal whether they see the whole system or only a fragment. Metrics serve to confirm patterns. Yet, they do not define them.
This proximity shifts the role of the leader.
While management organized around dashboards centers on oversight, management grounded in expertise centers on direction. When something is misaligned, the response is not to demand better numbers. It is to examine the rationale behind the work.
For instance, one of our most effective employees worked with us for nearly two years before we met in person. No KPI dashboards. No daily reporting. Just clarity of responsibility and mutual trust. Performance did not suffer from the absence of surveillance. It improved because expectations were explicit and ownership was real.
Leadership by questioning, or the “True Path”
Effective leadership at this level relies on precision. Instead of reviewing spreadsheets alone, a leader asks questions that expose logic.
Think along the lines of: What assumptions shaped this decision? Why was this path selected? What outcome is being optimized?
Questions like these reveal how a team member is thinking. They surface whether the purpose behind the task is understood. They also signal that leadership is engaged at the level of substance.
When leaders enter a field they do not understand, their primary tool becomes motivation. They encourage, incentivize, and monitor. Direction remains abstract because technical judgment is outsourced. When leaders master the work, they can offer guidance that is specific. They refine standards in real time.
Data remains valuable. It becomes powerful when interpreted by someone who comprehends the mechanism behind it. A performance percentage carries different meaning for a founder who has personally executed the workflow. The same number can obscure weaknesses when read without context.
Final thoughts
Efficiency does not reside in a single metric. It resides in the alignment between vision and execution. It appears in whether daily decisions reflect the intent of the founder. That alignment cannot be manufactured through reporting alone.
If a business requires constant surveillance through KPIs to determine whether it is functioning, the underlying issue is distance. Distance from the product, distance from the craft, and ultimately, distance from the reasoning that creates value.
Leadership begins with proximity. The closer you are to the substance of your work, the less dependent you become on abstraction. Metrics then serve their proper role, illuminating patterns and enhancing human judgment instead of replacing it.
At our company, the only KPI we track is whether the company is growing. Everything else is trust, structure, and alignment. Growth, in our view, is the byproduct of sound decisions, strong matches, and disciplined execution. If those fundamentals are intact, the numbers take care of themselves.
In my experience, the strongest organizations share a common characteristic. Their founders understand the work intimately. They evaluate reasoning, not only results. Their dashboards support a standard that already exists in their minds.
When expertise sets the benchmark, performance follows the substance of the work. When measurement sets the benchmark, performance follows the measurement.
Over time, those two trajectories produce very different companies.
Daria Guristrimba
