The Leader with the Mop

Several years ago, while facilitating a leadership development event, I was standing at the front of the room when I noticed a small water leak developing at the back of the event center. Small quickly became not-so-small.

Before anyone could organize a committee to study the emerging indoor lake, my boss leaped into action. Somehow, he found a mop and a makeshift mop bucket and went to work. He attacked the growing puddle, eventually found the water cutoff, and helped save the day. When we took our first break, there he was: the president of the company, still holding a mop and making sure the floor was safe while everyone else grabbed coffee.

Between sessions, one of the participants approached me and asked, “Isn’t he the president of your company?” I said, “Yeah. Why?” He looked toward the back of the room and said something I still remember: “I’ve never seen a leader with a mop.”

I told him our boss was a little different. If he saw a need, he met it. More importantly, he knew we were watching. He expected every one of us to do the same thing if the situation were reversed. The participant walked away looking slightly shocked.

I hadn’t thought about that moment in years. Then, recently, my wife and I were out running errands. Because we are a rather highfalutin couple and, more importantly, we had no kids with us to complain about eating there, we decided to treat ourselves to McDonald’s. Yes, when the kids are gone, apparently this is what date night has become.

When we walked in, something immediately caught my attention: the restaurant was remarkably clean. And in the middle of the dining room was a man mopping the floor. As we entered, he stopped, introduced himself, and welcomed us to the restaurant. I later learned he was the manager and relatively new to that particular store.

Eventually, curiosity got the better of me, so I asked him, “Why are you mopping the floor?” His answer was simple: “Two reasons. First, it’s what the store needs right now. Second, I can show my team what service looks like.”

There it was again, a leader with a mop.

We spend a lot of time teaching leadership through models, frameworks, books, assessments, competencies, and because apparently leadership cannot occur without them, PowerPoint slides. But sometimes leadership is much simpler: See the need. Meet the need. Let others see what good looks like.

The McDonald’s manager could have found an employee and told them to mop the floor. After all, he was the manager. Instead, he recognized what his store needed at that moment and did it himself. At the same time, he was communicating something to his team without saying a word: No job is beneath me. Our customers matter. This is the standard. And I won’t ask you to do something I’m unwilling to do myself.

That is leading by example in its simplest form. Leadership isn’t demonstrated only in the big moments: the strategy session, the crisis, the important presentation, or the difficult decision. More often, people decide what kind of leader you are by watching what you do in the small moments, especially when nobody expects you to do it.

Years ago, a company president taught me that lesson with a mop. Recently, a McDonald’s manager reminded me of it. Different organizations. Different circumstances. Same leadership lesson.

Maybe we don’t need another leadership model. Maybe we just need more leaders willing to pick up the mop.

P.S. While we were inside, the McDonald’s drive-through line kept growing, but inside the restaurant it was just the two of us. That gave us the unexpected pleasure of actually getting to know the manager and hearing his perspective on leadership and service. And apparently there are rewards for talking leadership with a man holding a mop.

As we were leaving, he handed us two free fried apple pies. So, yes, the leadership lesson was meaningful. But let’s not lose sight of the really important outcome here: free pie.

We can’t wait until we’re running errands in that area again. Big Macs, here we come.

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The Leader with the Mop was originally published in Horizon Performance on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.