So I classify myself as a mostly busy manager. I say mostly as some days I get the doldrums and life seems to drag and my brain plays distraction techniques with social media and the ever changing world about us. However, like most managers, I don't do nine to five and some mornings I get up at six just to clear the email backlog.(1)
So when I discover that I have inadvertently stepped in mud and smeared that across the carpet below my desk, and then as it dried walked it into the carpet in the room, it is obvious it needs cleaning up. At this point I am betting a vast number of managers would decide to pass this job to the office cleaner. Or, if you are in a small office like ours, that poor sap whose job description included doing the cleaning.
Well, I could have done that. Some would say should have done that. In fact the person responsible(2) for general office state at Castle Shadowcat even offered to hoover and clean. I declined. I made the mess. It is a Monday morning. They are busy with weekend emails and regular duties, we are all busy. But I made the mess.
I am a firm believer that you should take responsibility for your actions. I am also firmly of the belief that no job is too menial for the person running the company. No task that an employee is asked to do should be outside of you attempting to do it. In fact you need to be willing to support your staff, not control them.
I cleaned my desk area, I hoovered the room where I had walked and I also cleaned the room next door because I had the hoover out and it just seemed sensible. I also got onto my hands and knees in my casual suit and wiped the floor mats and seat-legs clean where the mud had stuck to hard surfaces.
My feeling is that my staff don't think less of me for this. I think they respect the fact that I am willing to do this type of work as well. We are never above anyone. We should not climb to the top of the ladder, we should learn how to be lifted.
So I classify myself as a mostly busy manager. I say mostly as some days I get the doldrums and life seems to drag and my brain plays distraction techniques with social media and the ever changing world about us. However, like most managers, I don't do nine to five and some mornings I get up at six just to clear the email backlog.
Notes
(1) This is especially true on a Monday.
(2) Responsible only because they were generally employed to help with those things, not because they must do it diligently and all the time.
