May 6, 2026–The most effective leader is not who you think it is.
Many of us buy into the idea of “servant leadership.” As I understand it, the concept means that in order to lead an organization effectively, you need to perform all the tasks you ask your minions to perform, no matter how menial or time consuming.
I believed this when I ascended to my first position of Executive Director. I was responsible for putting together an end-of-year celebration for our large staff. So I plunged in with the exuberance of inexperience, and worked on every detail, from planning the menu, ordering supplies, blowing up balloons, and even hauling and setting out trash barrels.
My secretary watched in disbelief. After the event, she chastised me, reminding me that all that effort was not my job. We have a maintenance crew to haul trash, she explained, and a cafeteria crew to cook hot dogs, and administrative assistants to put up decorations. Your job description is to coordinate their work, not perform it.
She was correct. I was not yet comfortable in my role as director, so I ignored it. Since then I have seen this error surprisingly frequently in nonprofit organizations. I understand its appeal. I blame it on our puritan work ethic. Many of us grew up in cultures that taught us everyone needed to pitch in and do the dirty work. While that might be true when starting out, and it might gain you points in heaven, it is an inefficient way for a serious leader to guide and grow an organization.
A leader’s job is to lead.
When we dropped off our son for his first day in the Corps at Texas A&M University, I had a chance to interview the commandant. As parents, we were understandably concerned about the stories we had heard of the tough process the cadets went through, especially during their plebe year. The commandant told me something that stuck with me:
The first year we teach them how to be followers, he said. Then they learn how to be leaders.
Suddenly it made sense. While being a follower is tough, it teaches you how to lead. And I discovered later that becoming a leader was harder than staying a follower.
One of my favorite cartoons appeared in AdWeek while I was working as creative director in an advertising agency. The first three panels showed a guy sitting at his desk staring out a window at the clouds.
In the fourth panel, the guy turns to the reader and explains, “I’m in creative.”
Crudely drawn, but true. In an organization, if you hire someone to deliver creative work, you should not have him mowing the lawn, vacuuming the carpet, or stacking supplies.
Yet in many organizations, especially nonprofits, Executive Directors feel obligated to do all that work. While it might feel virtuous, in cold, hard, analysis, it is a waste of organizational resources for the person you are paying to do leadership things to instead be doing entry level things. In a manufacturing company for example, the CEO should be identifying new markets, adding clients, streamlining processes, etc. For him to be emptying wastebaskets as a false show of egalitarianism is at bottom a waste of resources, time, and talent. He should not be looking at what needs to be done today, but where the company needs to be a year from now.
While a basic amount of cross-training is desirable, you should stick to your job description. A sales person should be making sales; an accountant should be counting; a groundskeeper should be mowing grass.
A leader should be leading.
If you think enough of someone to hire them to perform a job, let them do it.