The hardest times to lead aren’t only when everything is going south and you’re just trying to keep things together. They can also be in the mundane. When the job before you and your team is to do the long slow work of building or preparing for your next big thing. When there are menial or seemingly unimportant tasks to be done. Tasks that no one is ever going to notice. Jobs that won’t get applause. Yet things that must be completed to get to where you want to go. It is in these times that,

Attitude is everything.

Working on the Textbook floor in the bookstore, there were a lot of menial yet cumbersome tasks. For example, about a month before every Book Rush (the start of the semester when students come to buy their books), all the shelves had to be marked out. Taking magnetic tags, we had to predict how much space each course would need for the number of titles and books it required. Then, appropriately space these tags out along the shelves.

Starting with A for Anatomy and going all the way down to Z for Zoology, we had to make sure there was space for all the books for each course. Or, that there was a clearly marked overstock section nearby. All of this had to happen before the books were delivered to us from the warehouse. The process took a couple of days. 

Marking the shelves properly was one of those jobs that no one is going to pat you on the back if you did it well. But I can promise you, if students couldn’t find their books because you did a bad job, you would hear about it. So, it became a task I and my team took our time with. And thankfully, I had a good teacher.

During my first few weeks at the books store, our Assistant Store Manager, Kathy,* was in charge of showing me the ropes out on the text book floor. The first time we set the floor for book rush, I remember dreading it. We had one of the largest text book floors in the country, and the process promised to be long and boring. 

Only Kathy made almost everything fun. She had a good sense of humor, and always showed up ready to make things happen. Though at the time I could have come up with a list of things I would rather being doing, Kathy’s energy and enthusiasm drew me in. She helped me stay present to the task before us, and even made it enjoyable. 

That year, Kathy taught me so many menial, cumbersome tasks that had to be done to make our textbook floor successful. But the most important thing she taught me was how crucial a leader’s attitude is for those they are leading. A leader’s attitude has the power to both lift or sink their team.

This isn’t to say we can’t be honest about the mundane, but rather that we need to lead the way in rising above and making the best of every situation.

As leaders there will be times when even we won’t want to do the things that need to be done. But if we allow these tasks to affect our attitude, they will affect the attitude of everyone we’re leading. For this reason, as much as possible, we need to guard ourselves against allowing boredom, discontentment, or even impatience to seep into our interactions with those we lead.  Now, this isn’t to say we can’t be honest about the mundane, but rather that we need to lead the way in rising above and making the best of every situation. 

Kathy showed me first hand the power a leader has to make or break their team’s work experience. By making even monotonous jobs fun and manageable, she modeled for me what it looks like to keep those I lead engaged in the mundane middle places of preparation. Also, she taught me the importance of my own attitude. 

How has your attitude affected those you lead?

How has the attitude of someone you follow impacted you?

* I’ve changed my manager’s name because if these stories become a part of a book, I’d like to protect her anonymity. 

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