By Oluwole Dada
Great leaders are to serve and not to be served. Ironically, the natural man wants to sit down and be served. As a leader of a team or head of a unit, you must not watch your team members sweat alone in a bid to solve their problems, you must get involved. You must get your hands dirty. When Southwest Airlines faced one of its biggest operational crises in the 1990s, it was a computer system failure that grounded flights across the country. The CEO, Herb Kelleher, didn’t call an emergency meeting and issue orders from the boardroom. He grabbed a bag and started loading luggage alongside his ground crew. He answered phone calls at the customer service desk. He personally apologized to stranded passengers in airport terminals. His hands weren’t just dirty: they were rough-skinned from the same work his employees were doing.
Herb Kelleher didn’t do this for a publicity stunt. This was leadership in action. When employees saw their CEO sweating alongside them, something powerful happened. They didn’t only work harder but also worked with purpose. They didn’t only solve the immediate crisis but also prevented future ones by building systems that could handle such pressures. This was easy because they had seen firsthand that their leader wasn’t just willing to share the glory, he was willing to share the grind. This scenario is totally different from leaders who manage by remote control, issuing directives from climate-controlled offices while their teams battle real-world challenges. These leaders might get short-term compliance, but they never get long-term commitment. They might solve immediate problems, but they never build problem-solving cultures.
Most people in the position of authority want to stay away from the problem while pushing the team members to go solve the problem and they get accolades for the results. Their pleasure is to direct events from the comfort of their cozy office while their team members struggle to get things done under the sun. That is not true leadership. Great leaders get involved! A perfect illustration of this principle occurred at a construction site. The project manager usually arrives at the site every morning in a pristine white shirt and polished shoes. He usually conducts inspections on paper from the comfort of his air-conditioned vehicle and leaves before the real work begins. His workers respected his title but not his leadership. Delays were common, quality suffered, and morale was consistently low.
On the other hand, there was another project manager on a similar site. He arrived in work clothes, carried a toolbelt, and when problems arose, he didn’t only diagnose them but helped to solve them. When the electrical team faced a complex wiring challenge, he was on his knees with them, troubleshooting connections. When the concrete team needed to meet a critical deadline, he was there mixing and pouring alongside them. His projects finished ahead of schedule, under budget, and with quality that won recognition. The difference wasn’t expertise. The difference was involvement. Both managers had similar technical backgrounds. One managed problem while the other solved them. One directed the work; the other did the work. As someone who has risen through the ranks in sales, I can say that you can never optimize your sales output if you sit down in the office and expect the team members to bring home the results. You must go out with them to the field.
This principle extends far beyond physical labor. When Reed Hastings was building Netflix, he didn’t just set the vision for original content from the executive suite. He personally watched pilot episodes, sat in on script development meetings, and engaged with writers and directors. When the company faced the technical challenge of streaming high-quality video over limited bandwidth, Hastings didn’t only hire engineers, but he also learned enough about the technology to understand the problems they were solving and contribute meaningfully to the solutions. Getting your hands dirty as a leader doesn’t mean doing everyone else’s job. It means understanding their jobs well enough to remove obstacles, provide resources, and make decisions that can actually help rather than hinder their work. It means being present in the struggle, not just the celebration.
The servant leadership model isn’t about sacrificing authority, rather, it’s about earning the title through service. When your team sees you willing to do any job you ask them to do, they don’t just respect your position, they also respect your person. When they know you understand their challenges because you’ve faced them yourself, they trust your solutions because they know they are embedded, and not theory. Your legacy as a leader won’t be measured by how many meetings you chaired or how many reports you reviewed. It will be measured by how many problems you solved, how many people you developed, and how many things got better when you rolled up your sleeves and got involved. The corner office might be comfortable, but great leadership happens on the front lines.
Oluwole Dada is the General Manager at SecureID Limited, Africa’s largest smart card manufacturing plant in Lagos, Nigeria.
