As a leader, sometimes I take out the trash, pick up the dog poop, and clean the toilets.

If you're never do that, how can you expect others to?

A thread on how to lead with the wisdom of a janitor...

On a recent road trip, my GF and I stopped at a rest stop.

The bathroom was disgusting. She told the young workers behind the counter.

"Tell the millionaire who owns this place."

He then proceeded to complain about how anyone could expect a roadstop bathroom to be clean...

But what's the difference between a road stop bathroom and your local coffee shop toilet, which probably has more poops per person per day?

Most local coffee shops are owner operated. The owner cleans the toilet.

One of my first jobs was at a small pizza parlor. On my first day, the owner took me into the bathroom with a toilet brush in hand and showed me the proper way to scrub.

"I'll never ask you to do anything in this place I won't do."

I thought about that every time I cleaned the toilet. That pizza shop was spotless.

It's stayed with me throughout my career. At my first startup, I took out the trash almost every day. I couldn't write code - but I never pushed jobs off I was unwilling to do.

Today I run dog daycares.

We have a lot of dog poop.

If I'm in a rush or out of poop bags, I'll ask a staff member to clean up a rogue pile of shit. But more often than not, if I see some poop, I'll clean it up.

My job isn't to clean poop, it's to find ways to grow our business so people that do clean poop with me can grow beyond that into higher roles.

But everyone starts with that toilet brush in hand like I did.

If the guy who owned that gas station showed up from time to time and cleaned the toilet, would his employees be more willing to do the same?

Would they see that maybe by taking pride in their work, they might some day own the gas station?

As business owners, we're constantly complaining about how "people don't want to work". Much of that is our fault. We're obsessed with optimizing and outsourcing.

We're building companies where employees are disposable and they feel it.

I cleaned that pizza shop toilet every day because it needed to be done. I never felt like my boss was asking me to do some job that was beneath him because he was a "millionaire".

We were a team, and I didn't know how to throw pizza yet.

Over time, I learned to cook. Someone else came in to clean the toilets.

I don't ever have to clean up poop if I don't want to - but that's beside the point. I want people to know that I can and I will do whatever it takes to make our company successful.

Treat your business the way you want your employees to treat it. Clean up the poop. Take out the trash. Clean the toilet.

If you lead with a toilet brush in hand instead of hiding behind your front line workers, people will follow you.