Caleb Atkins
UT College of Law Class of 2025

The power of performing a task that is not part of your job duties, for the sake of helping those that you lead, cannot be understated.

As an undergraduate at East Tennessee State University (ETSU), I worked for campus recreation; in the gym, for about three years. While working at the gym, I worked as a facility assistant, at the Member Services desk, as a facility supervisor, and eventually as a facility manager. When students work for the gym on campus at ETSU, they start as Facility Assistants and become eligible to apply for promotion after serving in a new position for at least one semester. I mention all of this to provide a little background for what I see as an excellent example of servant leadership.

While I worked as a Facility Assistant, I usually worked the morning shift and had to arrive at the facility by 5:45 am; it is safe to say that most of the workers who showed up to the morning shift were not the most energetic employees throughout their shifts. A Facility Assistant’s duties primarily included cleaning equipment in the gym’s weight room. Because of the early call time for the morning shift, it was sometimes difficult for supervisors to motivate Facility Assistants to perform some of the more intensive cleaning tasks. 

One of the more intensive cleaning tasks opening shift workers were expected to complete was mopping the gym floors. Mopping the floors was a bit time-consuming and tedious, so Facility Assistants would not generally volunteer to do this task; they would typically need to be assigned the task by their supervisor who was on duty for that shift; however, when I was working morning shifts as a Facility Assistant, there were two supervisors who I worked with that would take it upon themselves to perform the dreaded task of mopping the floors.

The effect of seeing the supervisor (who was essentially responsible for the entire facility during the opening shift) mop the floors frequently inspired the Facility Assistants to take more initiative during their shifts. It led to the Facility Assistants accepting tasks that the supervisor assigned them more enthusiastically than they otherwise would have. I can personally attest to experiencing that effect as a Facility Assistant. When I observed my supervisor mop the floors, I made sure I took the initiative to clean the treadmills, as that was the next most undesirable cleaning task. Watching my superior willfully and enthusiastically perform a job duty that was my own almost always inspired me to work harder on any given shift.

It is easy to conceptualize examples of servant leadership in a workplace like a gym, where a supervisor can simply mop the floors, but what does this type of servant leadership look like in other work settings? In an office environment, it can look like a supervisor or manager preparing a pot of coffee for the office or cleaning out the office refrigerator. Small and simple gestures like making copies, can significantly raise office morale and motivate employees who might need to perform more significant tasks for their supervisor later. 

The act of my supervisors mopping the floors did not just motivate me to work harder for the supervisors on that respective shift; that act also encouraged me to mop the floors when I eventually became a supervisor. After being promoted to supervisor, I made sure to mop the floors on many of my opening shifts, which led to the Facility Assistants I worked with experiencing the same motivation as I did when I was in their role. Considering that the supervisors who mopped the floors led to me (and other future supervisors) mopping the floors when we were leading a shift is proof that my supervisors mopping the floors did not stop when their shift ended; it carried on with other supervisors and helped create a culture of servant leadership inside the workplace. 

The supervisors who mopped the floors benefited from a more motivated team on their shift and received recognition from the professional staff for their efforts—mopping the floors while working as supervisors was part of the reason that both of those supervisors were later promoted to the manager position within the gym, an opportunity that few student workers at the campus gym received. Additionally, I was later promoted to manager, partially because the professional staff at campus recreation noticed that I was willing to lead by example when I was working as a supervisor, just like other successful managers before me.

The first supervisor I remember mopping the floors was Danansi Kouamé. He later took on a significant leadership role at the gym when he became a Graduate Assistant for campus recreation at ETSU while pursuing his MBA. Danansi was trusted with significant leadership roles within campus recreation because the professional staff recognized the work ethic and commitment to servant leadership that he demonstrated to everyone he supervised and worked with.

The other supervisor I remember mopping the floors was Mason Fleming, who later worked as a Graduate Assistant for Campus Recreation at Ole Miss and is now working as a professional staff member at the University of Alabama’s Recreation Center. 

Danansi and Mason did not simply benefit from their motivated employees performing tasks more enthusiastically but were rewarded with promotions and put in even more prominent leadership roles. The benefits of servant leadership are not limited to those the leader is serving; the leaders themselves can also realize the benefits of servant leadership.