Cleaning and leadership

A few weeks ago, I wrote a piece about how several women from history and mythology have inspired how I think about leadership. This time I want to write about the connection between leadership and cleaning.

When I was a student studying for an MA in printmaking at Chelsea School of Art, I used to do early morning cleaning at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Leaving at 4.30 in the morning to get a bus became the norm for a year. Yes, it helped me survive as a student then, but now it’s meant I can always get up early. It’s a habit I have kept. But it’s not the early morning rising – although I can get a load of emails done – that is the main legacy. Rather, it’s about the benefits of a job completed and how to cope with leadership pressures.

One of the many challenges in any leadership position is the fact that you are forever juggling projects, policies, ideas, and developing strategies that are often years in the making. The trick is to be constantly spinning plates. These various plates require constant judgement about when to focus on them, when you can allow one or two to play out for a while, and which you need to pass on to someone else to spin.

The team you have developed is crucial, so they too are part of what you need to invest your time and energy into. But so too is your own ability to keep motivated and not dwell too much on that tide of never-ending tasks. People have often asked how I managed this. For me it was about doing something where the tasks are finite.

Tasks that can be planned and completed in a comparatively short space of time, that also have a physical aspect – something to distract the brain. Cleaning is my mitigation to those never-ending leadership tasks. I’ve always cleaned the house. I enjoy it. I don’t have to manage anyone else or direct them. I can plan and complete the requisite tasks. I can think about work, listen to podcasts or audiobooks, and I can see it all finished after an hour or so.

Of course, I have to do it all again the following week. But somehow that’s the point.

Leadership rarely offers the satisfaction of completion. There is always another decision, another conversation and another challenge waiting. Cleaning reminds me that not every task has to remain unfinished.

Sometimes creating a little order in one corner of your world is exactly what you need to return to the bigger picture with fresh energy and a clearer mind…