In the post-pandemic era, I printed an 8.5×11 piece of paper that said leader x labor, read as “leader by labor.”

The sign was a reminder that to be a leader, I must be ready to work, to toil. Keep your nose to the grindstone. Get to work, boy.

I pinned the flyer above my desk to remind myself that life—as it was meant to be fulfilled—succeeds work.

This philosophy of leader x labor resembles a kind of followership and discipleship. And for the most part, it’s been an accurate reflection. John Lewis, the late U.S. representative and civil rights leader, talked about his experiences with work. Complaining about work does poor things to a person’s spirit, said his mom.

So, I’ve tried to work with the mentality that staying focused on the mission, connecting the mundane to greater purposes, and just getting to work was how I could serve an organization. But I have noticed at a few places I’ve worked that some people stink up the space between the nose and the grindstone.

Noise, pollution, pettiness, gossip, envy, and wrath are just a few things that get in the way of work—the kind of work that, when one keeps one’s head down, achieves the organization’s mission and vision.

At a job at a college, a few bored and misguided coworkers gossiped about me. A disempowered pissant of a supervisor complained to the director upstairs.

The director kept asking me what was wrong, and I kept repeating that I had no idea why I was there. He kept fishing. Eventually, I lost patience and said, “You will have to tell me why you called me up here because I have no idea what’s going on.”

My director told me that some coworkers complained about me. I asked for proof. There was none. So then I said, “I’m focused on the mission here of serving our students, and I’ll bring a complaint to you whenever someone gets in the way of me fulfilling that mission. They’re bored and on their way out anyway.”

Within a few months, the gossipers left for other jobs, and I continued to serve the students, becoming a productive writing tutor who was requested and recommended by professors and students.

After a couple of years, the director and his little supervisor engaged in a time theft scheme, which took away my work from students and warranted a complaint I levied against both of them. I lived up to my guarantee. It shook them to their core.

I’ve had other jobs—some presently—where the same things happened. I’m ready to toil, and I’m ready to lead x labor, but there are some leaders out there who just won’t accept it. Their drama and narcissism get in the way of actual work. They can’t identify and support good followers because they aren’t good followers themselves.

I’ve known great leaders and have had the opportunity to exercise sound and lousy leadership skills, too. Great leaders bring out the best in people, while poor leaders keep followers from working to their total capacity. Even when best-intended executives allow problematic leaders to abuse followers, the executive proves to be no better than the mid-management assholes who ruin the work and sabotage the mission.

Leader or not. I am a worker. If you see me focused, stay out of my way.