Getting Shots With My Bosses… Tetanus Shots:

About 15 years ago, I was running a site that had a 10×10 full of rusted scrap metal.

These weren’t random junk items, they were old partition walls from the original 1970s build. They’d never been used, so someone stuck them in a unit that definitely didn’t keep rain out.

Over the next 30 years, they quietly turned into a science experiment in oxidation.

We jokingly called it “the unit full of tetanus.”

One morning, my District Manager and our VP of Operations showed up unannounced.

No clipboard.
No lecture.
No “why hasn’t this been dealt with yet?”

They grabbed gloves, helped me drag the walls out, loaded everything up, and we took it to the scrap yard together. We spent the whole time joking about who was most overdue for a tetanus shot.

That moment stuck with me.

Not because the unit got cleared, but because leadership showed up in the trench, not above it.

Ever since then, I’ve held a simple rule:
I won’t ask someone on my team to do something I wouldn’t do myself.

Real leadership isn’t about titles or org charts.

It’s about being willing to roll up your sleeves when the situation calls for it, even when no one’s watching.

Those are the leaders people remember.

Those are the leaders people follow.