In the Spirit of Excellence: This Educator’s Four Lessons Learned From the Woman That Cleans the Bathroom At The Atlanta Hartsfield Airport

I’d like to wish my readers a happy holiday season. I enter this season with the spirit of thanksgiving particularly as it relates to all of the life lessons that I have learned. 

This week’s blog post is entitled: In the Spirit of Excellence, and is written as a result of interactions that I have had with a wonderful lady that is responsible for the cleaning and upkeeping of one of the bathrooms in the Atlanta Hartsfield Airport. My multiple experiences with her warrants sharing.  

Upon traveling to the great city of Atlanta, and entering into the bathroom you will notice that the bathroom literally smells like flowers; although when you look around you will see that there are no flowers there. The floor in this bathroom is so clean that one could literally eat off of it. But what is even more amazing is, the â€œspirit that is in the air.â€You have to experience it for yourself. 

As soon as you enter this bathroom, this kind lady greets you with the most amazing spirit and she says, “good morning, thank you for being here.†She then states her intent to make sure that your experience is a good one. She makes just one request of us, and that is; “please allow me to better meet your needs by informing me if we are out of anything that you require.â€

Upon exiting the bathroom, she then states, “please take a moment to ensure that you have gathered all of your valuables.†As you can imagine, I have consistently been blown away by her genuine nature. She has engaged in this type of leadership behavior each and every time I have visited. As a result, after every visit, I have blessed her with a little token of my appreciation. She smiles, as if she expects nothing in return; and then very quickly gets back to greeting each and every person (regardless of their religious affiliation, age, gender or ethnicity) in the same manner. 

Below are four leadership lessons that I have learned from her that we can take into the 2019 New Year!

• Watch the spirit that we exude everyday. It impacts others significantly. 
• No matter what our job title or current assignment is, do everything that we are tasked with doing, “in the spirit of excellence.â€
• Take the time to teach children (students) the importance of possessing a “spirit of excellence.â€
• Be graceful and grateful in all things that we do.

Food for Thought: “For when we exude the spirit of excellence, it will cause us to experience favor and promotion.”