The Mug Doesn't Belong to You - A Leadership Lesson from Simon Sinek

I once heard a story at a leadership talk by Simon Sinek that I haven't been able to shake since…

An MD visits a company and gets handed a coffee in a proper ceramic mug. Standard behaviour. Then he looks around and notices something - everyone else, especially the junior staff, are holding paper cups.

So he asks why.

The answer?

"You're the MD. You get a real mug." At first it sounds flattering. A nice little ego moment. But the uncomfortable truth sitting underneath it is this: that mug isn't really yours. It belongs to the role.

The second you leave, you're back to paper cups with the rest of us.

Sound Familiar?

In hospitality, this hits differently.

Get promoted and suddenly things shift. People listen to you more. You're in Monday morning meetings you used to complain about. You somehow find yourself having strong opinions about rotas and which blue roll to order. And if you're not careful - if you're not paying attention - you start to believe it's because you've become wiser. More important. Maybe even slightly impressive.

Spoiler: it's mostly the title doing the heavy lifting.

The mug was never about you. It was about the chair you're sitting in.

What Actually Matters Is What You Do With It

The real question isn't how you feel about having the mug. It's what you do while you've got it.

• Do you help when things get chaotic, or do you magically disappear into "important work" the moment service gets messy?

• Do you treat every role in your venue with the same respect, or only the ones that feel senior enough to warrant your attention?

• Do the people around you feel genuinely supported - or just “supervised”?

These aren't small questions. In hospitality, where culture is built shift by shift and people are watching how you behave long before they're listening to what you say, they're everything.

Nobody Remembers the Title

At some point, every title goes. The role changes, the business moves on, and nobody is fighting over who gets your old email signature.

What people remember - what they carry with them into their own careers and their own leadership - is how you behaved when you had it. Whether you used the position to lift people up or to remind them where they sat in the pecking order. Whether you stayed humble or got attached to the ceramic.

Leadership in hospitality isn't about the mug. It never has been. The best leaders we've ever seen in this industry are the ones who knew that from the start - the ones who showed up the same way whether they were holding a ceramic mug or a paper cup.

So enjoy the mug. Just don't get weirdly attached to it.

It's not you. It never has been. And the moment you forget that is usually the moment the people around you start to notice.

What's the best (or worst) example of leadership behaviour you've seen in hospitality? We'd love to hear from you.