Cleaning an oven takes vision, initiative, planning, determination, resilience, some level of physical ability and skill, plus the right tools and time. These are also the typical leadership requisites described in textbooks and expounded upon by consultants and leadership gurus.

Yet, do we ever ask our students in our leadership programmes how they approach oven cleaning, or whether they have ever cleaned an oven? Maybe some leaders would say “I don’t do ovens”; “my people clean my ovens”; or some other high level response.