#1 - Leadership in the Grocery Line
Practicing the Verb - Why the Revolution Starts at the Till
There’s no podium here.
No slide deck.
No performance review.
Just a queue of tired people holding baskets full of dinner plans and deadlines.
You’re in line at the grocery store. Someone cuts ahead. The cashier looks like she hasn’t blinked in 45 minutes. A toddler drops a yoghurt, and the parent looks like they might do the same with their sanity. Behind you, an old man sighs like it’s his full-time job.
And right then you get a choice.
You can be a bystander. A consumer. A LinkedIn ghost.
Or you can be a leader. Not the loud, branded kind. The human kind.
The Queue Is a Microcosm
The grocery line is society in miniature. It’s where unspoken rules get tested: fairness, patience, dignity.
Everyone’s in a rush. No one wants to be there. Time is short, tempers shorter. But what happens here reveals what we tolerate, what we ignore, and what we quietly allow to rot.
It’s the stage for what I call mundane leadership. Not leadership with capital letters. Not the keynote or the offsite. Just people doing the right thing when it’s inconvenient and unglamorous.
You want to know how someone really leads? Watch them when nobody’s watching. Watch them when someone skips the line, or the card reader crashes, or the cashier starts crying because her manager won’t come over and a Karen is demanding a refund for bananas that were “too ripe.”
The grocery line strips away your job title. Your status. Your fancy frameworks. And leaves you standing there with your behaviour.
The Bystander Reflex
Let’s be honest. Most of us just want to get through the damn queue.
We see something unfair—someone getting verbally abused, an elderly person struggling with bags, a child being spoken to harshly—and we freeze. We say nothing.
Because “it’s not our business.”
Because “I’m not here to start something.”
Because “someone else will do something.”
That’s the bystander reflex.
And it’s not neutral. It’s a form of passive leadership. A silent vote for how things should stay.
We like to think we’re kind people. Ethical. Thoughtful. But character isn’t built in theory—it’s revealed in tension.
When you watch someone get mistreated and say nothing, you’re not being neutral. You’re reinforcing the system that allowed it.
Leadership isn’t about being in charge. It’s about deciding what you’ll stand for—even in aisle seven.
A Personal Example: When I Froze
I’ll admit it. I’ve failed this test before.
Once, in a shop, I watched a customer berate a teenage cashier for moving “too slow.” The kid’s hands were shaking. The manager was nowhere. And I just… stood there.
I told myself the same story we all tell: “It’s not my place. Don’t escalate. Just get through this.”
But here’s what haunted me later: the look on that kid’s face. A mix of humiliation and resignation, like this wasn’t the first time. And maybe he looked around, hoping someone—anyone—would step in.
No one did. Not even me.
That moment taught me something important: silence is not safety. It’s complicity. And the stories we tell ourselves about “not making it worse” often mean we’re comfortable letting someone else absorb the harm.
I didn’t like the person I was in that moment. Which meant I had a choice: pretend it didn’t matter, or practice differently next time.
Small Acts, Big Meaning
The next time, I did.
A few months later, I saw another cashier getting snapped at by an impatient customer. This time, I stepped in—calmly, not aggressively. I just said: “Hey, it looks busy. Let’s give her a minute.”
That was it. Not a heroic speech. Not a confrontation. Just a gentle reminder that dignity matters.
And the air shifted. The customer backed off. The cashier gave me a grateful half-smile. And I walked out of that shop knowing I’d acted more in line with the leader I want to be.
This is what I mean by mundane leadership. The small, ordinary acts:
The person who gives up their spot to someone clearly more exhausted.
The customer who says, “Take your time,” and actually means it.
The stranger who notices the cashier has been standing for hours and says, “You doing okay?”
These aren’t acts that win awards. There’s no clapping. No end-of-year bonus. Just moments where dignity is protected.
This is leadership as verb. Leadership as interruption. Leadership as, “I see you.”
You don’t need a badge to care. You need courage. And clarity that it matters.
Invisible Work, Visible Stress
Zoom out for a second.
Why are so many of these queues full of tension? Why are workers burnt out and customers on edge?
Because the system is designed that way.
Most grocery store employees are underpaid, under-supported, and overworked. Many are on zero-hour contracts or monitored by “efficiency” AI systems that track their every second but have never had to mop up vomit while scanning cucumbers.
We don’t talk about this enough. We glamorise leadership but ignore how systems fail people on the ground.
It’s easy to lead in theory. Harder when the human in front of you is breaking down and you’re late for a meeting. Harder when you realise the cashier isn’t just “slow”—they’re on their third shift this week without a proper break.
Leadership, if it’s worth anything, shows up when power doesn’t.
So while consultants build “human-centred strategies,” the real leadership test is this: Do you treat people with dignity when they can’t do anything for you?
Designing the Line
Here’s the truth: if you’re in tech, in management, in operations, in anything that affects how systems work—you are designing the line.
And if you’re not questioning how the system makes people feel, you’re just optimising oppression.
The grocery queue is an interface. It reflects choices:
How many tills are open?
Who gets trained and paid well?
Is there enough support for elderly or disabled shoppers?
Do loyalty points matter more than worker dignity?
Leadership isn’t just emotional intelligence. It’s structural intelligence. And it demands we stop treating people like throughput.
The Everyday Test
Let’s ground this. Here’s how to practice leadership in the line:
Speak Up – If someone’s being mistreated, say something. Calm, direct, human. You don’t need to be confrontational to set a boundary.
Model Patience – Don’t huff and puff. Your breath isn’t a weapon.
Notice People – Look the worker in the eye. Thank them sincerely. Human recognition is fuel.
Check Your Power – Are you using your position (age, class, language, time) to dominate or to help?
Teach Through Action – If your kid is with you, they’re learning what leadership looks like in real time. Show them that kindness is a reflex, not an afterthought.
Most of these don’t require effort. Just intention. Just the refusal to treat others as obstacles or background noise.
From Grocery to Boardroom
You know what’s wild? How often I’ve seen leaders—real ones, in charge of real people—utterly fail this test.
They give keynotes about empathy and then talk down to a barista. They post about justice but yell at customer support over a £2 mistake.
If you can’t lead in the queue, you can’t lead in a crisis.
The habits we build in small moments become the reflexes we rely on in big ones. If you practice humanity at the checkout, you’ll know how to hold it when it really counts.
And if you’re a CEO reading this thinking, “This doesn’t apply to me”—go do your own shopping sometime. No assistant. No perks. Just you, a trolley, and the mirror of your actions.
Lessons I’ve Carried Into My Work
Over the years, I’ve tried to let the queue shape how I lead in the workplace:
When I run teams – I try to make invisible work visible. The person keeping our servers alive at 2am deserves the same recognition as the one presenting at the town hall.
When I coach leaders – I remind them that culture isn’t built at the offsite; it’s built in the everyday line: the way you respond to a stressed employee, how you treat your assistant, whether you create room for patience or pile on pressure.
When I parent – I know my kids are watching me in queues, in traffic, in moments of frustration. They’re learning leadership not from what I say, but from what I model.
The queue is everywhere if you’re paying attention.
No Applause in Aisle Nine
Leadership isn’t something you wait to be invited into. It’s something you practice. In the mess. In the mundane.
No one will give you a trophy for telling someone to stop shouting at a worker. No one will sponsor your TEDx for letting the elderly man go ahead of you. But someone will feel safer. Someone will feel seen.
And maybe, just maybe, someone behind you in the queue will learn a better way to show up.
No applause. Just groceries. And a little more dignity in the world.
That’s leadership. Even in aisle nine.
Final Reflections: Practicing Leadership as a Verb
When I think about leadership today, I don’t think about titles, budgets, or followers. I think about queues.
Because the grocery line asks the same question every crisis does: Will you show up for people when it’s inconvenient?
Leadership is not a noun. It’s not something you are. It’s a verb—something you do, again and again, until it becomes who you are.
And the best way to practice? Start where you are. At the checkout. In traffic. On the phone with customer support.
Every time you choose dignity over indifference, patience over performance, solidarity over silence—you are leading.
Not the loud, branded kind. The human kind.
And that’s the only kind that lasts.
About the Author
Tino Almeida is a tech leader, coach, and writer reshaping how we think about leadership in a burnout-driven world. With over 20 years at the intersection of engineering, DevOps, and team culture, he helps humans lead consciously—from the inside out. When he’s not challenging outdated norms, he’s plotting how to make work more human—one verb at a time.