Lawrence Franchetti, CEO of One Beat Medical, believes all leaders would benefit from entry-level experience.

In a new op-ed for Economy Standard, titled “Why Every Leader Would Benefit From Entry-Level Experience,” One Beat Medical CEO Lawrence Franchetti shares how starting his career as a receptionist made him a better leader. He also makes the argument that more leaders would benefit from such experience—as would their teams and companies.

For one thing, the article shows how leaders with entry-level experience gain firsthand experience with the guts of the company. They learn how information travels (or doesn’t travel) from team to team, and they learn how much time and effort is really needed to complete a given task.

Just as importantly, starting at the bottom is a great way to learn how it feels to work at a company. As Lawrence describes in his op-ed, his entry-level experience gave him invaluable insight into how decisions affected the morale of everyone from salespeople to the cleaning staff (as it turns out, people are surprisingly candid with the receptionist!). 

In Lawrence’s view, the skills that he developed while working the reception desk were essential for thriving in the boardroom later in his career. Chief among these qualities are flexibility, humility, and work ethic—as he illustrated in an anecdote about the Great Microwave Cleaning Incident, sometimes a leader’s willingness to clean a smelly break room does more for morale than a dozen boxes of donuts.

Read the full thing over at Economy Standard, and let us know what you think on LinkedIn!