Why would a senior leader also be an individual contributor? Does that make sense?

I was poking around a Facebook thread, and some dude who was senior leadership at a recent job I had made an interesting comment. The picture in question on the thread was a candy jar, about 1/4 full. Apparently it was a “stress candy” jar, and so, being 3/4 depleted, the idea is that the team in question is really, super stressed. That’s a totally normal thing that can happen in an office, so I thought that made relative sense all things considered. You get down about 6–7 comments and the senior leadership guy is basically jumping in all like, “I could have used that today! I didn’t eat! Looked up from my tasks at 2:30pm and was like Whoa!”

Now of course, because this guy is senior leadership — i.e. the boss of a bunch of other people on this thread — his comment got about six likes instantly. “You’re such a dragon-slayer, boss!” Etc, etc. This stuff happens all the time. It’s not uncommon.

But … think about the comment he left (which, yes, is paraphrased above) for a second. How does it make any sense at all for senior leadership to be treating their day like that?

Senior leadership and the two-track idea

I’ve never understood this whole deal, so back when I worked for McKesson for about 12–13 weeks…