Leadership That Honors Work (and the People Doing It)

What My Students Taught Me About May Day—and the Leadership They Don’t Trust

Last week, my students asked me about May Day.

Not in a “what is it?” kind of way. In a “wait—is this like another No Kings Day?” kind of way.

Which… stopped me for a second. Because what they’re picking up on isn’t wrong. It’s just incomplete.

They’re noticing resistance. They’re noticing power. They’re noticing that people sometimes organize and push back against leadership that feels corrupt, self-serving, or just plain disturbing.

And let’s be honest—when the loudest examples of leadership they see are criminal, predatory, or blatantly unethical, that’s the framework they’re building from.

That’s the leadership landscape we’ve handed them.

What May Day actually is

Here’s the part that surprised me: I learned today, while researching May Day to write this post(!), about the Haymarket Affair.

May Day—International Workers’ Day—has roots right here in the United States. (Even though my Gen X brain still hears “Soviet overtones.” That’s not random—the U.S. distanced itself from May Day during the Cold War and leaned into Labor Day instead. The things you learn in rabbit holes!)

In the late 1800s, workers were organizing for something that now feels almost embarrassingly basic: an eight-hour workday.

Eight hours to work. Eight hours to rest. Eight hours to live. (Feels almost radical. Again.)

In Chicago in 1886, a labor rally turned deadly after a bomb was thrown at police. What followed—trials, executions, crackdowns—became one of the most defining moments in labor history.

People lost their lives in the fight for dignity at work. And somehow, over time, this became a holiday we associate with other countries.

That disconnect alone is worth paying attention to.

What my students are actually asking

My students aren’t wrong to connect May Day to resistance. But what they’re circling is something deeper…

What does leadership look like when the people in power can’t be trusted?

What do we do when leadership feels unsafe?

What does good leadership even look like anymore?

If leadership is only about power, then yeah—burn it down. But real leadership has never been about power.

It’s about responsibility. (You, me, and Spider-man know that.)

Leadership that honors work and workers looks like:

• creating conditions where people can actually live, not just produce (this feels very much like a rest as resistance concept)

• recognizing that labor is human, not mechanical

• protecting dignity, not extracting output

• understanding that people are not disposable—even when systems treat them that way

It’s less about being in charge and more about being accountable.

What we’re modeling (whether we mean to or not)

Kids are always watching leadership in action.

Not the slogans. Not the mission statements. The behavior.

They’re watching:

• who gets protected

• who gets ignored

• who gets believed

• who gets sacrificed

And they are building their definition of leadership from that data.

And maybe that’s the point. My students thought May Day was about rejecting bad leaders.

They’re not wrong.

But it’s also about something harder: Becoming the kind of leader people don’t need to resist.

So, let me ask you this. When the people in your life learn what leadership is by watching you … what are you teaching them?