Most people assume a university’s first impression comes from a polished tour guide, a friendly admissions rep, or maybe the president with a firm handshake and practiced smile. At Seton Hall, it came from Mo, the security guard at the front gate.
I was on campus to speak to their campus leaders. As I pulled up to the entrance, Mo leaned out of his booth.
“Morning! Can I get your name?”
“Tom Krieglstein. I’m the guest speaker for the day.”
His smile got bigger.
“Well, I’m Mo. Let me be the first to welcome you to Seton Hall.”
Then Mo got to work.
“Now listen, before you leave today, you have to try the sweets at Bakes by Izzy. Tell them Mo sent you and they’ll bring out the off-menu treat. Trust me on this one.”
I told him I would. He glanced at the parking pass on my dashboard and shook his head.
“They told you to park in A Lot, didn’t they? That’s a hike from where you’re actually going. It’s better to park right here and just walk. Here, I’ll take you there myself.”
As we walked, he pointed out little details about buildings the entire way, along with which famous graduates had come through each one.
We parted ways and I headed into my meeting with the Provost, the VPs, and the Deans. As we kicked things off, I casually asked,
“Oh, by the way, who is Mo?”
The room lit up. Smiles, laughter, everyone talking over each other. Every person at that table had their own Mo story.
Mo was the unofficial welcoming committee, campus historian, and chief vibe curator, all while checking IDs and waving cars through. When parents arrived with prospective students, Mo would lean towards the car window with a warm smile and ask, “Is this your first time on campus?” If they said yes, he’d light up: “Well then, WELCOME TO SETON HALL!” His genuine joy was so infectious that families couldn’t help but smile back.
He noticed the small things too: a student’s team jersey, a parent’s alma mater sweatshirt, a younger sibling’s nervous glance. He’d use these details to spark instant connection. “Oh, you play basketball? Our team’s looking strong this year.” Or, “Your little one seems nervous. Don’t worry, the ice cream in our dining hall works wonders.” Small openings like those made people feel welcomed before they’d even parked the car.
For returning students, Mo remembered names and lives. “Hey Zaria, how’d that big presentation go last week?” or “Alfonso, did your mom recover from her surgery?” Mo genuinely cared, and somehow kept mental notes on thousands of students like it was the easiest thing in the world.
When Seton Hall surveyed incoming first year students about what influenced their decision to attend, a surprising number of them wrote one word, “Mo!” Because Mo made them feel welcome before they’d even stepped out of the car.
Mo ran that campus from the front gate.
On an org chart, a security guard sits about as far from leadership as you can get. On the Engagement Pyramid, Mo was standing at the summit as a Level 5 Leader, doing more for that community than people with corner offices and parking spots in A Lot. He treated the entire campus as his responsibility instead of just the twenty feet around his booth.
Nobody promoted Mo into that. He decided it at the front gate every single morning.
Title Magnifies Impact
Mo proved that a person’s level of engagement has nothing to do with their role in the organization. However, while a title doesn’t define engagement, it does magnify it. A negative intern will have much less of an impact than a negative CEO. The same is true in reverse, where an uplifting intern will have less of an impact than an uplifting CEO. Leaders set the tone, energy, and culture of their teams whether they intend to or not. When a frontline employee brings negative energy, it’s a bad vibe. When a manager brings it, it’s a morale sinkhole, or an HR nightmare. That’s because the relationship between a leader and their team is one of the strongest predictors of daily productivity and long-term retention.
Psychologist Daniel Goleman calls this dynamic the “Vertical Couple,” which is the unique relationship between an employee and their manager. This single relationship is often the biggest factor in an employee’s engagement, productivity, and decision to stay. If it’s strong, everything works better. If it’s toxic, it doesn’t matter how many pizza parties HR throws, that employee will be mentally clocking out by Wednesday.
The stakes go past morale. In The Happiness Advantage, Shawn Achor cites a fifteen-year study that found employees with a difficult relationship with their boss were 30 percent more likely to suffer from coronary heart disease. As he puts it, a bad boss can be as bad for you as fried food, “and not nearly as much fun.”
Gallup backs this up, showing that 70 percent of the variance in employee engagement comes down to one thing: the manager. That old saying, “People don’t leave jobs, they leave managers”? Turns out it’s backed by data.
Or as Colin Powell put it in four words: “Soldiers watch their leaders.”
I’ve seen it again and again when working with organizations. When leaders are actively engaged, their teams rise with them. When they check out, the whole culture sinks a level with them.
But a title doesn’t earn you engagement in Dance Floor Theory. Leaders have to earn their level the same way everyone else does, through consistently showing up at a high level for their role and the whole team. The only difference between you and everyone else on the pyramid? The higher your position, the further your impact ripples.
