Be a Cleaner
Leadership lessons from the ground up
By Adam Knights
The best leaders don’t build empires, they clear the way
Coming 2026
Overview
In every organisation, there are two types of leaders.
The first builds kingdoms. They insert themselves into every decision, every meeting, every email chain. They create complexity because complexity makes them indispensable.
The second does something far harder.
They clean.
They remove obstacles. Strip away bureaucracy. Hire brilliant people - then get out of their way. They measure their value not by how much they do, but by how much they enable others to do.
This book is about becoming the second type.
What You’ll Find Inside
The Cleaner’s Mindset
Why the most powerful thing a leader can say is “How can I help?” and mean it. Drawing on nine years in the Parachute Regiment and nearly three decades in pharmaceutical business, Adam dismantles the myth that leadership means control.
Hire Smarter. Lead Less.
A dyslexic C-student’s guide to building exceptional teams. When you stop trying to be the smartest person in the room, you finally start doing something useful.
The Art of Obstacle Removal
Practical frameworks for identifying what’s actually stopping your people from doing their best work. Spoiler: it’s usually you. Or meetings. Or meetings about meetings.
Getting Out of the Way
The counterintuitive discipline of strategic absence. When to step in, when to step back, and how to tell the difference.
From the author
“I spent years thinking leadership meant being essential.
Having all the answers. Being the person everyone depended on.
I was wrong.
The best leaders I served under weren’t the loudest or the most decorated. They made sure we had what we needed, pointed us in the right direction, and then trusted us to do our jobs.
They cleaned. They cleared obstacles. They created space for excellence.
This book is my attempt to share what I learned the hard way:
your job isn’t to be the hero.
Your job is to make heroes possible.”
Who This Book Is For
• Leaders exhausted from doing everything themselves
• Managers who suspect there’s a better way but can’t quite see it
• Founders who’ve built something brilliant - and are now accidentally strangling it
• Anyone who’s ever sat in a meeting thinking “none of us need to be here”
Reactions
“Most leadership books add layers. Adam removes them along with the egos, excuses, and processes that kill performance. This is the playbook for leaders who want results, not rhetoric. Read it, apply it, and get out of your people’s way.”
“These aren’t theories. They’re lessons learned under pressure.”
“I cancelled four recurring meetings after reading this.
My team noticed immediately.”
“Finally, a leadership book that doesn’t ask me to become someone I’m not.
It asks me to do less - but do it deliberately.”
Stop building your empire.
Start clearing the path.
Coming 2026