Leadership Lessons from the Christmas Story

This article was written by Dan Foster on December 22, 2010 for his website (www.CoachDanFoster.com).  With permission, it was edited for “The Encouraging Leader”.  The entire article is worth reading at:  http://www.coachdanfoster.com/2010/12/leadership-lessons-from-the-christmas-story/

As a leader, I’m always looking for leadership lessons in the lives of other leaders, books, articles, and my own life experiences. With us approaching Christmas, I recently read the different biblical accounts of the arrival of Jesus’ on earth. While reading these Christmas stories, a few leadership lessons jumped out at me that I thought were worth sharing.

Lesson #1: Connecting with your team in one-on-one and group settings is essential to building trust and developing relationships. As a leader this connection is very difficult to accomplish from behind a desk, on conference calls, or via webinar.

Lesson #2: Modeling the disciplines necessary for maximum impact and influence is essential to mentoring others and developing them into great leaders. There is an expectation that when you are hired or join an organization you should automatically know the culture of the company, how to do your job, and what it takes to be successful.

Lesson #3: Revealing your vision and retelling your vision consistently provides hope and a sense of belonging to your team. We all want to be a part of something meaningful and purposeful. A leader’s vision binds a team together and attracts the best talent to the organization.

Lesson #4: Extending grace while holding people accountable allows you to focus on improving the person and not just the work they accomplish. A leader’s positive response to a negative situation is when development and growth have the best chance for occurring.

Lesson #5: Communicating both the reality and hope of your organization’s current state and future develops trust between you and your team. Your team knows when things are tough and they can identify “corporate spin” better than you think.

DAN FOSTER works as a leader and coach for the executive coaching company, Building Champions (www.buildingchampions.com).  You can follow his blog at www.CoachDanFoster.com.  He can be reached dan.foster@buildingchampions.com.   

See the special Christmas Issue of THE ENCOURAGING LEADER at  www.u-leadership.com/newsletter.html