{"id":4975,"date":"2015-12-17T20:20:14","date_gmt":"2015-12-18T02:20:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scottcochrane.com\/?p=4975"},"modified":"2015-12-18T08:12:25","modified_gmt":"2015-12-18T14:12:25","slug":"the-surprising-christmas-gift-every-leader-gives-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/2015\/12\/17\/the-surprising-christmas-gift-every-leader-gives-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The Surprising Christmas Gift Every Leader Gives"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1><strong style=\"font-size: 13px;\">Have you watched (or read) <em>A Christmas Carol<\/em>\u00a0yet this year?<\/strong><\/h1>\n<p><strong>This weekend I&#8217;ll be settling in to watch my favorite Christmas story (Alistair Sim version, of course), and in doing so I&#8217;ll be reminded once again of a powerful leadership truth:<\/strong><\/p>\n<h1><span style=\"font-size: 13px;\">Leaders have the power to give the gift of happiness, or of unhappiness.<\/span><\/h1>\n<div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.scottcochrane.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/Scrooge.jpg\" class=\"btn-image--openpopup figure aligncenter size-full wp-image-4977\" ><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-4977\" title=\"Scrooge\" src=\"http:\/\/www.scottcochrane.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/Scrooge.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"250\" height=\"375\" srcset=\"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/Scrooge.jpg 250w, https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/Scrooge-200x300.jpg 200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 250px) 100vw, 250px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>This is not to say that the primary role of the leader is merely to ensure the personal well-being of everyone on the team.<\/p>\n<p>But effective leaders know that:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Leaders influence the culture of the team<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>As Bill Hybels notes, the team culture will never be more healthy than the leader wants it to be<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>A healthy team is far more likely to produce sustainable positive results.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This point is delivered beautifully in <em>A Christmas Carol.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>It is found in Stave II as the Ghost of Christmas Past escorts Ebenezer Scrooge on a visit to his former place of employment. There Scrooge experiences again the tremendous joy he received from his old employer, Mr. Fezziwig.<\/p>\n<p>And as he reflects on the leadership of Fezziwig, Scrooge offers a powerful leadership insight;<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>He has the power to render us happy or unhappy; to make our service light or burdensome; a pleasure or a toil. Say that his power lies in words or look; in things so slight and insignificant that it is impossible to count and add \u2018em up; what then? The happiness he gives is quite as great as if it cost a fortune.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The power to render others &#8220;happy or unhappy&#8221; falls within the purview of each leader. And each leader has a responsibility to exercise that power with wisdom and with intentionality.<\/p>\n<p>And so as the year comes to a close a worthwhile question for self-reflection is, &#8220;Are those who have been influenced by my leadership this year generally happier, or unhappier, than they were a year ago?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps the coming year will be one in which you will purpose to increase the happiness quotient of those you lead.<\/p>\n<p>That could indeed be a powerful leadership Christmas gift.<\/p>\n<p><em>Updated from December 23, 2014 post<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Have you watched (or read) A Christmas Carol\u00a0yet this year? This weekend I&#8217;ll be settling in to watch my favorite Christmas story (Alistair Sim version, of course), and in doing so I&#8217;ll be reminded once again of a powerful leadership truth: Leaders have the power to give the gift of happiness, or of unhappiness. This&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[479,769,738,478],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christmas","category-culture-2","category-effectiveness-2","category-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4975"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4975\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4981,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4975\/revisions\/4981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}