Leadership- The Santa Style!

The inspiration of this blog is the amazing book by Eric Harvey, titled 'Leadership secrets of Santa Claus: How to get big things done in your "workshop"- all year long'.

The author uses Santa Claus as a metaphor of terrific leadership. Santa’s number-one priority is his mission of 'delivering high-quality toys to good little children' and he makes sure his elves and reindeer understand how they connect to it. This is actually the role of the leader. 

Santa Claus faces fluctuating demands, a challenging production schedule and a hostile work environment. He has to attract efficient employees and convince them to relocate to the North Pole. He also must adapt his production workshop and retrain his people annually to build the gifts that are 'in demand' each year. Despite the challenges, Santa Claus loves what his job.

Santa and his team are delightful and productive because of their mission. The team in North Pole know the mission, and they understand how they contribute to it. Santa posts the mission statement on the workshop’s walls, discusses it in staff meetings and includes it in the elves’ and reindeer’s everyday activities. The good leaders should:

• Stay physically and mentally accessible to their employees.

• Listen to their employees’ concerns and are considerate about their needs.

• Give their employees resources for success, including training, tools and feedback.

• Keep their employees informed and “in the loop.”

• Help their employees learn, grow and maintain work-life balance.

• Respect their employees’ time, effort and individual talents.

• Distribute workloads fairly and evenly.

• Make “to-do lists,” and do the most important tasks first.

• Start and end meetings on time.

• Save by buying in bulk and shopping for materials, supplies, equipment and services. A few pennies saved here and there add up.

• “Measure twice, cut once.”

• Reduce, reuse, recycle. Invest in extended warranties.

• Allow employees with specific knowledge to make their own decisions.

• Find the right fit: Match workers’ skills and interests with the right job.

• Encourage professional development and ask employees to share their knowledge.

• Confront problems early.

• Make sure they understand performance expectations.

• Provide the training and resources they need.

• Give them frequent, specific feedback.

• Identify and eliminate obstacles.

• “Teach them how to set, manage and achieve goals.”

• Help them learn. Partner them with mentors.

• Allow them to make decisions, solve problems, and develop strategies and procedures.

• Avoid “micromanaging.”

• Encourage them to teach or mentor.

• Celebrate their accomplishments.

• Provide highly specialized training and professional development.

• Be interested in them, professionally and personally.

• Make sure they aren’t doing two jobs; hold their co-workers accountable.

As leader, one should know his/her values and should also ensure the employees know and share them. Focus must be on hiring. The more time leader spends signing up the right people, the more time shall be saved by avoiding personnel issues and high turnover.

Promotions should be handled with great care. It's not about who works best, but about who has the knack of getting things done from others. If you know the famous song, you know Rudolph wasn’t always the leader of the sleigh. Donner was the first reindeer leader. He was strong and dependable, but being a steady puller and being lead reindeer takes different skills. Donner wasn’t a leader. Thus, Santa considered Rudolph, who was not the strongest or fastest, but he had a could get things done. 

Diversity in workforce is an essential ingredient for success. Having different kinds of people brings new ideas and different perspectives to the workshop.

Santa has 364 days to strategize and produce, and one day to execute. Planning involves thinking about how to package toys, deliver them to the correct children and immediately begin start planning for next year. Production and delivery are massive tasks, so the workshop breaks its goals down into smaller objectives and develops a written action plan.

 “If an action we’re considering doesn’t support our mission, either directly or indirectly, we don’t do it!”

To maximize your time, money, equipment and expertise, Santa says:

Back when the workshop had fewer toys to build and fewer deliveries to make, Santa did a lot of the work himself. He treated the elves respectfully, but he made every production decision. A mechanical assembler that Santa had researched and purchased quit running. Production stopped. The elves were upset that Santa hadn’t asked for their input – they had expected a breakdown. Then the elves fixed the assembler and designed a better inspection process. Now, Santa asks for suggestions for improvement using elf feedback surveys and a “North Pole feedback hotline.” To share infectious zeal, follow Santa’s “recognition rules:” Make recognition timely, personal and specific. Give it sooner rather than later. Design it to fit employee preferences. Be specific with praise. Make recognition proportional to achievement. The workshop’s positive corporate culture helps it deal with challenges, such as a huge snowfall.

Ian, the workshop’s in-charge of training,  helped Santa understand how to teach success. Ian said that to have robust teams, a firm should never stop at just showing people how to “do their jobs.” It should also teach them how to be successful. 

One November, about a month before Christmas Eve, two elves had a big conflict with the reindeer. Santa asked them to come to his office for a “Santa intervention.” They discussed what happened and how it affected productivity. Santa reminded them how much they mattered to him and to the workshop’s mission. He taught them the CALM model of handling workplace disputes: Clarify the issue. Address the problem. Listen to the other side. Manage your way to resolution.

Leaders must be able to handle constant change. Remember those shiny red wagons? They were the workshop’s most popular toy. The elves loved making wagons and kids loved getting them, but then children lost interest. They wanted video games. Aware that the customer is in charge, Santa gave the elves support and training for a successful transition. He was patient as they learned the ropes. You can’t control change, but you can master your response to it.

Santa learned that, the more employees understand about how the business works, the more likely they are to accept and support change.

Every workforce has stars. You might have “falling stars” and bright, ambitious “super stars.” But, most employees fall in between-“middle stars”. They are main workers and your workshop's lifeline. They can become super stars or fall away. To keep your stars from falling:

Manage super stars by employing the following strategies:

Santa’s job as a leader includes being a role model and setting an example, not only on Christmas Eve, but all year round.