How To Be A Festive Energiser

Hi there, I'm Ben Morton and welcome to another episode of the Leaders Kit Bag. It's the weekly micro edition of my podcast. Each episode is just six minutes long and is designed to provide you with tips, tools and tactics around specific aspects of leadership and management. It addresses some of the most common challenges you will face as a leader or manager. They are all recorded unscripted whilst I'm out walking in the countryside. So you'll probably hear birds tweeting in the background or just ambient noise as the people around me are going about their day to day life. That's all I'm going to say by way of an introduction, so let's dive straight in to this week's episode. Hello and welcome to another festive edition of the Leaders Kit Bag. In this episode I'm going to share with you three simple tips to help ensure that as a leader, you are a festive energizer rather than an Ebenezer Scrooge esque drain or mood Hoover. Tip number one this is about spreading Christmas cheer, not drear. Nothing says Ebenezer Scrooge quite like starting every meeting with something along the lines of I know it's Christmas, but it is Christmas, so why not? Where appropriate, start with something slightly more light hearted. You could perhaps share some Christmas traditions from your childhood or your home, or maybe even sharing an appropriate Christmas joke or two. Tip number two is deck the halls with appreciation. Great leaders know that giving out gifts in the form of recognition and appreciation is is an incredibly powerful thing to do. Poor leaders, on the other hand, simply give out criticism. So my tip is to hand out gifts in the form of genuine recognition and appreciation to your team. Take the time to write a really individual, thoughtful Christmas card where you remember details about people's lives outside of work and you really stop to think about what it is this person's done well in the past year and what it is you really appreciate about them. And tip number three is about celebrating festively, not forcefully. Mandatory merriment and compulsory fun will kill the Christmas vibe quicker than a burnt mince pie. So my tip here is to make the festive activities appealing but optional. Encourage people to come, but don't force them to come. Create events that they want to come to, but make it okay if they really don't want to go to all of them, or at least allow them to leave at a time of their choosing. Christmas can be tough for some people, depending on what's happened in their personal life in the past year or past few years. So let's Remember that. And remember the introverts. Some of us, like me, us introverts can find Christmas quite tiring. All of the socializing and large gatherings. So celebrate festively, not forcefully. That's it for this episode. As always, I hope it's been useful. And remember, look after yourself. Look after those you've got the privilege and responsibility to lead. And until next time, lead on and happy Christmas.