Father Christmas's leadership profile

CHPD specialises in high performance and leadership. There is no better seasonal performer than Father Christmas, so this month we take a light-hearted look at his leadership profile.

CHPD’s research identified 12 leadership behaviours that underpin outstanding performance in dynamic, complex and competitive environments. We call these High Performance Behaviours (HPBs).

Father Christmas is world-renowned, universally popular and has a long-lasting, positive public image. Not only that but he has a magical workforce of happy and devoted elves who work all year round to help him achieve his goal and deliver presents to all the world’s children.

He understands what everyone wants
Father Christmas has created a system for finding out what the children want for Christmas every year by asking them to send him their list every December. This traditional letter writing scheme is an embedded part of the Christmas culture all over the world and everyone takes part in it. It enables Father Christmas to gather accurate data on his customer’s needs and is a great example of how to use the information search HPB at the strategic level five.

He works out a strategy to deliver
The thinking cluster of HPBs is crucial to coming up with and evaluating new ideas. Father Christmas has to be able to consider a number of different solutions for challenges like making the right toys, meeting tight production schedules and efficient delivery routes. Then he must weigh up the pros and cons of these and make a final decision about which to implement. The conceptual flexibility HPB encapsulates this process. It enables a leader to make the right decisions first time, rather than hoping for the best in a trial and error approach. An approach that would be too risky, for someone who’s reputation has been built on consistently high performance and meeting a fixed deadline.

He develops others and recognises diversity
By identifying Rudolph’s red nose as a special talent and asking him to guide the sleigh, Father Christmas found a way to develop Rudolph’s ability and turn him into a high performer. He took personal responsibility for Rudolph’s development and presented him with an opportunity to use his talent whilst supporting and encouraging him as he undertook the task. This is a clear example of the developing people HPB at level four; a high level use of the behaviour.

Areas for improvement
Nothing stands still and with the world changing more rapidly than ever, Father Christmas might want to consider some development to prepare for the future. An area for Father Christmas to consider for development is his influence. Strengthening his use of this HPB may help him with one of his biggest business challenges which is how to get all of those presents delivered in just one night. Creating ‘win win’ alliances with other people and identifying how their goals are aligned could help him gather support and achieve his goals more easily. So, if Father Christmas started to work with the Tooth Fairy, for example, and use her up to date knowledge of which children live where and the best access routes to their chimneys, then this would save him time on his rounds. In return, Father Christmas could offer to collect teeth from under the pillows of the children he visits on Christmas Eve and give the Tooth Fairy a valuable night off. Whilst their ultimate goals are different, Father Christmas and the Tooth Fairy have a lot in common and by understanding these alignments they can work together to achieve their own interests more easily.

Are you a Father Christmas performer?
Whether you share Father Christmas’ HPB strengths or not, all leaders benefit from a better understanding of how they perform. An online behavioural questionnaire, such as CHPD’s Sentio, will reveal where you can improve your performance for a magical year in 2010.

Merry Christmas from all at CHPD.

Find out more about behavioural assessment from CHPD - Info@chpd.com

Writen by Caroline Warren, HPB assessor and Rachel Woolf, senior client partner, both at CHPD.