What Leaders Can Learn From Santa Claus

16. December 2009  Email This Post  Print This Post

Do you believe in Santa Claus?

I guess this question may appear a little bit strange to you especially when finding it in a blog about holistic leadership.

But believe me, it isn’t really that strange.
Everybody knows Santa Claus and everybody seems to like him.

So why shouldn’t we discuss the personality of such a well-known and liked man in order to find out something about the reasons for his popularity?

Yes I know I know…. Santa Claus doesn’t exist. That’s your problem isn’t it?

But please think about it a little while and tell me why you assume that Santa doesn’t exist. Just because it is impossible to imagine that a corpulent old man with a white beard rides upon his big sleigh for hundreds of years in order to bring gifts to our children by passing our chimneys?

Okay you’re right. It’s hard to imagine that such a man really exists. But on the other hand it’s quite simple to imagine such a man as a figure in your mind.
Everybody can do this and thousands of people imagine this figure each year.

But why do people something like that?

The answer is quite simple: emotions and feelings always strive to expression in mental images. But mental images can just as well arouse emotions and feelings in your mind.

So assuming that you have a free coice, which mental images would you create in your mind?

Exactly, you would create images that represent peace, joy, harmony and so on and so forth. At least I would do so.

But what’s with humility, frugality, personal values etc.
Are these terms also as obvious as the other ones mentioned above?

Let’s have a look at the mental image of Santa Claus regarding to Santa’s special character traits in order to learn something about the common cravings of us humans:

Santa Claus

• is doing something good for others
  
• is always confident
  
• is decent and frugal
  
• personifies values and experience
  
• is always confident
  
• represents mildness
  

Does this little list match your imagination of Santa Claus?
I guess everybody could add many more things to this list.

It doesn’t matter whether this list is complete or not.
It’s just of importance if we talk about the same Santa Claus.

Santa Claus seems to know more about the world than we do.
He trusts in the good forces of the universe. He knows about the human weaknesses and accepts them.

Santa Claus loves his work and nothing could hold him back to deliver his gifts.

Doing something good to others (represented by the gifts he brings) is his personal life-task which provides him with true joy and confidence.

I must repeat that because it is so essential:

The well-being of Santa’s “customers” is the source for his personal joy and confidence.

Combined with his humility and frugality you can say that Santa Claus is a generous man.

Believing in Santa Claus obviously means to believe in an ideal.

But you shouldn’t look at how far you are matching an ideal because you will never comply with your ideals completely.

You should rather assess your efforts to strive for this ideal.
In my opinion Santa Claus represents the ideal of a famous great leader.

He is an authentic authority that can look at the world through the eyes of a child.
This means that the world is something for him which is not obvious and not self-evident.

As long as we all have a living vision of such an ideal in our minds we are able to unleash tremendous forces that drive us right into the direction of a better world.

But aren’t forces always something real?

Mhmm….I’m confused. Is he real or isn’t he?

Happy Christmas to all of you!

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