With the holiday season comes all manner of good feelings — for valued colleagues, customers, and stakeholders.
Source: Austin Kirk on Flickr
We send greetings and best wishes for joy and happiness. Many will take time away from their families later today and on Christmas Day to minister to those in need, the least among us in terms of worldly possessions and the essentials of life, health, and nourishment.
As we rush to the finish line with our shopping and other holiday preparations this is also a great time for a reflection regarding who we are and what we have become, something we cannot take for granted.
The upcoming year will, no doubt, be filled with some incredibly tough challenges. As leaders work to maintain financial stability that will sustain their mission, it is important to reflect upon, and renew, our internal commitments to stay true to our bedrock values such as integrity, transparency, compassion and devotion. Good leadership often times requires hard decisions, including compromise, but in doing so we cannot waiver from those core principles that define us. These principles define who we are as leaders and those who depend on that leadership to serve their patients and their communities deserve no less.
We should remember that the truly great leaders are those who inspire us to be better tomorrow than we were today.
As I have said so many times in this space, and in speeches across the country, a good leader is a work of art. A bad leader is a tragedy.