Thursday's Leadership insight: Daily Leadership Practice of Thankfulness and Expressing Gratitude, Especially in Crossroads Moments is a Gift

Here we are in the throes of Thanksgiving week. We are also in a time of global challenges and changes. We are experiencing teacher and employee shortages. There are active hostilities around the globe; we hear about rushes of passengers to airports, congested car traffic, shortages, and a housing slowdown. Of course, the weather will be a challenge. My Favorite? Thanksgiving character, Snoopy, would say UGH ?to all this. This may not seem like such a great time to give Thanksgiving and be grateful. This is a time for a leader to impact those you serve, live with, in your community, and for you in your leadership practice. Leaders who give thanks and practice gratitude to those they touch have a big effect daily. These actions are even more important in times of trial, challenge, and change. My Teaching Pastor, Todd Clark, referred to these times in a message last week at Parkview Church as "Crossroads ?Moments." Giving thanks and gratitude is easy when we have 100% employment, world peace, and low prices. It is much harder and more important when, as leaders, we are challenged with uncertain situations, murky possibilities, and complexity, or "Crossroads Moments."

Thanks and gratitude are important daily and exponentially important in "Crossroads Moments. "Leadership practice paradoxically can be enhanced at this time by slowing down, reflecting, and sharing thanks and gratitude. This early edition of the ?Thursday Leadership Insight describes how thankfulness and expressing gratitude all the time, especially important for all in "Crossroads Moments," has a massive impact on all we serve and lead, including ourselves. This article shares how thankfulness and expressing gratitude are critical daily ?leadership practices that are exponentially more important in challenging, Crossroads Moments."

A leader's reflection and acting in thankfulness and gratitude can change our perspective, even the trajectory of our leadership practice and those we lead and serve. These practices in no way diminish challenges. They recognize reasons to be thankful. The benefits of this approach are many. Here are a few

1.. A leadership practice of thankfulness and expression of gratitude leads to a different perspective of situations for a leader that can be expressed to those they serve

There are congested airports and roads at this time of year. This signals that people are willing to sacrifice, even stand in the long TSA lines or traffic jams, to connect with their relatives and those they love.

Food is expensive, yet in a Good Morning America Interview this morning, Kroger C.E.O. W. Rodney McMullen, who leads the third biggest grocery chain with half a million associates, said the cost of a meal is lower this year than last year.

2. A leadership practice of Thanksgiving and expression of gratitude is a powerful gift. Feeling valued fuels connection engagement in organizations. Thankfulness practiced at these ?Crossroads moments times helps people feel worthwhile; their efforts are noticed, and organizations

3. A leadership practice of Thanksgiving and expression of gratitude shows a picture of moving forward together. Leaders who strive to demonstrate and express gratitude create hope. That hope is important for a leader and all they serve

4. A leadership practice of Thanksgiving and expression of gratitude is impactful in making decisions and developing strategies. The attitude of thankfulness and gratitude can help see all sides of a situation, decision, or strategy.

5. A leadership practice of Thanksgiving and expression of gratitude is not avoiding or denying challenges or being "pollyannaish." A practice by the leader of thankfulness understands the challenges and sees the possibilities of moving forward.

?The story of the evolution of Thanksgiving day demonstrates how leaders acted in thankfulness and an expression of gratitude in "Crossroads Moments." A National Constitution Center blog entitled? Who Started Thanksgiving and other holiday trivia! Written on November 23, 2016, shared this evolution using the timeline below.

The national holiday did not begin with the Pilgrims. There was no nation then, as the pilgrims were English citizens of an English possession.

.?In 1777, the Continental Congress declared the first national day of Thanksgiving following the American victory at Saratoga. The Battle of Saratoga was a great victory. The Revolutionary War was still in progress, and the outcome was still doubtful.

George Washington became our first president and proclaimed ?Thanksgiving a holiday when he set aside November 26, 1789, a Tuesday, as a day of Thanksgiving to commemorate the approval of the U.S. Constitution—a great event for sure, which gave us a stable form of government. Our future was

uncertain as many foreign parties, especially France and England, waited for our downfall. It was a "Crossroads Moment. "It should also be noted that during his Presidency, Washington had to lead forces to put down domestic threats of rebellion. This was not a national reoccurring day of Thanksgiving; Jefferson didn't want to follow the day at all as he felt it might create a national religion.

Thanksgiving became a national holiday celebrated on the last Thursday of November in 1863 due to the persistence of Sarah Joseph Hale's campaign for a Thanksgiving holiday and President Abraham Lincoln's desire to demonstrate a leadership practice of thankfulness and gratitude to create hope in a unified United States.

Abraham Lincoln created a national day of Thanksgiving by executive order, then called Presidential Proclamation Number 106, on October 3, 1863. This was also a "Crossroads Moment. "He was leading a divided country in the midst of a protracted civil war, threatened by foreign powers and the Confederacy. He also was painfully planning a speech for November 19, 1863. The speech, the second scheduled speech for the day, was completed on the train ride to Gettysburg. The Gettysburg Address commemorated the Federal cemetery for those Union troops killed in this three-day battle. July 1-3,1863. The Union victory stopped a Confederate invasion of the North. The battle had left 51,112 casualties on both sides combined ( 38% of the Confederate forces and 25% of Union forces were casualties). He had many things on his mind. The Civil War was still raging; 504 Union and Confederate soldiers were dying on average daily, and there was still some concern about foreign intervention. The outcome was still in doubt. It was a" Crossroads Moment". Lincoln also saw a need for a time of Thanksgiving of expressing thankfulness and gratitude for many other things, time to focus and possibly refocus the Northern Staes and all Americans on gratitude and cast a vision of a better future. The full text of Executive Order No. 106 is below. It is well worth reading as an example of a leader modeling gratitude, sharing the realities of the challenge and the blessings for the future to those he led and served. Sadly, Lincoln did not live to see the peace he hoped for.

Proclamation 106 By the President of the United States, A. Lincoln, creating Thanksgiving as a National Holiday

?"The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature that they cannot fail to penetrate and even soften the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever-watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign states to invite and provoke their aggressions, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere, except in the theater of military conflict; while that theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plow, the shuttle, or the ship; the ax has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege, and the battlefield, and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom. No human counsel hath devised, nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American people. I do, therefore, invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a Day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens. And I recommend to them that, while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty hand to heal the wounds of the nation, and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility, and Union.

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

?Done at the city of Washington, this third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-eighth. Abraham Lincoln By the President: William H. Seward. Secretary of State"

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The final president to be part of the evolving Thanksgiving story was Franklin D. Roosevelt, who strongly believed in gratitude and Thanksgiving but, in 1939, thought the last Thursday was too close to encourage Christmas shopping. He wanted to return to Thanksgiving to add Christmas shopping days to spark spending. They didn't have Black Friday or Cyber Monday. He proclaimed Thanksgiving on the third Thursday in November. This was a very unpopular move. Many states and communities would not recognize the change for the next two years. On November 26, 1941, he acknowledged defeat, agreeing to a joint resolution of Congress that specified the fourth Thursday in November as Thanksgiving Day.

Interestingly, people stuck to the belief of a "traditional" Thanksgiving at a "coming Crossroads Moment" with a worldwide economic, political, and impending military crisis. Twelve days later, on December 7, 1941, The U.S. Naval base at Pearl Harbor and other bases in the Pacific were attacked by Japan. The next Joint Resolution of Congress would be to declare war on Japan on December 8, 1941, and Germany and Italy on December 11, 1941,.World War II had come to the United States. A" Crossroads Moment? ." Thanksgiving was celebrated throughout these trying times of World War II and beyond. Thanksgiving dinner was celebrated early in 1963, on November 19, 1963, as President Kennedy was traveling. During a stop in ?Dallas, he was assassinated. This occurred exactly 60 years ago today as I write this article. As an eighth grader at Infant Jesus of Prague in Flossmoor, Illinois, I remember when the news came over the intercom. It was hard to believe a President was dead, killed. I remember a sunny morning turned into a black, rainy afternoon as I helped a friend deliver the Chicago Daily News. The paper carried the sad news. It was a "Crossroads Moment, "and we still, six days later, celebrated Thanksgiving with a special day in Honor of President Kennedy.

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The story of Thanksgiving then is one of leadership focusing in very difficult times," Crossroads Moments "on thankfulness and expressions of gratitude. We live today in what Futurist Bob Johansen refers to as a V.U.C.A.world? that is volitaile, uncertain, uncertain, and ambiguous V.U.C.A.world. A leader's acts of thankfulness and expressing gratitude in their story can inspire and encourage those they lead and serve. Our history will always have

"Crossroads Moment. "What is needed is leadership to express thankfulness and express gratitude.

In Closing, Here is an activity shared by one of my mentors, John Maxwell, to recognize thankfulness and express gratitude. His mother had an annual Thanksgiving pre-dinner activity we would be well served to follow. Mrs.Maxwell asked (required) ?all your guests to bring a list of all they are thankful for to dinner and ask all to share their list. The next question was to express gratitude to those who weren't present. A leader's daily practice of thankfulness and expressing gratitude is a gift, especially in "Crossroads Moments."

The Leadership Questions for you ?in your leadership practice are

1. Who are you thankful for, and when can you express that gratitude?

2. How can you express your thankfulness and gratitude in your leadership story at "Crossroads Moments "and daily to as many people as possible.?

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