It's sad that things like remembering birthdays is considered a 'life hack'
| here’s a list of strengths I’ve noticed in my team over the past few weeks (and how that strength helps our team do its best work):
| ...
| - Remembering to celebrate birthdays and other important life moments (makes our team feel connected)
| ...
His 'life hack' is to recognise and celebrate peoples' strengths in his community. One or more of those people, it seems, is great at remembering birthdays, and he recognised this.
Also, you may want to say that what he's doing isn't a life hack either, but remember who his audience is ;)
If you don't do it genuinely, then how is it anything else than hypocrisy?
I mean if you don't care enough for the guys at the team to remember their birthdays in the first place?
But this is not such a case IMHO. This is a case of using hypocrisy to achieve a personal goal. It might make the team feel better, but it's not because he/she genuinely likes the team, but because he merely wants the team to feel better for business purposes.
That's a kind of "leaky hypocrisy" (akin to "leaky abstractions"). If he/she doesn't genuinely care for the team, it will show in any occasion it can, i.e when under stress, when firing people, at chances of promotion etc.