I don’t know about you, but I’m already planning for next year. Here’s something to consider: more gratitude. Stop eye-rolling and keep reading. I know you are already grateful because you follow me somehow unless you are family and feel an obligation. BUT (I rarely use that word), you can always strengthen gratitude, no matter how grateful you are now. Unless you are a gratitude master, like Bishop Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela, Malala Yousafzai, Ted Lasso, Yoda (of Star Wars fame), or Martin Luther King, you can improve every result, difficulty, situation, or struggle.
Consider that gratitude is a strategic skill, particularly for leaders. 
Without gratitude, workplaces are unhealthy, thankless, fear-filled, gossipy, and self-ruminating places. Turnover is high, engagement is low, and results are poor. Grateful leaders create positive workplaces. They get better results because gratitude increases engagement, innovation, and collaboration, and improves decision-making. With gratitude, leaders are more open, receptive, and able to handle difficulties and change, and with gratitude, leaders are not operating from the human biological survival mode of flight, fight, freeze, or fawn.
We now know that leaders are both born and made. Leaders improve and grow through experience and learning. Before the 20th century, leadership was believed to be innate—you were born with it or into it. Hence, vast amounts of money are spent on teaching leadership through various means, including training and coaching. Fortune Business Insights valued the leadership training market at US$33.90 billion in 2023 and projected it to grow and reach US$72.65 billion by 2032.
How will corporations spend those billions of dollars on leadership training? The first question should be: What do leaders need to be skilled in? There isn’t one answer for all leaders because their situations differ, but gratitude cuts across all leaders regardless of organizational level or industry.
One prevalent need is the skills to lead successful change while delivering results. Many analysts and experts say that leaders need:
- The ability to work in VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity) environments. Consider this to be constant change.
- More humanity and connections, including the physical (i.e., what can’t be replicated by AI).
- To be morally and ethically driven.
Adam Grant, an organizational psychologist at Wharton, sums up many of the skills listed above by saying:
In the past, people were hired and promoted based on ability. In the future, the more valuable currency will be agility. We should bet on people with the motivation to learn and the flexibility to change.
Grant says that leaders must learn to see around corners and anticipate change instead of reacting and becoming victims of change.
In Daniel Lamarre’s memoir, Balancing Acts, an unacknowledged theme of gratitude and appreciation is infused throughout the book. Like many leaders I know personally and know of, Daniel has gratitude, and it is a part of who they are as a leader.
Gratitude is a strategic skill that makes everyone better, especially leaders. It is so infused into what successful leaders do and so innate that it’s invisible and hard to see. Gratitude is a foundational skill that makes all those other skills and complexities easier.
Leaders with Gratitude
The most successful leaders I coach who transform themselves and their teams already have some gratitude. They are ready to do the work, are open-minded, willing to hear the hard stuff, and motivated to change. I frequently interact with them during difficult times in their jobs and careers, including having to fire employees, tragedies, conflicts, poor performance, and life balance. Sometimes an hour can go by with them complaining, defending, and bitching, before I can visibly see them shift to gratitude. It’s not until the shift to gratitude that they become open and able to learn. That is when real learning and changes start. Sometimes, it is obvious when they shift from complaining to an open state; sometimes, it is subtle. When a person is grateful, they look and sound differently.
That opening up, the shift generally comes from them finding something to appreciate in their lives. Sometimes, it can be as simple as appreciating me, the coach who just listened and witnessed them. Sometimes, it’s a more evident and profound appreciation when they can see a different or broader perspective. Sometimes, it requires redirecting, interrupting their complaints, and asking, “What did you appreciate about that?” That question has been a game changer for many leaders because it shifts their perspective.
Applying gratitude in the workplace should be budgeted, planned for, and taught first and consistently throughout a career. The challenges of gratitude and its impact become more significant the more senior a leader is. Removing fear, building trust, and leading change present challenges for an individual leader, small teams, and large organizations. A leader can create daily habits to strengthen their gratitude. A small team leader can create a customized appreciation team process more easily, like starting every staff meeting with an appreciation for one team member. In contrast, a senior leader of hundreds must carefully plan out and implement an appreciation process that will be fair, accepted, and not abused or ridiculed.
Brian Proctor, a consultant I interviewed, focuses on gratitude and consults with companies to implement recognition programs. He told me that to have a successful recognition program, you must see it as an investment and develop it like any other strategic initiative: design, plan, and communicate it. Stakeholders at all organizational levels should be involved in creating the program and the criteria must be crystal clear, and it must be communicated clearly.
Please put gratitude on your or your workplace’s list of skills to be taught.
- What essential skills do you as leaders need now?
- Do you think gratitude is a strategic skill that can be taught?
PS. I offer talks and workshops on strengthening gratitude. I’d love to hear your challenges with gratitude and see how I can assist.
References
Book: Balancing Acts by Daniel Lamarre
Blog: Brian Proctor Recognition Consultant Interview –Polite Canadians and Gratitude are NOT the Same Things – Star Leadership
LinkedIn Post: Adam Grant’s post on Leadership.
