3 ways gratitude enhances leadership

Be grateful for people, not performance. A wonderful idea, isn't it?

Right. It's not the reality.

Only when there's an impact on the bottom line, i.e. performance, do we see any hints of gratitude, appreciation or acknowledgement by leaders for their teams.

How about love?

Yes, you read that right. Love. Not the mushy romantic love, but the compassionate human love that courageous leaders embody to build strong successful organizations. Christine Miller expands on this with her?work ?on “love in the boardroom.” She interviewed my client for his?perspective ?on being a CEO of one of Canada’s top banks, expressing love and appreciation for his colleagues.?

Gratitude is no different. Gratitude generates a sense of connection and cultivates the proper spirit and mental attitude to lead.?Here are three ways how:

Gratitude fuels a growth mindset.?Influential leaders see themselves as an evolving work-in-progress. Psychology Professor Sonja Lyubomirsky?links ?gratitude to self-improvement which is a critical aspect of leadership influence. But being able to see oneself as such requires humility, the openness to critical feedback and the innate desire to want to be better. Where does that humility comes from? Gratitude of course! Gratitude does a great job at keeping a leader’s ego in check.?

Gratitude enhances engagement.?By practising gratitude you begin to understand that no one, absolutely no one gets anything done alone. You realize success, joy, growth, they are all a result of collaborative efforts – someone helped, somewhere, somehow, directly or indirectly, in small or big ways, it doesn’t matter, but someone always does. It could be as simple as a colleague buying you coffee or as big as a team’s effort to get the funding needed for your startup. This awareness inspires authentic expressions of appreciation, real connections and positive engagement with others.?

Gratitude builds resilience.?When we chose to acknowledge the upside of any situation whether within team dynamics or big initiatives, we are feeding our brain the proof that some things are indeed working. That’s how we keep going despite setbacks. It’s really not rocket science. If you focus on what’s working you’re not focusing on the things that aren’t. The two areas of focus can’t co-exist so you’re essentially closing the door on the negative aspect that your brain loves to dwell on to create space for possibility and opportunity.?

When grateful, we amplify the positive.

When we are not, we amplify the negative.?

Simple.

Who will you thank today?

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