Why Gratitude in Leadership is More Important Than Ever

Gratitude in leadership matters much more than many of us realize. Whether it’s Broadway producer Lin-Manuel Miranda publicly celebrating cast and crew at Hamilton rehearsals, or legendary NFL football coach Pete Carroll embracing a coaching philosophy of gratitude, leaders who show appreciation build outstanding cultures. And as I’ve seen time and again, an outstanding culture gets results.

What Is Gratitude in Leadership?

Leaders who prioritize gratitude do more than just recognize great work now and then. Instead, they make gratitude a daily practice and go out of their way to understand the multiple ways that individual employees contribute to the organization’s success.

Leaders who embody gratitude also recognize that all people inside an organization, no matter their role, have an important part to play and deserve to be recognized for making an impact.

Why Is It Important for Leaders to Show Gratitude?

I view gratitude as a business imperative and the foundation upon which all other leadership success is built. Research backs me up, demonstrating that gratitude supports psychological safety, which in turn enables innovation. Gratitude also builds trust that drives engagement.

We recently conducted a study with The Harris Poll to explore what exceptional leadership looks like for employees. Of the leaders defined as exceptional by employees, gratitude at work was a key feature. In fact, 54% of employees working under exceptional leaders strongly felt leaders showed gratitude and acknowledged hard work. You can get early access to the research when pre-ordering my new book, The Heart Work of Modern Leadership, which is built around the data.

Many other studies reported similar results, finding that the frequency of recognition matters too. An Achievers Workforce Institute study found employees who receive recognition at least monthly are 2.6 times more likely to report being highly engaged at work compared to those recognized annually or less.

Another important psychological study found that a little thanks goes a long way. Researchers found that when managers expressed gratitude for the number of phone calls university fundraisers made during a campaign, the callers felt a greater sense of self-worth and subsequently increased their daily calls.

What Does Gratitude in Leadership Look Like?

Case studies of highly successful leaders in business, government, entertainment, and sports highlight the power of gratitude.

Doug Conant on Gratitude in Leadership

Take Doug Conant, former president of Nabisco Foods and former CEO at Campbell. Conant’s success in positively transforming Campbell has been written up in multiple business journals, in part because of his focus on gratitude. Conant wrote up to 20 notes a day to employees praising their contributions and successes. Over 10 years, that amounted to more than 30,000 notes.

“I found that most large organizations become great critical thinking machines, where everybody there is looking for what’s wrong, and they’re trying to fix it,” Conant wrote in a LinkedIn post describing his note practice. “Forget the fact that eight out of ten things are being done right. I wanted to bring some balance to that thought process. So I started celebrating things that were being done right, with intention, in a way that fit into my chaotic CEO life.”

Conant explained that he asked his assistant to print all the good things people were doing from their portal, and he’d use his commute home from work to identify the 10 or 20 things worth recognizing through hand-written notes he’d distribute the next day.

Conant’s approach was so celebrated that it led to a bestselling book he coauthored, TouchPoints: Creating Powerful Leadership Connections in the Smallest of Moments.

Pete Carroll on Gratitude in Leadership

A prominent example from the world of sports is Pete Carroll, one of only three coaches in football history to win both a Super Bowl and a college national championship. Carroll helped the Seahawks win the first Super Bowl in the franchise’s history in 2014 and was a winning coach for the University of Southern California.

Carroll has been closely studied by business leaders because of his success in building a culture of gratitude and psychological safety that permeated throughout the organization’s ranks. After wins, he regularly shifted attention from himself to his players and often celebrated successes of all players, not just the stars. He also frequently credited assistants and staff. 

One of the most important aspects of Carroll’s style is that he wasn’t a softie. Gratitude often gets dismissed by leaders as being too emotional and impractical. Yet what Carroll achieved is a winning combination. He paired genuine care and concern with high expectations and accountability.

In addition to his concern for his players, Carroll adopted an “Always Compete” philosophy, which was essentially about continuous improvement and a growth mindset.

“It has a tremendous amount to do with caring,” Carroll once said in describing his coaching philosophy. “We realize if we care for people and look after them … then you’re going to give them their best chance to be as good as they can be.” 

This focus on relationships and care isn’t necessarily typical of hard-core football leaders, but Carroll never shied away from it.

I also greatly appreciated the emphasis on psychological safety in leadership. Employees naturally struggle with bringing their true selves to work. Yet when leaders create an environment where employees feel invited to share their opinions and what matters to them, trust builds. Gratitude from leadership helps support that work.

How to Show Meaningful Gratitude As a Leader

Exceptional leadership begins with a simple “thank you,” but it’s how we express the thanks, when we share it, and what we make a priority that makes the difference.

Remember that meaningful appreciation isn’t about grand gestures – it’s about consistent, authentic recognition that helps people feel valued and understood. When done well, it’s one of the most powerful tools we have as leaders to produce engaged, high-performing teams. And it doesn’t cost a thing.

Three Keys to Meaningful Appreciation

1. Be Specific and Timely.

Don’t simply thank someone for “doing a great job.” Recognize specific actions and their impact, and do so as quickly after the action as possible. For example: “Kathy, the thoughtful questions you asked of the client in our meeting yesterday helped clarify what their biggest challenges are. You helped us a lot in figuring out how exactly we can help. The way you closed the meeting with both empathy and actionable next steps was also perfect. You taught the junior members on our team to know how to masterfully handle a new client meeting.”

2. Match Recognition to the Person.

Some team members thrive on public recognition, others just want a quiet word of thanks. Take time to understand what each team member needs and wants.

3. Connect to Purpose.

Help people see how their contributions matter in the bigger picture. Simple comment: “I appreciate you beating the deadline with this report.” Better comment: “The fact that you finished this report early helps our entire team jump into problem-solving mode with the client. Now we can not only meet the client’s needs but exceed them, which is always our mission with every new project.”

How to Make Gratitude a Daily Practice

The most effective leaders weave appreciation into their daily routines. Recognition can take on many forms. Start by asking yourself a few questions: What’s a critical behavior I want to see more of? What strategic priority or company value do I want to drive or accelerate?

It’s often said that what gets measured is what gets done. I believe that’s true for recognition too; what gets rewarded is what you’ll most likely see more of – a win-win for the organization on many levels.

Here are my tips for helping create a daily culture of gratitude:

1. Begin each day with intention: Take two minutes each morning to identify one person whose contributions you want to recognize that day.
2. Create appreciation triggers: After every meeting, ask yourself,  “Who contributed something especially valuable that I should acknowledge?”
3. End each day with reflection: Before leaving work, send one specific note of thanks to someone who made a difference.

Other Ways to Embed Gratitude in the Workplace

1. Enhance existing Employee Recognition Programs: Employee recognition programs have gotten more attention from organizations in recent years, but in many cases, they remain woefully inadequate. Only 34% of employees report that their employer has a recognition program, according to a recent study from Gallup and Workhuman. That same study found that just 13% of employees rate the recognition programs as excellent. Among the keys to better programs are those that allow for more immediate recognition, versus annual awards or “employee of the month” type awards.
2. Focus on peer-to-peer recognition through online platforms, chat boxes, or company intranet programs. Employees are especially motivated when their hard work gets noticed by peers, and these systems help ensure that quiet contributions from all levels of the workforce are called out.
3. Remember the unsung heroes: Too often, gratitude from leadership doesn’t trickle down far enough to support staff, interns, contractors, and assistants. All levels of employees deserve gratitude for a job well done.
4. Train managers to ensure they embed recognition practices into their work: Managers need to know how much gratitude matters, and that message naturally needs to come from the top. In many cases, frontline managers also need tools on how they can call out great work, whether it be on the factory floor, at a Town Hall meeting, or in simple daily huddles.
5. “Catch” great work when it’s happening: Leaders who get out of the office and visit employee sites – from restaurant chains to hospital floors – build employee trust. They also take advantage of finding opportunities to observe great work happening in the moment. Conant made this a practice at Campbell Soup, logging thousands of steps each day interacting with employees at production plants or the corporate headquarters, observing first-hand the exceptional contributions of employees. 

More Examples of Gratitude in Leadership

I’m a big Broadway fan and have appreciated observing the culture of gratitude that Lin Manuel-Miranda demonstrated publicly while working on the Hamilton production. I noted how frequently Miranda used social media to spotlight understudies and the backstage crew, as well as praising the show’s stars. That collaborative culture helped make Hamilton such a success and built a tight cast that continues to celebrate each other to this day.

I was also struck by how many business leaders noted the importance of gratitude in their contributions to my upcoming business book, The Heart Work of Modern Leadership.

• Tina McCorkindale, president and CEO for the Institute for Public Relations, shared, “Ultimately, leadership isn’t about power or control – it’s about trust, respect, and shared purpose. And when a team feels valued, supported, and empowered, they don’t just show up – they thrive.”
• Gail Golden, Principal of Gail Golden Consulting, shared a similar appreciation for gratitude from leaders. “Gratitude is discussed a lot more in leadership circles today, yet sometimes it’s still considered a ‘nice to have,’” she wrote. “I believe it’s more essential than ever toward building an exceptional rapport with employees.”
• Steve Cody, Senior Executive Advisor & Founder of Peppercomm, said gratitude has taken center stage for him as well. “I do my best to overcommunicate how grateful I am to our employees at every opportunity,” Cody said. “When employees feel seen and recognized for how hard they’re working and the many achievements they’ve scored, it pays huge dividends.”

How The Grossman Group Can Help You Enhance Workplace Gratitude

The Grossman Group specializes in leadership communication, internal communication strategy, and culture change inside organizations. For 25 years, we’ve worked with senior leaders across industries to enhance their own skills as leaders and communicators.

Building a culture of gratitude is a cornerstone of much of our work because, at the end of the day, we believe in being advocates not only for our clients but for their employees. Our goal is to make the workplace better and take our clients places they never thought possible.

Final Thoughts

In the complex, frenetically paced business environment we all work in today, taking time to show gratitude can feel like a luxury that leaders simply can’t afford. The reality? We can’t afford not to.

As our research shows and many others have determined, gratitude is an essential ingredient to organizational success. Now’s the time for all of us to take it more seriously.

What new steps do you plan to take to embed a culture of gratitude in your leadership style?

—David Grossman

Based on new research with The Harris Poll, David Grossman's upcoming book, The Heart Work of Modern Leadership, reveals what few leaders do well – and how you can join those that do. Click below to pre-order the book today and get early access to Chapter 1 and the research: