Leadership Detectives
Leadership Detectives
The Importance Of Gratitude As A Leadership Trait
Welcome to Season 03 Episode 02 of The Leadership Detectives.
In this episode, we look at how a bit of gratitude can go a long way in a leadership role, and how this powerful emotion can bring about positive change in both our business and personal lives.
Find Neil online at: https://neilthubron.com
Find Albert on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/albert-e-joseph
Welcome to the Leadership Detectives with Albert Joseph and Neil Fabron. This is the go-to podcast for uncovering clues about great leadership. If you are a leader today or an aspiring leader, this podcast is a must for you. Do you want to increase employee motivation, increase productivity, lose fewer employees? In this episode, we're going to share with you a very simple way of doing that. Just by being grateful, just by saying thank you. The power of gratitude is what we're going to focus on in this podcast. Hope you enjoy it.
SPEAKER_02:We are live. We are back here again after a long time there.
SPEAKER_00:We haven't spoken for a little while, right? But yeah, but I no one knows that because these are being recorded in advance and put out. So don't let away our secrets know.
SPEAKER_02:We've got so much content, guys. It's just going to keep coming. We don't have to be here live to be able to do that. Um, but we've got a lot of stuff going on in our lives. We've got a lot of things to be thankful for. So what should we talk about today?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, no, it's great to see you, mate. It has been a while, and I love these conversations. Really enjoy talking about leadership, which we're both so passionate about, and helping people be better leaders or help them develop to be leaders. So, so today, a topic I really wanted to cover today, and we talked about covering because it's such an important part of leadership, but isn't something that is discussed typically in your classic leadership book, is about gratitude and the importance of being grateful and thankful and just recognizing within yourself what you're grateful for, but within your teams and within your business what you're grateful for. So that's what I wanted to talk about today. And when when I phoned you up and said, let's talk about gratitude, uh, mate, what did you think?
SPEAKER_02:Well, I thought differently today than I well, I thought differently recently than I would have thought a long time ago. Because I've been working with you for a little while, it resonated with me a lot more because we've already been on that topic together as colleagues, right? But if you'd have asked me 12 or 18 months ago, I'd have probably said, I haven't got time for that. Because I've got things to get on with, right? Yeah. So so I don't quite get it. But now I do really get it, and I really understand the difference it can have in your mindset and the way that it could have about whether way you approach your day, your team, your life, your business. So for me, I get it. The challenge is can we get other people to get it as well and realize the value it can give for them?
SPEAKER_00:And it's interesting. I I use I use gratitude exercises quite a lot in in leadership workshops or in in team workshops. And I'll talk about that a bit later on when we talk about the you know what you could do and how you could do it. And what I find really interesting is um people think of gratitude. They kind of you say, well, let's just think about gratitude for a minute, and you get this kind of oh, that feels a bit uncomfortable. It's a bit weird thinking about being thankful, being grateful. But actually, when you get into it, it's a it's a completely natural emotion, and it's an emotion that has a power, really powerful effect on the mind and the brain and the chemicals that are released into the nervous system as well. Tell you the other thing is it's quite infectious, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Right? Because if you can start thinking like that and behaving like that, it gives you a better outlook in the way that you behave, but that can rub off on other people. And if you can get them past the, I'm gonna use the word, the embarrassment, right? Yeah, especially in the UK. Especially in the UK, maybe other places in the world, it would they'd be more open to it. But in the UK, we're quite reserved about that, right? And it does feel a bit weird. Why do I want to be grateful? What's that about?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, awkward is the kind of feeling that I see in people's faces and in their bodies when you say to them, be great, let's be grateful for a minute.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and you know, but the more you practice it, the more you become comfortable with it. And it and it doesn't feel alien. Yeah, and in fact, it feels really quite comforting to be able to do that. And and it comes back to the authenticity and being yourself, be yourself.
SPEAKER_00:And it's do you know what it's it's the thing I love about gratitude is, and I and I I do this all the time on screen in live workshops, is and you ask someone to think about something they're really grateful for and tell everyone what they're grateful for. No one ever does that with a frown, they only ever do it with a smile. Yeah, yeah, because it can it only brings up good feelings, yeah, it brings up good feelings in you and the people around you as well. As you said, it's infectious, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Um let's think about let's think about why, Neil. Why why does it matter? Why does gratitude matter?
SPEAKER_00:So, and it so and I wanted to put bring some kind of research to that answer that question. So let's let's just I'm just gonna read off some of the the research I found here. So, in positive psychology research, gratitude is strongly and consistently associated with great happiness. Gratitude helps people feel more positive, uh more positive emotions, relish good experiences, improve their health, deal with adversity, and build strong relationships. So there was a study done in the University of Miami by various professors. And they asked their uh the students to write down uh one study, they asked all participants to write a few sentences each week focusing on particular topics. One group wrote what they were grateful for during the week, a second group wrote what had irritated them and what they were displeased about. The third group just wrote about any events that had happened to them during the week with no emphasis on positives or negatives. After 10 weeks of doing this gratitude exercise, they found that the more optimistic felt better and about their lives. They felt better about how they lived and about their lives. And they exercised more and had fewer visits to physicians, so they were they were more caring about their body and their health as well, uh as opposed to those who focused on source of aggravate aggravation. So that was one study to just reinforced it. There was another study by the the Greater Good Science Center. Uh I didn't know there was such a thing, but they did lots and lots of uh studies on this. They found that in individuals, so this is just in you as a leader, if you are grateful, it increased happiness, positive mood, more satisfaction with life, made you less materialistic, less likely to experience burnout, better physical health, better sleep, less fatigue, lower levels of cellular inflammation, greater resilience, encouraged the developments of patience, humility, and wisdom. I mean, wow, just by one simple thing.
SPEAKER_02:So somebody offers that to you as an opportunity to have such an impact in your life and as a leader downstream in other lives, and you wouldn't take it? I'll take it. I'll take it.
SPEAKER_00:And it's a simple thing, right? And and and then if we look at the why of leaders, right? So managers who remember to say thank you to people who work from them. This was a Harvard Business Review, um, find that employees are more motivated and work harder, right? So we've kind of covered some of that. Research at Wharton School of University of Pennsylvania divided fundraisers into two groups. So they were fundraising for a charity. One group made phone calls to solicit aluminide donations in the same way they always had. The second group, assigned to work on a different day, received a pet talk from the director of giving, who told fundraisers how grateful she was for their efforts and the work they were doing. During the following week, the university employees who heard her message of gratitude made 50% more fundraising calls. So that's 50% productivity increase just by saying, thanks, you're doing a great job. Really appreciate it.
SPEAKER_02:That's crazy. I know let me let me just bring in here, guys, what what's the definition? What's the dictionary definition of that? Right. So dictionary definition, there's a couple, but the one that that comes out is the quality of being thankful, readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness. Now come on, guys, that ain't that difficult to be able to execute that on a regular basis.
SPEAKER_00:Um so so what would your in your experience, right? Because is it something that should come naturally, or is it something you've got to plan and work at as a leader?
SPEAKER_02:I I think both. I think it starts off with, I think it would have to start off with you planning it in, thinking about how you're gonna do it, go and apply it, but it could come to a state where it becomes natural. You don't have to think about it, it just happens naturally. Look, some people in their gratitude exercises would be great, would would have that gratitude when they wake up in the morning and say, What am I grateful for today? When they wake up, it's a regular pursuit, some people do. Maybe you're never going to get to that, maybe you don't feel comfortable doing that. But you could do it in a week, you could do it at the end of the week, you could do it at any point in time, you could do it sitting in your car. So I think, answer your question, Neil, I think it's something we need to help people start to practice, but it could come to a state where it just becomes natural, right?
SPEAKER_00:And and yeah, I think you're right. So there's something you need to build in as a regular habit, like every time in the morning when you do your journal and you write things down in your journal, maybe you write three things you're grateful for. And it's something I used to do it every day. I now do it probably two or three times a week. And and you you don't, and the important thing about gratitude is you don't have it doesn't have to be big things. You don't have to be grateful for you know the big house you live in. You can be grateful for that if you want, or the you know the uh the wonderful, healthy family you have. It could be little things, it could be just feeling grateful for the the the sound of birds in the trees, it could be grateful for a great view, it could be grateful for a good conversation or a great cup of coffee, it could be anything that you just think, actually, you know what? I really appreciate that. Yeah. Simple things, and then that has a knock and effect now. So that's about you and helping you feel grateful for stuff. Um, so then cascading it to the team is key. So, how would you suggest people do that? What would your advice be on that?
SPEAKER_02:I I I think I think, like a lot of the leadership traits we've talked about, it's about leading by example. I think it's about not telling people how they should do it or but by you doing it, it will rub off on people and people will think, well, maybe I should try that, maybe I should do that. There's no reason why you wouldn't encourage them at a team meeting or a call that you're all on to say, guys, have we thought about this? Have we thought about what we're grateful here in our job and blah, blah, blah. There's no reason why you shouldn't do that. But I think much more if you could do it by example rather than tell, I think that would have more power as a leader, right? Like a lot, like a lot of leadership traits, right? You've got to walk the talk.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And I think so you feel, make sure you you focus on what you're grateful for, yeah. And then make sure you're saying thank you on a regular basis, whether it's to your teams, to your peers, to your boss, to your customers, to your partners. And and you know, it's really powerful because I use this exercise in when I'm running workshops for leaders and um and teams, as I mentioned, as I mentioned earlier. And what I do is three three stages to it. I get people to write down on a piece of paper, if we're physically together, something they're really grateful for in their job. And then I get them to uh I fold up the piece of paper without their name on it, and then I'll read out those things. And it is, it's almost it almost brings tears to their eyes or and other people in the room when they hear what their colleagues are grateful for. Because it could be, I'm really grateful for working with a great team, I'm grateful for being in this great industry, I'm grateful for and just simple things like, and if it's on Zoom, I'll get people to tell people, you know, what's what are you grateful for and share it? And it has a really powerful knock on effect because actually, yeah, you know, I'm grateful for that, and this. Um, so it is that's the first stage of that. I don't know. Have you ever have you ever tried that?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and I think the the the thing that came to mind is two things, actually. One, you'd be surprised how small those things need to be that you can be grateful for. And the way that I found that that worked best was to think about what I've got and others haven't. Because that helps you realize what you've got, right? You don't you kind of take it for granted, right? Of course I've got a nice house, of course I've got a happy happy family, of course I drive a nice car, of course my golf is rubbish, right? You you you just believe those things are natural that everybody's got. But lockdown's been a good example because you we all got visibility of other people's lives, and we all got to see what people were doing just to keep themselves occupied and busy. And you realized we're not all in the same place in life, right? So there's something in your life you need to be whether it's health, whether it's material goods, whether it's relationships, right? There's just so many places you can go.
SPEAKER_00:True, and and and if you bring it back to business, you know, we moan about our jobs all the time. And this is why I do it at the beginning of these exercises is when you say to people, what are you grateful for in your job? Because I I know you can come up with a hundred things you're not grateful for, but what are you grateful for? And they're pretty big things, are some of them. Yeah, you know, like I love being in this industry, I love the customers I serve, you know, I love the people and you get these kind of comments back. And the second phase of that exercise is to is to get people to share with other people in the room what they're grateful for that they've done for them. You know, no, I'm really grateful for the way John supported me with this customer. I'm really grateful for the way um, you know, you helped me do this, or I'm really grateful for that email you sent, or you know, whatever it might be, just sharing gratitude within your peer group, your your peer, your leadership team is a really great way because it has this great feeling. You do that and you cannot help but feel great about it.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. I'll tell you one thing that's just brought to my mind while you were talking there, Neil, is about many of the things you could be grateful for are the things that you probably at some time wished for. Right? So the job you're in today, you aspired and wished for that job once upon a time. Today you wake up and you go, My job's a bloody nightmare, I hate it, I've got this problem, I've got yeah, but you wished for this and you've got it, right? So be grateful for it. And of course, there's problems within it. There's problems within it, you know. I wished I had this lovely car, and now this car cost me a ton of money to run. Well, you asked for that car, right? So if you look at it in that way, yeah, you you asked to have a child, and now this child is a nightmare for you, but you asked to have that child, and there's lots of things to be grateful about for that. So think about that comparison, right?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and even if you even if you know your child's a nightmare, you're still grateful for them. Of course you are, even if you can't, you know, so you and I think that um so is that is that mindset, and doing this as a leadership team is a really powerful thing to do. And the third step I brought in after reading um a book which I've got here, which is The Buddha and the Badass, right? Which is uh by Vishan Liki Lakiani, and I'd highly recommend it. It's a great book, The Buddha and the Badass. And what what they did in the US, um, and there's a TED talk on this called The Happiness Advantage by uh Sean Acel. And they did something called the two-minute appreciation technique. And so, in certain companies in the US, and Facebook and Nationwide Insurance were two of these, every morning when people got in, the first thing they did was to spend two minutes dropping emails of thanks or messages or direct messaging or Slack messaging or whatever you're using to people within the organization or partners or customers to say, look, I just want to say thank you for you know what you did for me yesterday. I just want to say thank you for your business. I just want to say thank you for being a great partner or whatever it might be. I just want to say thank you. And I I mean, I bring this into workshops now, and I'll stop people. So get your laptops open, just write off an email to say thank you for something. It's a bit weird to start with. Well, that'd be weird someone receiving an email of thanks. But have you ever received an email of thanks from someone and thought, well, that's weird? No, no, never, you couldn't, could you? You couldn't. So the results of this work in the US, and they still do it over there now. So nationwide insurance found that. Um I'll I'll just cut through the the the crap of this paragraph, but basically it says over 18 months they saw a 50% rise in revenues, 237 rise in applications of people who wanted to work there. And in a single year, they went from 650 million turnover to 950 million turnover with no new hires at all. So they they a 50% increase in uh so just it just phenomenal, this ripple effect. Because when what I found when people send an email to someone saying thank you, firstly they get one back to say that's really kind of you, thanks for sending it. So you feel good, but then they send one on to someone else, they'll send an email and say, actually, yeah, I'm gonna send an email of thanks. So you have this ripple effect that goes out throughout the organization.
SPEAKER_02:But that's interesting. That's an important message here, guys, that we're talking about have gratitude, but give gratitude, right? That's really important here. So you could have the gratitude every day in the way that we've just talked about. But if you don't pass it on, then you're missing a great opportunity. Because by the way, how satisfying is it to give? How satisfying is it to give? And and how much is it going to cost you to give gratitude? Right? It's gonna cost you time. That's all it's gonna cost you time and a little bit of energy.
SPEAKER_00:And I think that's where I think that's where it gets a bit confused in the corporate world, right? Whenever I talk about gratitude, oh, you mean the recognition program? No, I just mean saying thank you. You know, you don't have to have a recognition program where you get the employee of the month or you get some special award to be uh to be thankful. You just say thank you to someone. It and it's it could be a WhatsApp message, it could be a text message, it could be an email, just something. And it it doesn't have to be about something big either. It doesn't have to be because you've won this fabulous deal or because you've delivered a great service on a project, it could just be because you know you you just turned up for work and you you've you're just doing a really steady, yeah, uh fulfilling job.
SPEAKER_02:And and look, it could be one-to-one personal or it could be openly on a call. There's no reason why one of the guys I was working with the other day, Neil, I'm not sure if I told you about it, right? But we were talking about one of the things that a guy had done. And and the guy I was working with said, Yeah, that's really good, you know. And I said, Did you tell him that? And he said, No. I said, Well, don't tell him. I said, Tell you what, you know, we got the team call tomorrow morning. Said, yeah, tell him on the team call. And do you know what? The impact on this call, yeah, when he simply gave a thank you in front of everybody and said, Guys, taking nothing away from everyone else on the team, we've put in great contributions, but this situation happened yesterday, and our customer made the comment that they're really appreciative of what this person has done. We got to convey that message, right? And when they convey, and this person went away, bold, chest out, really excited. And I pinged them and said, Listen, just just do a quick word for me. Thanks really for what you did there, in addition to what what Paul said. And he said, Do you know that's gonna carry me for weeks? Oh, seriously, went, yeah. He said, just to know that someone appreciates it.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and that's that's that's really important, right? We're not clairvoyants, we're not mind readers. You might think uh you know, I'm really grateful for that person for what they did, I'm really grateful for this. But if you don't tell them, they don't know. Yeah, yeah. So make them feel good, not just you feel good. And I think that um that's an important point, though, about the getting people to say thank you in front of other people, but it because it does just reinforce the importance of that. So why not do it every leadership meeting? As a leader, why not every leadership meeting ask people what they're really grateful for and ask them to share gratitude with each other?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, why not? Yeah, I think that's got to be far more important. You come back to what you said, right? We could talk about the formal programs and all that good stuff, or you could just do this, which is much more personal, much more meaningful. Interestingly, in that situation with a colleague I talked about, he said, Um, should should we have a uh a weekly that we do this every week? And I went, Yeah, but we don't want it to be artificial. We don't want to be going finding things to say thank you for if we don't think they exist. So, again, guys, this has got to come from your heart, right? Uh, we've talked about things on here a number of times, like giving feedback and so on. If it comes from a good place, you will execute it excellently. You will do that, right? Yeah, don't overplan it. Think about it personally, and think about how you'd like to have somebody do that to you as well, right?
SPEAKER_00:And I bet, you know, that that you you could sit down every day and for a minute think of three things you're grateful for personally in your work in your personal life, whatever, and then spend two minutes just dropping off the odd message to people to say thank you with without it appearing like oh, he's in his two minutes thankful mode at the moment. Because, you know, for instance, how often do we say thank you to our customers? Yeah, you know, how often do you, you know, your key contact in a customer, how often do you say, you know, I just want to say thanks for being a great customer? I just want to say thanks for supporting us as a business. I just want to say thanks for the work I get to do with you, which I really enjoy.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. How often do we do that? So, you know, this has been an interesting session, right? And I'd really like to hear from our audience what they think and does it add value for them and do they see value in this, right? You know, we come to you and we talk to you about having a vision, having a strategy, good communication. Do you set good objectives for your team? How do you give them feedback? All of those are very content-driven, hard elements, right? This is a bit more softer than that, but it really is about being a good, authentic leader, right? So, really want to hear from you guys and what you think. And does it add value? And give us examples. Give us some thought back to the rest of the people watching this on how they might be able to apply something that you've done. Neil's given examples on how he's applied it within teams that he's worked with, but but tell us other things you've done. We've got lots of examples we more we could talk about here, right? But but I don't know we're going to add any more value to the conversation.
SPEAKER_00:No, I think that's a fair point, right? I mean, we could we could go over this and over this again. So, you know, if you want to if you want to increase motivation in your team, if you want to increase retention in your team, if you want to improve productivity, you know, we're all about clues of great leadership. Here's a clue for you. Say thank you. Fantastic.
SPEAKER_02:Good to talk to you, Neil. All about it.
SPEAKER_00:Thanks, toys. No, thank you for being a great buddy on the podcast. Uh, I you know, thoroughly enjoy these conversations. And and also big thank you to our listeners, of course, as well.
SPEAKER_02:No, it's an interesting point, actually, because you and I talked about this when we talked about our our one-year anniversary, our 50th episode anniversary, right? And I feel the same, right? Don't underestimate, guys, the value of friendship and uh and colleagues around you, right? Uh so Neil, good to talk to you, buddy. Yeah, soon. Cheers, speak to you soon. Take care.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you for listening to the Leadership Detectives with Neil Thubron and Albert Joseph. Please remember to subscribe, give us your comments and your feedback. Please also visit leadershipdetectives.com for all the episodes and more resources and support.