#35: Grateful Leadership: The Evidence-Based Strategy That Builds Stronger Teams

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Eric:  Welcome to the Empower Podcast. I'm your host, Eric Pfeiffer, CEO of Empower. Coaching leadership isn't about titles or positions. It's actually about the influence and impact we have on our environments. This is where we get to learn how to operate well under pressure, lead with confidence, and drive meaningful results.

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You know, it's funny, we talk about gratitude, like it's the cherry on top. After all the real work has been done, it's the thank you email, the quick good job. The pause before the holidays to say, team, what a year. Gratitude isn't the cherry on top. It's the substantive work that we often miss.  Gratitude isn't soft, right?

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Dawn: Whew. Yeah. And what I love about the way you framed that is gratitude isn't just about being positive, and a lot of times we find leaders, Eric,  who kind of look at some of these at. Softer skills, these people skills, these emotional intelligent skills as like, oh, it's just, you're just skating over all of the hard stuff.

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Right? Mm-hmm. Instead, think of it as a  verb, an action, a discipline, a practice that has the ability to increase our leadership capacity. Ooh. Yeah. Right? So most leaders are running at a pace that doesn't allow space. For gratitude. We're always scanning for the gaps. What's missing the problems? Because that's what leadership often rewards.

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We have what it takes to be able to continue pushing through and no, I'm not talking about toxic positivity. Right, because I think that's where some people's minds go. Don't now, you just wanna avoid, and like you said, just kind of, you know, glance over all  the problems we're facing. Not at all, not at all.

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By our example. Yeah. To operate from fear instead of optimism or a hope in the future. We accidentally  build cultures that are allergic to appreciation where excellence gets normalized. Right. Like that's just the standard. And if you do it fine, but it's never celebrated.

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And what happens is, like, I was working with a team recently. They were hitting insane goals and they were doing it over and over again. And I asked the team, well, how do you celebrate these wins? And the response basically was, oh, we don't, we just move on to the next goal. And  this is so common, especially among high achievers, that as soon as we get close to that goal line, soon as we're about to be able to celebrate a win.

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Eric: So. Let me, let me position gratitude this way. What if we thought of it as the antidote to that kind of emptiness? Mm-hmm. Right? And and obviously we're gonna unpack that more deeply here in just a moment, I think, because gratitude recenters everyone back toward a sense of purpose. Why the work matters that we're doing, not just the work that we're actually  producing.

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We're not trying to elevate, you know, gratitude and celebration over and against, you know, paying attention to what's not working, the real challenges that we're facing. It's, it's more about learning to hold both together and to  say, you know, we talk about when, when it comes to self-awareness, we talk about the practice of honesty.

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Perspective that allowed him to escape eventually and make it to safety. But a lot of it had to do with his ability to hold these two realities intention. So at Empower Coaching. We talk a lot about emotional  intelligence and trust, and I think gratitude sits right there at the intersection of these two.

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It's about believing in a better version of them and calling out, right? That better version in them rather than the opposite, which is focusing on where they're insufficient or they're inadequate, where they drop the ball, where they failed,  right? Yep. When you intentionally recognize the good in others, not just performatively, but also at a personal level, you're creating a culture where others feel seen, heard.

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Not one of those motivational  speeches was focused on the inadequacies, failures and insufficiencies of that individual or team, right? It was, it was always a calling out. We can do this. We have what it takes to overcome and to succeed. We're not saying, again, we're not saying to ignore what's not working, but rather to operate from an abundance perspective, a, a clear recognition.

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It actually raises the bar because when people feel valued, when we feel seen as team members, when we sense that belief from our  leaders. It calls us to achieve a higher standard, and we start to take ownership in the projects and the vision and the direction that we're going as a team. Everybody wants to protect what's healthy.

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Eric: a hundred percent, right? So we all know this, like when our kids are small. Negative reinforcement drives discouragement, frustration, and more failure. Hmm. It might get a temporary result, but it drives long-term  distrust.

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Dawn: Yeah, that's  exactly right. The other thing that I think gratitude and grateful leadership does is as leaders, it helps us keep our people centered in the middle of the hustle, right?

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I'm really grateful that early on in, in K's in my marriage, we've been married now. Years. Mm-hmm. Early on in our marriage we, we benefited from an older couple who took an interest in us and kind of became our marriage mentors. Right. And they.  Like really, really emphasized the importance of expressing gratitude, appreciation, and affirmation.

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Yep. Where I'm not, I'm not as good as I wanna be at that yet, which is a self admittance of. Failure, insufficiency. Inadequacy, right? And so they said, you have no chance at living a life in persevering through those growth opportunities. If you cannot create a culture, an atmosphere where the air you are breathing is more fueled by gratitude,  appreciation, and, and affirmation than by the opposite.

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Mm-hmm. And what is the quality of the air? Our teams and our, even our organizations are breathing? Is it toxic? Or is it healthy? Yeah. Right. So with that said, they  challenged us early on to take on particular practices, rhythms, disciplines, what we call predictable patterns of gratitude and appreciation and affirmation.

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I thought we were here to solve problems. I thought we were here to talk about what's not working. Okay. So they, they, they celebrate and they'll share their celebrations and you can  feel. The literally the, the, the atmosphere, the temperature, the, the vibe of that space begin to change as they share celebrations.

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Exercises because they can feel the incredible change internally and even in the team as they take time to celebrate, appreciate and affirm what's  going on in their workplace. Another example is at a very early age, I've talked often on this podcast about the discipline of journaling, and oftentimes in my journaling process, I will take just a day to say, Hey, what am I celebrating right now?

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Play off of something I said, okay, hold on. Go, go, go,  go. Another, another discipline, and, and by the way, for our listeners, just take any one of these, throw them into your, your routine of life and watch how this transforms you and the people around you. Yeah. So growing, growing up, when our, as our kids were smaller, we would have a regular rhythm at dinner and to say, Hey, we're gonna go around the table and share, Hey, what's, what's Juan's celebration from your day?

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'cause very quickly they move to the back. And then one last one is. My wife and I a couple years ago, went through some very intensive marriage counseling. You know, we were kind of at a new crossroads, having to learn some new things and to grow in our marriage. And one, one of the disciplines or rhythms that our, our counselor encouraged you was, Hey, every single day, Monday through  Friday, I wanna encourage you to share a voice message with each other, right?

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The navigation of the real challenges we're facing, the difficult conversations that we have to have so much easier to tackle because I am constantly being reminded. My wife has a positive view of me. My wife appreciates me, my wife values me, and vice versa. Yeah, I know she has expressed many a times that she  experiences the same.

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Hmm. Both you and I have. Over our lives experienced varieties of different leadership  varieties of different team cultures, and we find ourselves on this empower team fighting for common goals. And those we're fighting for big things. Yeah. Like we are in the midst of building big things for this company.

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Plainly review them and are like, did we meet these goals or not? You know? And that can be a super vulnerable space to be, to be like, man, we didn't reach this goal. And I, and I would say probably a quarter of the time, at least our team doesn't fully reach the goals that we've  set, right? And to have to sit and have those conversations about why didn't we reach these goals?

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Yeah. You know what I mean? Feeling like, man, I don't, I don't measure up man. I didn't make it, man. There's one another goal that I fell short on in, in some way, but what tempers that potential threat of feeling like failures or, or owning our own  failings. Right. Holding those intention, as you said, is that you are very good at practicing gratitude for our team.

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And it means so much to me that you guys are committed to this vision. Like that is a regular. Weekly rhythm that you have built in to our team. And what that does is it means that I, as a team member, can sustain falling short. I can sustain  setting big goals that I might not reach because the gratitude tells me that failure doesn't define who I am.

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Eric: You know? You know what's interesting is I often at this stage of my life, get  told by people I spend time around. These are clients, people on the golf course, family, friends, whoever. Oh, Eric, you're just Mr.

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Um, I also remember at a young age, I thought,  well, if I affirm this person in this area, then I'm condoning where I'm covering up, where they're struggling in another area, right? Which is not true. No, which is not true. As a matter of fact, what you realize is that this affirmation in this other area fuels their willingness Yeah.

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It was the best contact and the best swing he had made that day. Mm-hmm. I immediately said, bro, that was such a good swing. He goes, but it went into the bushes and that's, I, I said, Hey man, I, I get that. I appreciate the result. Wasn't ideal. I said, but I'm just letting you know that was, that was the best  swing you've made to that contact was pure.

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Hey, great chip. Even if it wasn't exactly what they were trying to achieve, and I'm not, I'm not blowing smoke. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm offering authentic, genuine. Affirmations. Mm-hmm. Right. Or gratitude like, Hey man, thanks for grabbing me, grabbing me a water. Hey, I really appreciate,  you know, you just, you know, giving me your extra towel.

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Dawn: That's right. Well, and, and let me say, let me add this. Okay. You, you, I would never describe you as like Mr. Positivity, and that's not because you're not positive, but it's because  you do have high standards and you offer very direct feedback to the, like, where some people might not feel comfortable with it, right?

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That's, that feels  very encouraging to me because I wasn't always that way. So, but I've grown. Great. Okay, so I know we've only got a few minutes left in this session, so let, let's jump into some practical application. So for everyone listening, here's a simple way to start practicing grateful leadership this week.

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Dawn: Yeah.

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You, it can be something as simple as starting a team meeting with a quick gratitude check-in. Or ending your week by writing one thank you note, sending one voice message to somebody in your life that says, Hey, thank you so much for what this  X, Y, and Z that happened recently. It really meant a lot.

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It's like a deep dive, a quick overview into several of these tools that will help you transform your life in leadership,  quite frankly. Yeah, yeah. You can always go back and listen to the first episodes of this podcast. It's where we also talk through and lay out the tools in our leadership operating system and also.

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Eric: Love it. Listen guys, gratitude changes what you see and what you see shapes how you lead. When you practice grateful leadership, you stop reacting to pressure and start responding from presence, and that's how trust grows. That's how cultures sustain, and that's that leaders like us stay grounded  as you head into the holidays.

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Visit our website@mpwcoaching.com and follow us on socials for daily leadership insights. And remember, be the leader you wanna  follow. See you next time.