How to Lead Others with Appreciation and Recognition

Who are you responsible for leading?  Who are you responsible for investing in?  Who are you responsible for providing for?  Who are you responsible for elevating, encouraging, and driving towards the best version of themselves?  This could be in life, leadership, business, family, community, and other relationships. How are you leading them, encouraging them and elevating them?

All humans, at our core, have a deep need to be appreciated and recognized. Think of a time when you were truly appreciated and recognized. How did it make you feel? Many times, we as leaders can unfortunately get pulled into the weeds of daily tasks and demands of our attention, and we forget to make appreciation a part of our daily routine.  As you journey through life, leadership and business, I challenge you to look at the way you appreciate and recognize the people you are responsible to invest in and lead.

The previous three week’s blogs are lessons learned from our team’s recent Ultimate Immersion Experience that we took in Spain in March of 2022.

Check out the previous blogs if you have not already:

“Your Goals Should Scare You.”

“What is Preventing Your Leadership Growth?”

“How to Lead When Things Don’t Go As Planned.”

During our Ultimate Immersion Experience in Spain, we participated in adventures, challenges, and experiences that pushed us out of our comfort zone and ultimately grew us as a team and individually in our leadership.

One of the most memorable and impactful parts of the experience were our dinners.  At the end of each day, we would all gather for dinner and reflect on the events of the day.  We discussed our challenges, memorable experiences, and lessons learned, all while dining on some delicious Spanish cuisine.

During our dinner time, we were very intentional about sharing and showing our appreciation and recognition of each other for many of the leadership qualities and traits they presented throughout the day.  Things like bravery, vulnerability, adventure, encouragement, positivity, and flexibility.

As we circled around the dinner table, each person took a few minutes to go around the table and sincerely appreciate and recognize each of the team members present.  It was touching and inspiring to see how the recognition was given, as well how it was received.  Our group shared many smiles, laughs, tears and moments of joy and happiness as these moments and words were shared. These dinners became one of the most looked forward to and impactful parts of the Ultimate Immersion Experience.

Lesson learned here:  appreciation and recognition matter.  It must be part of your life, business, and leadership.

Here are several things to consider when it comes to leading others with appreciation:

  • Be intentional about creating a habit of appreciating others. Schedule time in your life and calendar to appreciate others.  Of course, many times appreciation will happen organically and without planning too.  The point here is that creating habits of consistent appreciation will wire you to make this a more consistent part of your day and routine.
  • Be sincere with your appreciation. Make sure you mean it! People will know if you don’t.
  • Consider if you are appreciating the person for who they are vs. what they do. If somebody does something for you and you tell them, “I appreciate that”, you are appreciating them for what they did, and this is a nice way to thank and appreciate them.  However, I have found that by stating “I appreciate you”, this considers that you appreciate them not only for what they did, but also for who they are.  To me, it always feels better when somebody appreciates me, not just what I did for them.
  • Consider your methods of appreciation. Appreciation can be communicated in a face-to-face conversation, a nice handwritten note, an email, a phone call, a text message, a hug, or a gift, just to name a few.
  • Consider how others in your life like to receive appreciation. I love to receive words of affirmation; these build me up greatly.  Others may prefer to receive love and appreciation by receiving a gift, or having quality time with you, which builds them up best.

Remember, a little appreciation goes a long way.

Challenging and encouraging you to incorporate more appreciation into your life, leadership and business.

Remember 3 things:

I love you.

I believe in you.

You’ve got this.

Now, go get it!

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