The Leadership Lesson We Learn Too Late About Gratitude and Workplace Culture
Editor’s Note: This thought leadership piece explores how gratitude, recognition and presence shape effective leadership and workplace culture, especially as the holidays invite reflection on what and who truly matters.
There’s a leadership lesson most of us don’t learn from books, panels or performance reviews. We learn it through loss.
Only when someone is no longer there do we fully understand the impact they had. A colleague who quietly held a team together. A mentor who believed in us before we believed in ourselves. A partner who brought stability, trust or perspective to the work. Too often, it’s absence that reveals value.
This pattern shows up in our personal lives, but it’s just as prevalent in the workplace. And for leaders, communicators and culture shapers, it’s a lesson we should confront head-on.
I learned this lesson after losing my first wife, Angela, who bravely battled breast cancer. It wasn’t until the aftermath of that loss that I fully grasped how integral she was to my life. That realization was painful, but it was also clarifying. It showed me how easily we assume time is abundant, and how rarely we pause to fully acknowledge what, and who, is sustaining us in the present.
That same dynamic plays out daily inside organizations.
Leaders often don’t recognize the depth of someone’s contribution until that person leaves, retires or burns out. Exit interviews become moments of regret. Tributes arrive after departures. Appreciation comes wrapped in hindsight.
But gratitude expressed too late doesn’t build culture. It mourns it.
Strong leadership isn’t just about strategy, vision or performance metrics. It’s about recognition. About noticing. About making people feel seen while they are still in the room.
For communications leaders in particular, this matters deeply. We are in the business of meaning-making. We shape narratives, reinforce values and influence how organizations show up for their people. Yet even in communications-driven cultures, appreciation can become performative, infrequent or reactive.
The holiday season has a way of slowing us down just enough to notice this. As calendars thin out and teams reflect on the year behind them, many leaders realize there were people who carried more than their share, often quietly. The holidays invite gratitude, but too often it’s expressed only in broad messages or year-end notes rather than in personal, specific ways that truly resonate.
Why does this happen?
Because recognition is often treated as a milestone rather than a muscle. Because business crowds out presence. Because many leaders assume people already know they are valued.
They don’t. And silence fills the gaps.
When gratitude is absent, cultures fray quietly. Engagement drops. Loyalty weakens. Institutional knowledge walks out the door. What’s lost isn’t just talent. It’s trust.
The most effective leaders understand that appreciation isn’t a soft skill. It’s a leadership discipline. It shows up in small, consistent ways: acknowledging effort in real time, giving credit publicly, expressing thanks privately and often. It’s embedded in how leaders listen, respond and follow through.
The holidays offer a rare leadership opportunity. Not just to say thank you, but to say it meaningfully. To reflect on who showed up when things were hard. To acknowledge the people who made progress possible. To model gratitude in ways that carry into the new year.
This isn’t about grand gestures or polished messaging. It’s about sincerity and timing.
Loss teaches us that timing is everything.
The time to value people is not during a farewell speech, a retirement post or an obituary-style LinkedIn tribute. The time is now, while the work is being done, while relationships are active, while words can still land where they matter most.
As the year closes and the holidays invite reflection, leaders would do well to pause and ask a simple question: who needs to hear “thank you” from me now?
Say the words now.
Recognize the people now.
Build the culture now.
Because the most powerful leadership messages aren’t the ones we deliver after someone is gone. They’re the ones we choose to share while people are still here to hear them.
