“Leaders who intentionally practice gratitude create strong cultures, deeper connections, and more resilient teams.” – Randy Smith

Welcome to episode 223 of The CUInsight Experience podcast with your hosts, Randy Smith, co-founder of CUInsight.com, and Jill Nowacki, President and CEO of Humanidei.

This episode is sponsored by The Sheeter Group - a leading executive benefits firm that meets your retention and succession needs. This includes non-qualified benefit plans, short and long-term incentive plans, compensation studies, scorecard design, performance evaluation, and more. Learn more at sheetergroup.com.

In this season, Jill and I will have conversations centered around leadership, credit unions, and living our best lives. We will have some of the most respected leaders from around credit unions who we are grateful to call friends join us in the discussion from time to time too.

For this episode, we are discussing the power of gratitude. Gratitude is a powerful leadership strategy that can have a huge impact on company culture, employee engagement, and team resilience, and we explore why gratitude matters so much for leaders as well as how to effectively foster it.

Gratitude tends to fuel positive culture, strengthen relationships, and encourage people to bring their best selves to work. When challenges come up, gratitude helps teams bounce back better by making people feel seen, valued, and appreciated for their contributions, and it also builds trust and a sense of meaning, showing employees that they are not just "cogs in the wheel" but part of something more important.

Expressing gratitude should be tied to specific impacts and outcomes, not just broad acknowledgments, and we caution against waiting for big events or milestones to show appreciation. We talk about some of the common barriers that prevent leaders from practicing gratitude more consistently, such as feeling like you are too busy or feeling worried that it will make the team complacent. We recommend building gratitude into daily routines and rituals such as starting meetings with a round of appreciation or having a weekly "gratitude moment" on team chats!

We share some personal stories of how gratitude has shaped our own leadership journeys, helping us stay grounded and focused on what really matters in the end. Leaders at the top may receive less day-to-day gratitude, making it even more important for them to model the behavior. Gratitude is a simple but profound leadership practice. When used intentionally, it can transform company culture, deepen connections, and empower teams to achieve truly remarkable things together! We hope that you enjoy our conversation!

Find the full show notes on cuinsight.com.
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