Appreciation

How much do you tell your players you appreciate them? Perhaps the most powerful leadership approach you can take with your players is to be a fan. It’s one of the keys to motivation. Too often as coaches we think our job is to teach, demand, yell, scold and correct. We fall into a trap where we don’t appreciate the good things we see every day, because we take them for granted. We come to expect them.

To get the most out of your players, they need to know that they are appreciated - and they need to hear it from you.

From Admired Leaders on appreciation:

Here’s a surprising fact that many leaders don’t understand: If people aren’t told or shown that they are appreciated and valued, they will presume the opposite. 

This is true even for top performers who receive the highest compensation and enjoy the most influence on the team. Unless a leader explicitly tells people they are appreciated, over time they will come to feel undervalued and taken for granted. 

To many leaders, this doesn’t make any sense. Team members, who are highly rewarded, included, and treated specially shouldn’t require the leader to say it out loud, right? Showing is more powerful than telling, or so we have been taught. So why would self-secure, mature, and clearly effective team members need the leader to confirm their value through simple expressions of appreciation? 

The answer is strikingly simple. 

In a world of profound uncertainty, overt ambiguity, competitive jealousy, and constant change, people seek validation. Everyone wants to know where they stand, especially in the eyes of those they respect and who have the authority and social position to validate them. 

They desperately want to know that the leader appreciates who they are, what they do, and how they contribute to the team’s success. An appreciative leader confirms exactly what team members desire most—a stamp that acknowledges how important they are.