Acknowledgement and appreciation; a powerful leadership practice

Imagine my delight when I received the wonderful card below in the mail from Kalyan Voruganti about ‘The Gentle Art of Leadership,’ the new book co-authored by Dean Phelan and myself. It makes it all worthwhile to receive such lovely acknowledgement and appreciation.

Acknowledgement and appreciation is a powerful leadership practice which we talk about in the book. One of our 50+ interviewees, Douglas Conant, wrote 30,000 letters of appreciation to employees over his nine years as CEO of Campbell Soup company. It made a big difference to employees to receive a handwritten note from the global CEO thanking them for something specific they did to help the company. Doug’s personal recognition boosted employee morale everywhere in the company.

Doug’s simple philosophy is, ‘If you want to win in the marketplace, you must first win in the workplace.’ This people-first approach turned the business from struggling to highly successful. They started out at the very bottom of the Fortune 500 companies on employee engagement, but a decade later, Campbell Soup Company led the field.

If you’re interested to know more, you can read about Doug’s example in the book.

It’s out now and available on your favourite digital platform—just click the links below.

🌟 Join the Movement! Order The Gentle Art of Leadership today and be part of a shift toward gentler, more impactful leadership.

🙋‍♀️ What is your experience of the power of acknowledgement and appreciation? 🙋

Best regards, Brian