Last year I was inspired by this woman to find out more about the campaign from MADwoman creator Melina Schamrotha. For those of you who receive my weekly email, you may recall this time last year hearing about why an attitude and demonstrations of gratitude are important to me. Last year I made a list of people I was grateful to for all sorts of reasons and sent them a postcard thanking them and telling them why I was grateful to have them in my life.  I got a bit behind and some of those cards didn't arrive till after April (heh, human being, no Jedi).  It was a lovely process and boosted my awareness of the number of amazing people in my life and what specifically they do for me. 

So here we are again in April and I want to challenge you to take part in this year’s campaign in whatever way works for you. I have a few minutes of your precious time to convince you why you should! 

Start here with a short video on the benefits of gratitude

There appears is no downside to gratitude:-

[From an Unstuck Blog post that is no longer available for me to link to]

"When put into practice, gratitude creates a virtuous circle. It fosters contentment, joy, respect, and connection to our world and the people in it."

Do we not need this more than ever at work right now - joy, respect and connection? 

The Unstuck article continues:-

"Gratitude makes us feel good inside. And when we share it, other people feel good inside. And you know what happens then: The feel-good-insiders send their goodwill to more people, who in turn start feeling good inside. Good feelings boomerang everywhere.

Now if that sounds too absurdly optimistic, consider this: Free-flowing gratitude can help you get unstuck. “Feeling good lubricates mental efficiency, making people better at understanding information and using decision rules in complex judgments,” writes psychologist Daniel Goleman in his book Primal Leadership. Translation: It makes you smarter."

Convinced yet?

Gratitude can make you a better leader and is part of what it means for a leader to affirm what others do. So not only is gratitude a great way to build your resilience and your ability to find solutions - it is a crucial part of your role as a leader. Demonstrating gratitude for your team, building their worth, strength, and their resilience and ability to successfully manage the challenges they will be facing every day.