Give thanks — and be a better leader

A version of this article originally appeared in Quartz’s Leadership newsletter. Sign up here to get the latest leadership news and insights straight to your inbox.

A social science and pop culture movement around happiness occurred about 20 years ago, as the “positive psychology” field emerged and Harvard kicked off its Happiness 101 course.

It gained momentum with a surge in related books, university courses on happiness and well-being, cultural products, media coverage, and overall increased public interest in using “happiness” as a metric for life satisfaction. This annoyed the Ebenezer Scrooge types, who no doubt found relief as internet s—t-talking and the spreading of misinformation steadily increased with the proliferation of smartphones — especially in the United States, where our reported happiness levels are the lowest since the University of Oxford began publishing its annual World Happiness Report.

Maybe a simple way to say it is that human motivation primarily boils down to everyone wanting to increase the duration and intensity of feeling good, and decrease the duration and intensity of feeling bad. That’s life in a nutshell.

And all that is to say that as Thanksgiving approaches, gratitude — mindful, intentional thankfulness — is a prerequisite to happiness and well-being.

Gratitude doesn’t affect only happiness. In the workplace, it affects performance, where the more precise idea is whether employees feel appreciated by their managers and employers.

• Recognition in the workplace is a strong predictor of employee satisfaction and retention.
• Recognition also correlates with positive business outcomes.
• Gratitude increases prosocial behavior such as cooperation, sharing, helping others, and more.

How appreciation works in the brain

Dopamine and oxytocin are often referred to as “happy chemicals” (along with serotonin and endorphins). These are the neurotransmitters and hormones that fire in our brains to produce feelings of pleasure, reward, motivation, social bonding, and happiness.

Activities such as exercise, social bonding, and small rewards like being recognized for doing a good job at work can boost these chemicals within a person.

So when one of your employees feels appreciated by you, their brain and body celebrate via these happy chemicals, which tend to result in people feeling more motivated, wanting to help more, and feeling a sense of belonging to their work team. This helps explain why demonstrations of appreciation correlate with better teamwork, better business outcomes, and people staying in their jobs longer.

Concurrently, there’s a threat-reduction component, as humans are quick to protect themselves when feeling judged or ignored. Appreciation turns that upside down in the best way, and signals: You’re safe here. Your efforts matter. This is the foundation of psychological safety, a term coined by Harvard Business School’s Amy Edmondson, which turns out to be the best predictor of high-performing work teams.

Finally, appreciation teaches the brain what to repeat, because our brains pay attention to rewards. When leaders give specific, timely praise (not lazy, generic praise), it sends a clear signal to the person who did a great job: Do more of that.

Almost half of U.S. workers say their boss doesn’t fully understand what they contribute. That’s according to the 2025 “Workplace Perception Gap $GPS Survey” by the software and analytics provider The Predictive Index.

The consequence is that workers tend to feel undervalued. Maybe they’re not recognized for their contributions, or they feel as if they’re passed over for promotions on account of superiors not understanding the value a particular person might provide, which is more common when there’s role ambiguity.

“I have definitely witnessed how frustrating it can be when employees believe that their efforts are not appreciated,” said Anthony Bowers, the founder of LMI Waiver, a Sydney-based company helping Australians secure home loans without having to pay Lenders Mortgage Insurance. “When I was younger, I had an experience of working in a setting where the management had a hard time appreciating non-revenue-generating positions. This usually caused frustration among employees who were performing important tasks but were unrecognized during the performance appraisals or reviews.”

It’s easy for employees’ contributions to go unnoticed if there aren’t regular interactions with managers, said Katie Parrish, vice president of content at SkillPath, a nonprofit organization that focuses on professional development for both organizations and individuals.

“This is what you get when you cut out middle managers,” said Wynter Johnson, founder and CEO of Caily, an organization and tool that helps people navigate the challenges of care for sick or elderly loved ones.

“[Middle managers] tend to get a lot of hate from employees, on the one hand, who see them as intrusive micromanagers; and C-suite leaders on the other, who see them as a waste of money especially in the age of data and AI tools,” Johnson said. “The simple truth is that these are the people who should actually be evaluating, motivating, and critiquing employee performance. Good high-level leaders are rightly focused on the bottom line and broader metrics than the individual performance of every employee, but the people who actually manage people are largely missing from today’s org charts.”

So, managers and workers, we see you and appreciate you this fine Thanksgiving week. Wishing all of you a safe and happy holiday,