November 25, 2025

“We must find time to stop and thank the people who make a difference in our lives.”

John F.Kennedy

Happy Thanksgiving.

I know it is early. Youing.

I know it is early. You didn’t lose any time to cooking, shopping, or planning. In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I want to offer two things.

One, my sincere gratitude to all of you who are faithful subscribers and followers. I appreciate your following and comments.

Two, I am going to follow the advice of an early mentor, Zig Ziglar, who often said, “Professionals don’t need to be lectured to; they do appreciate a reminder. “In that spirit, this article will feature combinations of past published Leadership Insights Thanksgiving Day articles.

Three, this week’s edition is coming out early. My prayer for you is that you will have extra time to relax and connect with those you love on Thursday.

This Thursday’s leadership insight will define gratitude and provide a historical perspective on how and when Thanksgiving became a National Holiday of Gratitude. Finally, I will offer you all a Thanksgiving Day gratitude activity from Mrs. Laura Maxwell to set the tone of gratitude, a rubric from a fellow Maxwell Leadership colleague, Denise Miller, on G.R.A.T.E.F.U.L., and a bonus, easy-to-use activity I use daily.

Thanksgiving is not about the parade, the football games, or even the food. Thanksgiving is all about a perspective of gratitude. This perspective of gratitude can be described as an identity of gratitude that becomes a habit and a story in one’s leadership journey. Exceptional leaders understand that gratitude is a crucial element of their leadership story. President John Kennedy understood the power of gratitude, saying, “We must find time to stop and thank the people who make a difference in our lives.”

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines gratitude as a noun that describes “The Practice of Thankfulness”. Gratitude is a prevalent word in our vernacular, ranking among the top 1% of words used. Gratitude is more than a noun; it is a verb: being thankful and the practice of expressing that.

President John F Kennedy often said, “As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them. “Gratitude is a fundamental part of leadership practice that can be developed and practiced daily. The leader’s intentional practice of gratitude starts with the leader’s choice. As John Maxwell says, “an attitude of gratitude.”

Gratitude, at its core, is the practice of recognizing and appreciating the good things in life, both big and small. It’s about acknowledging the value of what we have received from others and the contributions they have made to our well-being. As we approach Thanksgiving, a holiday centered around gratitude, it’s worth exploring how this powerful concept can transform our personal lives and professional leadership.

This is especially important today as we are experiencing a gratitude gap. Leadership expert John Maxwell calls gratitude the most essential and least expressed virtue of leadership. Gratitude and the practice of expressing gratitude are missing pieces in many leaders’ practices. This is especially important today, as we are experiencing a gratitude gap.

According to a January 17, 2024, Center for Creative Leadership blog, How to Show More Gratitude at Work: Giving Thanks Makes You a Better Leader, the authors write, “One study found that while about half of people regularly say thank you to their family members, only about 15% of people regularly say thank you at work. The same study found that 35% of people say their managers never thanked them. Compared to other contexts, this muted expression of gratitude in the workplace is often referred to as the “gratitude gap.”

A Glassdoor survey found that 80% of employees would be willing to work harder for an appreciative boss. In a study conducted at a fundraising center, calls were boosted by 50% after a director thanked employees for their work. Research has even found that employees who intentionally practiced gratitude took fewer sick days. According to researchers, gratitude is powerful because it’s a complex social emotion. In other words, it’s an emotion that makes us think about others. We can’t be grateful that someone went out of their way to help us unless we stop and think about the situation from the other person’s perspective. It’s little wonder that gratitude is also linked to oxytocin, the hormone associated with social bonding.

How can we, as people and in our leadership, close the gratitude gap? First, some history for perspective.

The story of Thanksgiving clearly shows how leaders acted with gratitude in challenging, dire times. a National Constitution Center blog entitled Who Started Thanksgiving and Other Holiday Trivia! November 23, 2016, The real story has followed this timeline.

The national holiday did not begin with the Pilgrims. There was no nation then, as the pilgrims were English citizens of an English possession.

. In 1777, the Continental Congress declared the first national day of Thanksgiving following the American victory at Saratoga. The Battle of Saratoga was a great victory. The Revolutionary War was still in progress, and the outcome was still uncertain.

George Washington became the first president to proclaim a Thanksgiving holiday when, in 1789, he set aside November 26, a Tuesday, as a day of Thanksgiving for the adoption of the U.S. Constitution. Our future was uncertain as many foreign parties, especially France and England, waited for our downfall during his presidency. There, however, was no recurring national day of Thanksgiving. Jefferson didn’t want to observe it, as he felt it might create a national religion.

Thanksgiving became a national holiday celebrated on the last Thursday of November in 1863 due to the persistence of Sarah Joseph Hale’s campaign for a Thanksgiving holiday and President Abraham Lincoln’s attitude of gratitude. Abraham Lincoln created a national day of Thanksgiving by executive order, issuing Presidential Proclamation #106 on October 3, 1863. This might have seemed a bit ironic. He was leading a divided country during a protracted civil war, threatened by foreign powers, and was painfully preparing a speech for November 19, 1863. The Gettysburg Address was a speech to commemorate the Federal cemetery for Union troops killed in the three-day battle. The battle had left 51,112 casualties on both sides combined.

( 38% of the Confederate forces and 25% of Union forces were casualties). He had challenging things on his mind. The Civil War was still raging, and 504 Union and Confederate soldiers were dying on average every day. There was still concern about foreign intervention, and the outcome remained doubtful. He also saw a need for a time of Thanksgiving to express thankfulness for many other things, focus Americans on gratitude, and cast a vision of a better future. The full text of Presidential Proclamation #.106 is below. It is an exceptional example of a leader modeling gratitude, sharing the realities of the challenge and the blessings for the future with those he led and served.

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Proclamation 106 By the President of the United States, A. Lincoln, creating Thanksgiving as a National Holiday

“The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature that they cannot fail to penetrate and even soften the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever-watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign states to invite and provoke their aggressions, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere, except in the theater of military conflict. At the same time, the advancing armies and navies of the Union have greatly contracted that theater. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plow, the shuttle, or the ship; the ax has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well as iron and coal, as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege, and the battlefield, and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with significant increase of freedom. No human counsel hath devised, nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American people. I do, therefore, invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a Day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens. And I recommend to them that, while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty hand to heal the wounds of the nation, and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility, and Union.

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the city of Washington, this third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-eighth. Abraham Lincoln, By the President: William H. Seward. Secretary of State

The final president to be part of the evolving Thanksgiving story was Franklin D. Roosevelt, who firmly believed in gratitude and Thanksgiving but, in 1939, thought the last Thursday was too close to Christmas. He proclaimed Thanksgiving on the third Thursday in November to spur spending in a sagging economy. This was a very unpopular move. Many states and communities would not recognize the change for the next two years. On November 26, 1941, he acknowledged defeat, agreeing to a joint resolution of Congress that specified the fourth Thursday in November as Thanksgiving Day.

Interestingly, people stuck to believing in a “traditional” Thanksgiving date despite

a worldwide economic, political, and military crisis. Twelve days later, on December 7, 1941, the U.S. Naval Base at Pearl Harbor and other bases in the Pacific were attacked by Japan. Roosevelt’s following Joint Resolution of Congress would declare war on Japan on December 8, 1941, and on Germany and Italy on December 11, 1941. World War II had come to the United States.

Thanksgiving was celebrated throughout these challenging times, which lasted until Allied victory in 1945. This traditional Thanksgiving has remained in place even in 1963, when John F Kennedy was assassinated the week before. In my opinion, he would have favored that, as gratitude was essential to him. He often said, “We must find time to stop and thank the people who make a difference in our lives.”

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Kennedy’s thoughts give guidance to closing the gratitude gap. First, stop and think, then express and act in gratitude.

A lesson in sharing and expressing gratitude on Thanksgiving comes from Mrs. Laura Maxwell, the mother of leadership expert John Maxwell. Mrs.Maxwell used a thinkfulness to thankfulness Thanksgiving day pre-dinner activity. This is an activity any family can follow:

1. Have all your guests bring a list of all they are thankful for to dinner, and ask all to share their list.
2. The next question is how you can express gratitude to those who aren’t present. Remember that gratitude is a gift few hear often because it isn’t often spoken about.

A guide for practicing gratitude in life comes from my esteemed colleague in Maxwell Leadership, Denise Miller. Denise is the principal consultant of DLM Strategies http://www.dlmstrategiesltd.com/. She shared a practice she uses with friends to encourage a daily habit of gratitude, using the G.R.A.T.E.F.U.L. acronym.

G. Generous Giving: Share resources, time, and knowledge freely with your team.

R. Realistic Yet optimistic: Maintain a positive outlook while acknowledging challenges.

A. Adaptive Learning: Be genuine in gratitude and adapt your approach to each individual. Strive to be a learner and teacher

T.Tenacity: Persist in showing appreciation, even when faced with difficulties.

E. Ethical Eager and Engagement: Interact with your team in a moral and principled manner.

F. Faith and Focus: Believe in your team’s potential and focus on shared goals.

U. Uplifting Others: Use your position to elevate and support your team members.

L. Leadership-driven: Continuously develop yourself and others as a leader, recognizing that personal growth benefits the entire team.

By embracing these principles, leaders can create a culture of gratitude that permeates their organization, leading to happier, more productive teams and a more fulfilling leadership experience.

Practicing gratitude daily will take time. Consider the example of Doug Conant, who is credited with turning around Campbell Soup. During his tenure at Campbell Soup, Doug Conant wrote his employees an impressive 30,000 handwritten thank-you notes.

This practice and other initiatives have been credited with creating a culture of gratitude and turning around a struggling company. Conant’s approach shows how a simple act of personal appreciation can profoundly affect organizational culture.

Bonus Gratitude lesson

The daily habit of small acts of gratitude will close the gratitude gap.

Here is an easy 2-step activity I use on a daily basis

1. List the people you are grateful for in your life and leadership.
2. Reach out to one or two of these people to say thank you and provide a specific example.

This is a powerful, easy practice for sharing gratitude.

Today, as I wrote this article, I experienced the power of this practice firsthand. One of my first hires, a gifted, delightful, solid learner and leader with a student-centered attitude, as a High School Director of Special Services, sent me a Facebook message today. She wrote to say hi and talk about her 21 years in the same position. “I wish you well with your recovery ( A spinal decompression), but also to make sure that you know how grateful I am to have had you as my true, impactful boss. Thank you”.

I am still teary-eyed rereading this note from a person who added value to my leadership, hired in 2004. I can honestly tell you how much this touched my heart. It also reminded me that I can do better in expressing gratitude.

Who can you reach out to say thank you?

Today’s leadership questions for you are:

1. What would living, working, and leading in a grateful world be like?
2. Who will you choose to think, act, and interact with in gratitude?
3. Will you choose to use one of the practices this upcoming Thanksgiving weekend and beyond?

Happy Thanksgiving All