Five Psychological Essentials For Everyday Success
If you’re in leadership, you will be all-too familiar with this tension: How do you push for performance without burning people out, and how do you sustain culture when your team is under relentless pressure? The Thanksgiving holiday provides an unexpected answer (Yes, you south of the 49ths, we're talking about that already!).
If you strip away the food and traditions, Thanksgiving is about five dynamics that organizational psychology shows are essential to high-performing workplaces: gratitude, ritual, reflection, cycles of work and rest, and inclusive meaning-making. Each one solves a problem that leaders grapple with every day.
Let’s get into them, one by one.
Gratitude, for example, is not a nicety. It is a management tool. Research by Emmons and McCullough (2003) shows that gratitude strengthens resilience and cooperation. Grant and Gino (2010) found that employees who received gratitude from a supervisor became more willing to help colleagues.
Executives who practice gratitude strategically - not just at review time but in daily management - create a culture where people stay motivated and connected. If retention and engagement are concerns, this lever should not be overlooked.
Do this: At the end of your next executive team meeting, identify one contribution from several of your team members that advanced the organization’s goals and thank them for it in specific terms. Make it routine, not exceptional, make sure everyone gets addressed over the course of a month. Do not play to favourites.
2. Rituals solve another common leadership problem: culture drift. Just as Thanksgiving traditions reinforce belonging within families, organizational rituals create predictability and identity at work. Research by van den Bosch and Taris (2014) found that shared rituals increased employee identification with their organization, which in turn improved collaboration.
Leaders who anchor culture through consistent practices, like starting meetings with recognition or ending projects with reflection, make teams more stable in uncertain times. Without rituals, culture erodes.
Do this: Establish a consistent “closing ritual” at the end of projects, such as a 20-minute debrief that always includes lessons learned and recognition of effort. Keep it short and predictable so it becomes part of the culture - and stays meaningful.
3. Reflection addresses the problem of poor decision quality. Many organizations run from one project to the next without stopping to analyze what worked and what did not. Yet research by Di Stefano, Gino, Pisano, and Staats (2014) found that employees who engaged in daily reflection improved performance by 23 percent after ten days. Like Thanksgiving’s pause to look back and ahead, organizations need structured time to learn.
For executives, the takeaway is clear: build reflection into workflow, not as an afterthought but as part of operational design.
Do this: Block 30 minutes on your own calendar each Friday to write down what worked, what didn’t, and what you will do differently next week. Make that part of your “Win-List” for the upcoming week (I’ve talked about this elsewhere). Share one insight with your direct reports to model reflective practice.
4. Work-rest cycles solve the problem of burnout. Thanksgiving historically marked the end of harvest, where hard work was followed by rest. Workplaces that ignore this rhythm pay the price in turnover and disengagement. Sonnentag and Fritz (2007) demonstrated that recovery experiences - detachment, relaxation, mastery, and control - reduce burnout and sustain energy.
Executives who plan organizational “harvest cycles,” alternating intensity with renewal, get better long-term performance than those who demand constant output. If your team is exhausted, this is likely the missing lever.
Do this: After a major push (like a product launch or fiscal year close), deliberately schedule a lighter week of work that includes team-building, development sessions, or even just shorter meetings to let people recharge. Laughter works wonders. So does fresh air, colour, and movement.
5. Inclusivity in meaning-making solves the problem of exclusion. Thanksgiving is not a simple story; it carries different meanings depending on perspective. The same is true for organizational traditions. Ely and Thomas (2001) found that diverse teams perform better when differences are acknowledged rather than erased. Leaders who assume their culture is experienced uniformly risk alienating employees.
Do this: When introducing or reinforcing a company ritual (such as a quarterly town hall or recognition program), ask a diverse set of employees how it resonates with them and adapt based on feedback. Make sure it’s a “safe space” and they have the opportunity to give feedback in anonymous, written form if they prefer. This prevents exclusion and strengthens buy-in. What YOU think is positive and encouraging may NOT be for someone else (aka those dreaded office “pizza Fridays”!).
By making space for multiple interpretations of organizational rituals and values, leaders strengthen psychological safety and authenticity, which in turn drives performance. (And the best way to find out if you’re being inclusive is to ask and very rarely does this ever happen. God forbid you’d have to change something or get uncomfortable!)
For executives, these insights are not seasonal reflections. They are immediate, evidence-based tools for leadership.
Gratitude increases retention and cooperation. Rituals reinforce culture. Reflection improves decision-making. Work-rest cycles prevent burnout. Inclusivity strengthens trust. Each of these dynamics is grounded in organizational psychology and each one addresses a challenge that executives face right now.
For me, I am fully aware that without great support systems and key people that love me, wish me well, and respect my work - I wouldn’t be where I am today. Seriously - you can’t be successful in a vacuum.
Thanksgiving is more than a holiday “interruption”. It is a mirror for how organizations function.
Families and communities rely on gratitude, rituals, reflection, rhythms, and inclusivity to sustain themselves. Companies that ignore these same dynamics undermine their own resilience. For leaders, the task is to integrate these levers not once a year but throughout the organizational calendar.
The question is not whether these principles apply to your business - they already do. The real question is whether you are using them deliberately to solve the problems that matter most.
It is always interesting to discover how many people actually have difficulty saying - out loud - “I’m sorry” and “Thank you” and “I’m listening - tell me more”. It’s like you almost have to choke it out of them. Old habits die hard and limiting beliefs anchored in childhood are hard to pry loose.
That’s my job - I’d love to help.Thanks for reading! I’m listening - tell me more.
About the Author
Anna is an organizational psychologist and executive coach, with a special interest in all things technology. We’re part of the team at Garleff Coaching and Consulting Group. If this article has struck a chord, please let us know.
Anna Garleff Cell: +1 587 224 3793 / anna@garleffcoaching.com
www.garleffcoaching.com
