Leading with Gratitude

By Amy McGeorge

Founder & Managing Partner

My business turned 11 this summer. At our 10-year milestone in 2024, I reflected on how we got here and realized that I learned a lot of tough and incredibly valuable lessons throughout what has been an educational and humbling journey. This year, I’ve been overcome by gratitude more than ever as I have seen other entrepreneurs struggle through what’s proved to be a difficult year, and an uncertain economic situation that’s caused many businesses to see growth slow down. For me, it’s magnified the bottom line in some of the lessons I’ve learned. Here are a few:

Supporting my leadership team when they’ve suggested slowing down and reassessing what we’re doing is not just wise, it’s absolutely necessary. Most founders and CEOs have such a growth-oriented mindset that they’re prone to pushing growth at all costs and take the approach of “we’ll figure the rest out later.” There’s a place for this mindset, but only to a point. It takes discipline to slow down. Constant growth without reflection and reassessment doesn’t serve your team or your clients in the best way. You have to test everything you do against the company you want to be in order to maintain what makes you great, and also to preserve your culture and values. I like to think of it as slowing down to speed up.

I’m not ever going to be good at everything…and pushing myself to be is counterproductive. Owning my own weaknesses has been transformative. A few years ago, I asked my leadership team and some close family and friends to tell me what I was “bad” at…and let me tell you, they were too eager to answer that question! These were incredibly humbling conversations and gave me so much clarity around what I needed from my own team. I realized I needed to focus on developing and hiring people who would ultimately help fill in my “gaps” and weaknesses. This has paid off for me. I’m incredibly grateful for the leadership team I have now, and I see how leaning into our different strengths has made us stronger. Hiring smart people who compliment me and letting them run is one of the best decisions I’ve made as a business owner.

Creating and sustaining a great corporate culture takes real intention and constant effort. Good benefits and competitive pay are important, but they’re ultimately not what will keep your best people around. Support, meaningful work, gratitude, and recognition will. We’re in HR and the work that we do to support our clients is often challenging. I firmly believe that what makes our team stick around and continue to choose us, even after a really difficult week, is that we are getting it right when it comes to creating an environment where when someone has a hard week, we recognize it (and them) for it. We share in their struggles, we learn from them, and we shout out their triumphs. My leadership team does a great job of humanizing the reality that our work is hard. They set an example for our employees, and it trickles down. Having a sense of humor helps too. Good energy is contagious. The amount of “thank yous” and “shout outs” that I see from not just our leadership team, but our employees to one another continues to amaze me. Appreciation and recognition are two of the most important things to promote in your culture. They’ll get you through rough times and make your wins even sweeter. 

Wishing you much success in 2026!

Connect With Amy

www.peoplr.co

www.linkedin.com/in/amymcgeorge