REVERB 27: Why Gratitude Makes Accountability Work

Andy Stanley Leadership Podcast

Andy Stanley

Business

4.6 • 2.2K Ratings

🗓️ 10 November 2025

⏱️ 12 minutes

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Summary

Gratitude and accountability aren’t opposites—they’re partners. In this REVERB episode, Andy Stanley and co-host Suzy Gray unpack how gratitude builds the relational equity that makes accountability possible. They explore the power of public praise before private correction, how leaders can keep gratitude alive under pressure, and practical ways to recognize the “thankless jobs” that keep things running smoothly but often go unnoticed.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Andy Stanley Leadership Podcast Reverb, a conversation designed to help leaders go even further faster by digging deeper into this month's episode. I'm your host, Susie Gray, and last week Andy and I talked about gratitude. And it was such a practical reminder that gratitude isn't just good manners. It's good leadership. The big takeaway was simple but powerful.
0:23.1	It was unexpressed gratitude is perceived as ingratitude. So today, we want to go a layer
0:29.3	deeper. So, India, to get us started today, I've heard you say before that gratitude and
0:35.0	accountability aren't opposites. They're actually partners. How
0:40.2	leaders hold that tension well? Well, this is a really important relationship. And again,
0:45.3	like so many things, when you hear it, you think, oh yeah, but in the middle of the chaos of
0:49.5	just organizational life, we miss it. And here's the relationship. Gratitude is a deposit.
0:57.3	Accountability always feels like a withdrawal. Again, there's no neutral, right, in organizational
1:03.6	life. Either I'm doing a good job or I'm not doing a good job. And the reason it's important to
1:08.6	keep that relationship in mind is this. If I have created or we've
1:13.0	created a culture where we are quick to acknowledge what people have done right to celebrate
1:19.2	them publicly or to celebrate them privately or both, then when I have to have a difficult
1:24.2	conversation, I've made a lot of deposits. And we know just human nature if for every withdrawal I need to have a difficult conversation. I've made a lot of deposits. And we know just
1:28.3	human nature, if for every withdrawal I need to have made at least five to ten to twenty
1:34.0	deposits, you know, family dynamic is one thing, work dynamic is a little bit, well, a lot
1:39.7	different. And again, because of organizational life, and because we're so busy, we miss opportunities
1:45.4	to make those deposits.
1:47.1	But we don't miss the opportunities to make the withdrawals because we have to.
1:51.7	I mean, when things aren't going well, you have to have a conversation.
1:54.6	When somebody has gone off the rails, you have to have the conversation.
1:58.3	So here's the challenge.
2:00.3	No one is forcing us. In fact, there's
	...

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