Why Leaders Must Celebrate Impact, Not Effort

In this solo episode of Relationships at Work, host Russel Lolacher digs into a leadership trap that quietly damages culture, disengages teams, and derails real progress: celebrating effort instead of impact.

We hand out recognition for hard work, long hours, new initiatives, “busy-ness,” and well-packaged plans—but rarely pause to ask the only question that matters: Did any of this create meaningful change?

Russel explores why organizations reward motion instead of momentum and how this leads to checkbox leadership, abandoned initiatives, and teams who stop believing anything is going to be different. Drawing from real stories, including an executive who celebrated a website without ever asking if anyone used it, Russel breaks down how leaders can shift the narrative.

You’ll hear:

• Why effort is the baseline—not the win
• How valuing impact strengthens trust, engagement, and culture
• Three practical actions to redefine success and hold leaders accountable

If you want to build a workplace where progress is real—not performative—this episode is for you.

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Transcript

Welcome back to Relationships At Work – A leadership podcast helping you build workplace connection, improve culture, and avoid blind spots. I’m your host Russel Lolacher

I’m a communications and leadership nerd with a couple of decades of experience and a heap of curiosity on how we can make the workplace better.

This mini-episode is a quick and valuable bit of information to help your mindset for the week ahead.

Inspired by our R@W Note Newsletter, I’m passing on to you…

Celebrating Impact, Not Effort

I needed to share my thoughts on something that's been nagging at me a lot lately. And that I think is really hurt us as leaders and our relationships with our teams.

Effort is being prioritized over impact. We need to rethink this.

We love to celebrate effort. We hand out awards for long hours, recognize hard work, and highlight initiatives that sound great on paper. Look we did a thing! But what if none of it actually moves the needle?

Leadership isn’t about looking busy or trying hard. It’s about the results we create—the tangible impact on the people and culture we serve. Yet, too often, we mistake effort for effectiveness.

I often emphasize the importance of valuing the journey as much as the destination—because too often, workplaces celebrate productivity over people. But in this case, the issue isn’t productivity; it’s how we define success. Here, we’re celebrating effort over impact, mistaking the act of doing something for real progress. The journey matters, but only if it leads somewhere meaningful. Leadership isn’t just about motion—it’s about momentum in the right direction.

And from a relationship standpoint, it's not a good look for our teams. They'll see all the plans, programs, initiatives, and the documents, the websites and spreadsheets but not see real, actual change.

Take leadership development programs. Many organizations proudly roll out training initiatives that include courses and conferences to attend. But how often do we measure whether those programs actually produce better leaders? Or consider an organization’s commitment to DEI—announcements are made, committees are formed, ERG are created... but has the culture truly changed? Has trust increased? Have hiring practices evolved?

It falls under one of my blind spots of leadership - Abandonment. Or checkbox leadership. We do it to do it because we're expected to.

The problem is, when we focus on effort over impact, we reward the wrong behaviors. Leaders get credit for launching initiatives, not for ensuring those initiatives work. I once had an executive praise me for a successful website - yet he had never ever asked me for metrics on how the service was being used. So in his mind, success was that the website existed, not that anyone actually used.

As leaders, this is causing us to build cultures where looking busy is more valued than being effective. If we don't address this, our teams will start to feel disengaged and the desire to go find more meaningful work.

The Question: How prioritize our success by what we do or the change we create?

The Action(s): Ways to Shift Focus from Effort to Impact

1. Define Success in Measurable Terms– Don’t just implement initiatives and call it a day. Ask, How will we know this worked? Or my favourite: What does success look like - to you, the team, the organization? Identify specific, meaningful outcomes and track them. Instead of assuming a leadership program is effective because people attended, measure whether it improved decision-making, communication, or retention. Tie efforts to real-world results that indicate progress, not just participation.
2. Recognize Results, Not Just Activity– Shift the focus of praise and rewards from those who put in the most effort to those who make the greatest impact. Instead of celebrating the hours spent on a project, celebrate the positive change it created. Recognize teams for solving problems, improving workplace culture, or increasing efficiency in ways that benefit employees and the organization. When people see that impact is what’s valued, they’ll shift their energy toward achieving meaningful results. And sometimes those results can come from little effort. And that's OK.
3. Hold Leaders Accountable for Outcomes– Effort is the baseline expectation, not the goal. Leaders must be responsible and accountable for demonstrating that their initiatives produce measurable improvements. This means regularly evaluating the effectiveness of policies, training, and team dynamics. Instead of rolling out new programs just to say we did something, leaders must ensure those programs deliver real benefits—whether it’s higher engagement, lower turnover, or a more inclusive culture.

It’s time to stop celebrating the attempt and start rewarding the achievement. This just perpetuates the need to be busy and the need to be performative about how busy we are. Which doesn't actually help anyone. At the end of the day, leadership isn’t about doing things—it’s about making things better - for our teams and the organization.