In business, there’s perhaps no bigger thrill than when you’re performing at peak levels, hitting your goals and garnering lots of attention for your success. However, effective leaders are keenly aware that such wins are golden opportunities to recognize, inspire and motivate the individuals who’ve also played a role in those achievements. After all, success is typically a result of many hands and minds working together toward a common goal. According to research cited on Real-Time State of Employee Engagement, recognition is one of the most important things you can do to increase retention and lower turnover. So when you’re making or exceeding a mark in your organization and the accolades start rolling in, call out your employees or any other champions who’ve helped make it happen. Through these selfless acts of recognition, you will inspire and motivate them to participate in, pursue and pull off more future accomplishments.

Here are three steps to giving credit to your team:

1. Recognize your team members individually.
There’s something very powerful about setting time aside to personally thank another individual for playing a role in your success. So if you hit a big goal, determine who has been involved in making it a reality and conscientiously carve out a few minutes to express that gratitude through a meaningful conversation or personal email. To make it even more effective, don’t just say thank you but be specific in your gratitude, communicating how and when they made a difference, e.g., investing time off the clock last month to push the project to completion, collaborating effectively with others who might have been problematic in nature, creating some powerful solution to a problem, etc.

Read more on how to pack power into your employee praise.

2. Honor the team collectively.
When you’re experiencing success and an entire team has clearly made it possible, recognize them as a team. Whether you gather everyone together in the lunchroom, bring them in on a group call, or choose to honor them during your weekly employee meeting, highlight the collective achievement as well as how teamwork played a role. Tell them how their ability to work as a team is responsible for the results, focusing on key elements of teamwork — communication, task delegation, interpersonal relations, motivation, collaboration, and, of course, group-goal performance and results. Also, reinforce their success by unexpectedly celebrating these important wins — take everyone out for happy hour, a ball game, or lunch. Make the praise powerful by demonstrating gratitude and recognition through unique, substantial ways.

3. Praise their contributions publicly.
Whether you’re giving your team members credit by casually talking them up to others or by doing so in a more formal setting, this is an excellent habit to adopt. It pushes you to consistently broadcast how success happens at your organization — and, importantly, that it’s not all about you. As well, it illustrates your team’s legitimate talent, which will help others see your organization as a competent one that’s worthy of respect and trust. This is critical to your organization’s overall image and credibility, not to mention your own image as a leader. Share the credit for success in a public way or public setting, and you’ll come across as a humble leader.

What are some great ways to show employee appreciation?