Why Leaders Struggle to Give What They Have Never Learned to Receive
- 5 hours ago
- 5 min read
Yaryna Carpenter is a PCC ICF Executive, Leadership and Team Coach working with leaders and teams in high-trust, reputation-sensitive environments. She helps clients strengthen clarity, communication, cultural intelligence, and better judgment as they grow and scale globally.
Recognition is often considered a “soft” leadership skill, a nice addition to engagement initiatives, performance reviews, or company culture programmes. Yet after years of coaching leaders and working with teams through the AgileBrain diagnostic framework, I have come to see recognition as something much more fundamental. It sits at the intersection of trust, engagement, retention, and human connection. It raises an important question, "How can leaders consistently give recognition if they have never learned to receive it themselves?"
The hidden story behind “I can do it myself”
Many successful leaders pride themselves on being highly self-sufficient. They say, “I don’t need praise. I just get things done. I can handle it myself. People shouldn’t need recognition simply for doing their jobs.”
On the surface, these beliefs can reflect resilience, accountability, and high standards. Sometimes they do. But for some leaders, self-sufficiency also serves another purpose. It becomes a way of protecting themselves from vulnerability, disappointment, or dependence on others.
Over time, competence becomes identity. Achievement becomes a source of worth. Recognition becomes something they quietly long for but openly dismiss. This creates an interesting paradox. Those who most need acknowledgement are often the least comfortable asking for it, and those who have learned to minimise their own need for appreciation may unintentionally do the same for others.
What AgileBrain reveals about recognition
In my work with leadership teams using AgileBrain, one pattern emerges consistently. People want to know that their contribution matters. They want to feel that their efforts are noticed, their strengths are recognised, and their presence has meaning within the organisation.
Employees leave organisations for many reasons, including career progression, compensation, management quality, or changing priorities. Yet feeling undervalued remains one of the most common themes behind disengagement and voluntary turnover.
Recognition is not simply about saying “thank you.” It is about communicating value. It tells people, “You matter here. Your contribution is seen. What you do has an impact.”
When people stop experiencing this consistently, energy declines, initiative decreases, and engagement weakens. Eventually, many choose to leave, not necessarily because the work itself is wrong, but because they no longer feel connected to their impact.
What is particularly interesting is that teams rarely ask directly for recognition. Instead, they describe feeling unheard, overlooked, or disconnected from the broader purpose of their work. Leaders, meanwhile, are often surprised by the extent to which recognition influences trust, motivation, and commitment.
The leadership blind spot
Some leaders were raised or developed professionally in environments where excellence was expected but rarely acknowledged. Achievement was normalised, mistakes were visible, and success was simply considered the baseline. Recognition, if it came at all, had to be earned.
Over time, this can create what I call the Recognition Gap. Leaders become highly capable, highly independent, and deeply responsible, yet remain uncertain about how to create cultures of appreciation. This is not because they lack empathy or because they do not care, but because recognition was never modelled for them.
Leadership cultures are often shaped by what leaders unconsciously believe about themselves. If I have learned that my own efforts do not deserve acknowledgement, I may unintentionally communicate the same message to my team. If I believe people should simply “get on with it,” I may overlook one of the most powerful drivers of engagement available to me.
Recognition and the ego of self-sufficiency
There is another dimension worth exploring. Sometimes the statement “I don’t need recognition” is less about confidence and more about identity. At times, it can reflect a subtle form of pride, an attachment to being the capable one, the resilient one, or the person who carries everything without asking for support.
Many leaders derive a sense of significance from being indispensable. They become the problem solvers, decision makers, and carriers of responsibility for everyone around them. Yet mature leadership is not about becoming indispensable. It is about creating conditions in which others can contribute, grow, and thrive.
That requires leaders to examine their own relationship with recognition. Can I receive appreciation without dismissing it? Can I acknowledge that I, too, have a need to feel seen? Can I separate my sense of worth from my achievements? Can I celebrate others without experiencing recognition as a scarce resource? These are not simply emotional questions. They are leadership questions.
Perhaps this is leadership development’s missing conversation
Leadership development programmes often focus on strategy, communication, delegation, and influence. All of these matter. But perhaps there is another conversation we are not having often enough.
What if one of the most important developmental tasks for leaders is understanding their relationship with recognition? Not because leaders should become dependent on external validation, but because awareness creates choice.
Leaders who understand their own assumptions, needs, and blind spots around recognition are often better equipped to create cultures where people feel valued, respected, and motivated to contribute.
Perhaps recognition work deserves to become one of the foundational conversations in leadership development. Leaders who have never experienced healthy recognition may struggle to offer it authentically to others, and leaders who have learned to disconnect from their own need to be seen may unintentionally create environments where people feel invisible.
The invitation, then, is not to seek more validation. It is to become more aware, to understand what recognition means to us, how it has shaped us, and how it influences the way we lead.
People rarely stay where they feel invisible, and leaders cannot sustainably give what they have never allowed themselves to receive.
Leadership reflection
Before your next team meeting, consider asking yourself:
How was recognition expressed in my early environment?
How comfortable am I receiving appreciation?
What signals do I give my team about what deserves acknowledgement?
Do people around me feel genuinely seen?
Perhaps recognition is not a soft skill after all. Perhaps it is one of the most overlooked leadership capabilities of our time.
Yaryna Carpenter, PCC ICF Executive, Leadership & Team Coach
Yaryna Carpenter is a PCC ICF Executive, Leadership and Team Coach working with leaders and teams in high-trust, reputation-sensitive environments. She helps clients strengthen clarity, communication, cultural intelligence, and better judgment as they grow and scale globally. With over 20 years of international experience, Yaryna brings a structured, human-centred approach to leadership, team performance, and cross-cultural growth.
