Today is Employee Appreciation Day.
Here’s my take on it, involving a song Taylor Swift wrote (for me I feel).
It’s mid 2023. Taylor Swift’s six concerts in Singapore have just been announced. Of course my 14-year old daughter wanted to go. Only issue was that all her friends wanted to get the $300+ category tickets. That was too rich for me. So I told her I’d go with her, but we’d get cheaper tickets. “Great, her memory of her first concert will be with me”, I thought.
Over the next few weeks, I started listening to and familiarising myself with Taylor Swift’s songs. I don’t remember the exact details but somehow we were fortunate enough to get an access code that allowed actual purchase of the concert tickets a few days later. We needed 2 tickets but we bought 4 (the maximum allowed for each transaction).
Once we’d secured the 4 tickets, my son wanted 2 tickets for himself and a friend. My daughter on hearing that her older brother was going with a friend, then told me, “You don’t need to go Daddy, I’ll go with my friend”.
So there I was, having memorised the lyrics to my favourite Taylor Swift song, all set to go with my kids, with no tickets left for me.
Thank you Taylor for writing a song about me, the Chaperone Dad. I feel heard, I feel understood.
What’s this got to do with Employee Appreciation Day?
Leadership is about many things. It’s about giving your team air cover when things get rocky. It’s about giving the team psychological safety to disagree with you. It’s about making them feel appreciated. It’s also about what Taylor Swift has done with her impromptu song, Chaperone Dad – making your team’s partners at home feel appreciated and heard.
Let’s appreciate our teams – and their partners – today.