Leveraging relationships and gratitude for business success in 2026

By Rejoice Esi ASANTE (PhD)

Relationships and Gratitude have become the contemporary strategies to succeed in business when all others fail. They play crucial roles, lasting beyond individual dealings, and although they are the least strategies to be considered by many, relationships and gratitude have proven to improve business success and cannot be ignored.

There is a gradual shift from purely transactional business models to contemporary models that embrace relationships and gratitude. For small businesses, medium sized and big businesses, leveraging relationships and gratitude can go a long way to move them ahead of the competition, strategically. This article explores how to leverage relationships and gratitude to move businesses forward in 2026, prioritizing value over time and cost.

Relationships:

I have heard preachers like Apostle Joshua Selman of Eternity Network International (KOINONIA) describe relationships as currencies that can buy anything including things that money cannot buy.

They deliver value beyond currency. It begins with a relationship with God, family, neighbours, workers/employees and corporate organisations.  For entrepreneurs, small business owners, vendors, hawkers, or corporate executives, Aplus Trainers (2024) observe that building and maintaining strong relationships can lead to new opportunities, enhanced reputation, and sustained growth.

According to Faster Capital (2024), building and nurturing relationships has become more important than ever for business success and organisations cannot overlook this strategy. The ability to connect with customers, suppliers, or employees, can make a significant difference in the growth and reputation of a company.

Thus, personal and business relationships are important and require trust and effective communication among others to foster. While personal relations are more emotional and intrinsic in nature, business relations must be deliberate, goal oriented and strategic for success.

Chory and Horan (2023) observe that relationships that cross the work–life domain has attracted the interest to scholars in multiple disciplines. These close personal relationships, span work–life borders and are voluntary informal relationships between two members of the same organization. They are mutual and consensual and have a relatively strong emotional component and involve the partners knowing and communicating with each other as unique individuals.

In order for organisations to attract new customers and retain existing ones, they need to invest and dedicate resources into building strong, long-term business relationships that help people see the value and achieve their goals with a product or service. (Lund, 2024). Now, more than ever, focusing on relationships is a necessity for long-term business growth.

Gratitude

Gratitude is not just saying “thank you”. It involves recognizing the value others bring to us, It gives competitive advantage to organisations that practice it deliberately and strategically (Pulizzi, 2025).

When people feel appreciated, they are more engaged, loyal, and likely to spread positivity to others (Verabank, 2025). In business, gratitude is the intentional act of acknowledging value, in employees, customers, partners, and others, to help strengthen trust and connection (Acrisure, 2025).

As a business strategy, some think gratitude is too soft and a nice idea. Pulizzi (2025) notes that scientists tested the difference between grateful people and complaining people, and found enormous gaps. ?

The author was referring to a study by Emmons and McCullough (2003) which show that a conscious focus on blessings may have emotional and interpersonal benefits. Participants put in a gratitude group had pulled ahead in every way that mattered, felt more optimistic, slept better, reported fewer physical symptoms and even exercised more without being told to.

Gratitude is reported to build stronger teams morals, improve retentions and collaboration, loyalty, improves culture, and drives growth by making people feel valued, boosts stronger relationships, engagement, and overall performance and retention while making or creating happier customers and clients. It strengthens relationships, builds trust and enhances reputation, thus in business, gratitude is a strategic practice of showing appreciation to employees, customers, and partners (Verabank, 2025).

It goes hand in hand with the act of giving recognition. When we recognize other, it makes them even more appreciative and inspires them to give that feeling to someone else, leading to a swell in happiness, well-being, morale, energy, and engagement–all of which directly influence performance, productivity, and retention (Mosley, 2019).

How to Build Relationships and Practice Gratitude?

Organisations seeking to build relationships and practice gratitude, must be deliberate about it. The building blocks of gratitude are giving attention and creativity. The need to create genuine cultures that embrace relationship building and practicing gratitude have been suggested.

This must extend to individuals and organistions including partners to improve loyalty. Building relationships are generally done strategically by practicing active listening, encouraging open communication, investing in professional growth, offering flexibility, collaborating and sharing insight and giving back to society.

Additionally, consistently thanking others, improving public recognition and promoting gratitude rituals, acknowledging the contributions of others, establishing reward schemes to show appreciation and celebration of milestones are also ways of showing gratitude (Broderick, 2020). Business is about relationships which flourish when people feel heard and valued.

Leveraging Relationships and Gratitude

To drive growth in 2026, organisations must shift the focus from transactional interactions to building relationships and consistently integrating genuine gratitude into all aspects of operations. It calls for a deliberate and intentional strategy to create value from business relationship to foster trust, loyalty, and resilience.

For small business and companies, building and leveraging relationships and gratitude could just be the strategy that can make them survive the future. Aldrich (1986) liability of smallness and newness means lack of resources and legitimacy, including limited capacity to act and react in new markets.

The author suggestion that need to adopt social factors, as they have been shown to facilitate access to and exchange of the resources needed (Nahapiet, 1998). This means that small companies should use these social factors (in the form of business relationships and gratitude) to gain access e.g. investments and infrastructure (Dyer, 1998).

Gomez (2019) notes that “the best way to predict the future is to create it”. Creating value in any relationship is reciprocal. Both the sender and receiver must derive some level of value from the investment for the relationship to thrive. This concept of value exchange is at the core of business, and it drives the process of value delivery. Small companies must be prepared to invest time and scare resources to manage business relationships in a way that goes beyond accessing resources.

Champagne (n/d) notes that value is the cornerstone of any successful relationship, and that by focusing on the broader context of value delivery and understanding the hidden costs and benefits of any investment, organizations can make smarter decisions that drive long-term success.

The value of relationships must be prioritized over time and cost to leverage it for success in the new year. Tilling (2023) contend that great relationships are based on experiences and because this is crucial to business success, every touchpoint is an opportunity to connect, deliver great communication and build trust.  It takes time to develop relationships but with the right investment over time the dividends will be earned.

Relationships endure well beyond individual jobs. They are reciprocal. To leverage it, there is a need to build strong reputations, deliver speed and communicate personally, maximize strength of acquaintances, and add value.  Trainers (2024) contend that it involves a blend of networking, trust-building, providing value, and maintaining connections. By investing time and effort into building strong relationships, organisations create a network of support and opportunities that can drive long-term success.

Other ways to leverage relationships for business success include networking effectively, building trust, providing value, maintaining relationships, leveraging social media, collaborating and partnering, and leveraging customer relationships.

It is time to go beyond building relationships, to focus on leveraging relationships (Real, 2025). Faster Capital (2024) note that building and nurturing relationships in today’s digital age, has become more important than ever for business success.

The ability to connect with others, whether it’s customers, suppliers, or employees, can make a significant difference in the growth and reputation of a company. By leveraging these relationships effectively, businesses can boost customer acquisition, strengthen brand awareness, and foster a sense of trust and loyalty among their target audience.

Faster Capital (2024) suggested the following strategies and techniques: building a strong network (by attending industry events and conferences, joining professional organization, engaging in online communities and seeking out mentors), cultivating meaningful connections (by taking a genuine interest in others, following up and staying in touch, offering value and helping others, fostering a culture of reciprocity), developing trust and credibility (by being reliable and delivering on promises, demonstrating expertise and thought leadership, providing exceptional customer service and seeking and sharing testimonials and reviews).

Others are the need to collaborate with partners and suppliers (by identifying complementary businesses, building mutually beneficial partnerships, fostering open communication and transparency and continuously assessing and improving partnerships), leveraging relationships for customer acquisition (activating networks, offering incentives for referrals, collaborating with influencers, and leveraging partnerships and collaborations), harnessing the power of referrals (by delighting customers, asking for referrals, providing easy referral processes, and expressing gratitude and reward loyalty).

Additionally, Faster Capital (2024) recommended  nurturing relationships with existing customers (by providing personalized experiences, communicating effectively, collecting feedback and acting on it, instituting reward loyalty), utilizing influencer marketing for business growth (by identifying relevant influencers, building relationships with influencers, offering value to influencers and collaborating on content creation), leveraging relationships for brand awareness (engaging with influencers and thought leaders, encouraging user-generated content, participating in industry events and partnerships and fostering a strong online presence).

Again, strengthening relationships with employees and team members (by fostering open communication, recognizing and appreciating contributors, supporting work-life balance and encouraging team collaboration and bonding).

To leverage gratitude, begin with building good relationships and then continue with infusing a culture of gratitude into corporate culture, personal meetings (face to face interactions), sending gestures of appreciation throughout the year and personalizing those appreciations among others have the power to grow a business.

Employees should be involved in giving pack through collaborative philanthropy, connect appreciation to specific results.  Gratitude should be a core corporate value driven from the top down, not a seasonal or occasional gesture as some organisations do. The bottom line is that practicing gratitude in business works. By appreciating others, numerous benefits are derived across all business relationships. Kamm (2019).

Tips to practice:

Simple ways to practice gratitude may be to send handwritten thank-you notes to employees, customers, or partners this festive season, host team appreciation lunch or coffee break to celebrate recent wins, spotlight customers or employee in social media or newsletters, offer seasonal promotions to thank loyal customers and encourage peer recognition with a gratitude wall or shout-out board (Verabank, 2025).

Aplus Teainers (2024) suggests that personal branding can enhance business relationships, ensuring online and offline presence, consistent with personal values and business goals, authenticity, that is being true to oneself, which helps build stronger, more lasting relationships, while ensuring visibility by speak at events, writing articles, and engaging in community activities to increase visibility and credibility.

In conclusion, honouring others according the teachings of the Bible and engaging in the act of thanksgiving and gratitude cannot be over emphasized. They have opened doors for people, placed people on high pedestals that no certificate or wealth can do, and provided a leverage for others to be admitted in circles that they otherwise were not qualified to belong. Can you build and leverage on your relationships this festive season and also practice gratitude by deliberately identifying those who have made positive impacts in your life and saying thank you?

I want to begin by thanking God for the gift of life from January until December 2025, I thank also all who have made an impact in my life form colleagues at work to superiors, students, partners, family friends and my congregation. I also thank the editor and publishers of this newspaper and all of you who at a point, made time and effort to read my articles. May we leverage relationships and gratitude for success in the coming year.

The post Leveraging relationships and gratitude for business success in 2026 appeared first on The Business & Financial Times.

Read Full Story