The fear of expressing pride at work is real—and it's costing us more than confidence

We say we want people who take pride in their work. But when someone does, especially in the small wins, something odd happens. They get side-eyed. Judged. Sometimes dismissed. I’ve seen it happen with my own early teams. A junior hire finished a product spec three days early and felt good enough to bring it up in a sprint review. She was proud—not showy, just clear about her effort and outcome. But no one responded. No “great job.” No curiosity about how she got there faster.

In fact, a more senior team member later messaged me to ask: “Was that really something worth highlighting?” That’s when I realized: our team wasn’t hostile. They were socialized to minimize pride unless it passed a certain “impressive” bar. And if that bar was invisible, moving, or culture-specific—we had a bigger problem on our hands. This wasn’t about egos. It was about whether our culture allowed people to see themselves as capable.

When I came across Professor Becky Schaumberg’s research on pride and competence, I felt called out—in the best way. Her studies confirmed what I had seen but hadn’t known how to name. When someone shares pride in an achievement, and no one else reacts with the same sense of accomplishment, it often backfires. Instead of being seen as proactive or competent, that person is more likely to be perceived as self-important… or worse, clueless.

In Schaumberg’s words: “My source of pride may not be your source of pride because of our difference in backgrounds and how we’ve been socialized.” That’s not just academic—it’s operationally true. In early-stage startups, where norms aren’t yet codified, this difference can quietly erode team culture. What starts as a shrugged-off Slack comment becomes something more dangerous: learned silence.

People start withholding not just pride, but progress. They minimize their wins. They second-guess whether their contributions are “real” enough to count. They stop seeing themselves as valuable unless someone else says so first. You don’t notice it in week one. You notice it when momentum stalls. When ownership gets quiet. When energy fades.

Most founders are trained to spot conflict, not absence. But this is the kind of culture erosion that doesn’t show up in HR surveys or engagement metrics. It shows up in the micro-behaviors:

• A new hire doesn’t submit their experiment learnings because no one asked
• A product manager skips the retro because “there’s nothing big to show”
• A junior ops lead stops highlighting improved onboarding metrics after getting a cold reaction last time

It’s not that people don’t want to grow. It’s that they don’t feel safe to show they’re proud of their growth unless the room claps first. And this doesn’t just affect the so-called “soft” side of culture. It hits execution hard. Workplace capitalization—the act of sharing positive achievements with your peers—isn’t just good for morale. It’s how best practices spread. It’s how standards get normed. It’s how new team members learn what matters, what’s celebrated, what to aim for.

When people stop sharing those wins, they also stop transmitting institutional memory. What worked last week? Who cracked the handoff timing? What tweak sped up delivery? You’ll never know—because no one wants to be seen as over-celebrating something others may not respect.

And here’s the kicker: it disproportionately affects your most underrepresented or junior employees. Because if you're new, or come from a different background, you already question whether your contributions count. If your quiet pride gets met with nothing—or worse, a subtle undermining—you’re going to fall back, fast.

I remember one moment that stayed with me. It was from a new marketing associate we hired on contract. She’d been quiet, diligent, almost invisible in team calls. One day, she dropped a note in our Slack general channel:

“Not sure if this counts, but I’m proud I finally figured out the email list segmentation problem that’s been stalling me all week. Took me a while but I’m there now.”

It wasn’t a major milestone. No KPI was tied to it. But something about her language—the tentative “not sure if this counts,” the honesty about struggling—hit me. This was someone trying to feel visible. Someone proud in a quiet way, testing whether it was okay to be seen. That message got only one emoji reaction. So I DM’d her. I told her it did count. I told her I knew exactly how frustrating that bug was. I thanked her for the perseverance.

Her reply: “Thanks. That’s honestly the first time I’ve said I was proud of something at work.”

That sentence still sits with me.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s this—culture isn’t what you say in onboarding. It’s what people feel safe enough to express at their most tentative. And that includes pride. Especially pride. If pride feels like a performance, you’ll get performative culture. If pride feels like risk, you’ll get compliance. But if pride feels like contribution, you’ll get momentum.

Here’s the framework I now teach my early-stage founders:

1. Define what counts.
   Make success legible. Don’t just celebrate funding rounds or viral launches. Praise documentation wins. Praise internal tooling fixes. Normalize pride in things that move the engine quietly.
2. Mirror pride with feedback.
   When someone shares a win, acknowledge the effort or learning behind it—even if it’s not flashy. You’re not rewarding outcome; you’re reinforcing contribution clarity.
3. Broadcast small wins with context.
   In team meetings or Slack channels, share a weekly “pride highlight” where anyone can submit. But instead of applause, pair it with insight: “Here’s what they learned.” “Here’s what others can replicate.”
4. Let pride be emotionally honest.
   Encourage people to express why something mattered to them—not just to the company. A manager coming back from burnout. A new parent balancing deliverables. Make space for that kind of pride.

If I had to go back to those early team meetings, I wouldn’t just wait for people to raise their hand with wins. I’d ask better questions:

• “What did you feel proud of this week—even if it’s small?”
• “What challenge took more from you than others might guess?”
• “What do you want to celebrate that no one else saw?”

And when someone answers, I wouldn’t just nod. I’d repeat it, reflect it, and remind others why it counts. Because the worst thing isn’t when no one feels proud. It’s when they do—and believe they shouldn’t say it.

If your team doesn’t feel safe expressing pride, they’re not just hiding feelings. They’re withholding the very signal that helps you scale trust, learning, and leadership. Don’t wait for applause. Design the culture where pride gets to speak—especially when it whispers.

Because when you build that kind of culture—where pride is welcomed, reflected, and made meaningful—you don’t just retain talent. You unlock their conviction. You get people who show up with initiative because they believe what they do matters. Not just when the metrics say so, but when the team does.

And if you’re a founder in a region where humility is prized, like in Malaysia or Singapore, this might feel uncomfortable at first. But consider this: building a pride-safe culture doesn’t mean abandoning humility. It means expanding your definition of what growth looks like—and giving people the language and safety to name it when it happens.

That’s how you scale not just work ethic, but belief. And belief is the fuel most teams run out of first.