What you reward gets repeated. Clap for effort and you’ll get more effort.

Groups drift toward whatever gets noticed. Praise the loudest person and you get volume, praise the finished work and you get finishing, praise the person who admitted a mistake and you get honesty. None of this requires a policy, it happens automatically, which means you are shaping behaviour whether or not you meant to. Most of what frustrates a leader is something they accidentally rewarded three weeks ago.

Look at what you actually clap for rather than what you say you value. If effort matters to you, name it out loud the next time you see it.