Why Does Leadership Matter?

Go back to those classes in Physics at school. That thing called ‘Matter’. They taught you about it right? Those insipid  text books defined it as “Matter is any substance that has mass and takes up space by having volume”. Well, as drab as that sounded then, it still does now, for come on, why would I want to know why anything occupies space and has a mass? Did it matter?.....What?....what did I just say?.....Did it “matter”??

Now, I don’t want to wander into a class on grammar and duel with the concepts of a verb and noun. But, I can’t fail to notice the astonishing linguistic functionality and the inherent neurological strength that this word possesses. For, come to think of it, we all do (or rather love to do) only things that ‘Matter’ to us! I like to exercise in the morning because it matters to me that I stay in shape. If it didn’t matter, I would have procrastinated and shoved it down the ‘to do’ that I keep (but do not act upon). Getting the drift?

We only act on things that matter to us. If it does not matter, we simply choose to NOT take action on it. Let me amplify this reasoning. If you were to celebrate your wedding anniversary by going out with your spouse for an anniversary dinner and suddenly another more ‘pressing’ office engagement overlaps itself on the time line (it always happens so, doesn’t it?…..“suddenly”!!). You now have a situation. A condition, over which you have control (dinner), and another, over which you seemingly have no control of (the office engagement). Which event would you choose? More often than not, you would choose the event which (at that moment of time and state) ‘mattered’ to you. Now this decision is created out of a free choice, but we chose not to do so, for we fail to consider it as a 'free choice'. Actually, there is no such thing as a free choice, what happened was that it ‘mattered’ that the choice you made had an outcome…the freedom of choice was substituted by the significance of the desired outcome and an action is initiated. Now… and here is the best part, this action taken has a consequence. A sequence of events which unfurl to further life events that once again need to be chosen and acted upon and will be so depending on how much that particular event ‘matters’ to you!! And that, ladies and gentlemen…. is the saga called Life! ( and my intent of getting your mind in a tizzy, forcing you to re read the above again and again!!)

 It is a series of actions that sets forth more choices for actions taken on the prism of what ‘matters’ and what ‘does not matter’ to each one of us. We are forever encapsulated in the realm of what matters to us and what does not. This shift can sometimes take less than a nano second to occur. You are in a plane 30000 feet above the ground, and what matters is that you reach your destination in time, because you have another connecting flight within a half hour of your landing time. So, since landing on time now matters to you, you shall be hoping like hell that the flight does not get delayed enroute, or on arrival. That’s all that matters to you in your life ‘at that particular point in time’. Then the unexpected happens. There is a loud bang in the cabin accompanied by a violent jerk. Your plane dives into a tail spin, the engines have flamed out! Things spiral in a fraction of a second…people and luggage falling all around you…lights go off….screaming passengers….your head feels numb, your arms have struck something sharp…. It is an emergency on board!.......now…..at this moment of crisis…. what matters to you?.....reaching the airport on time to make it good for the next connections? Is it still that event, which a second ago was so critical, and mattered to you the most, no matter what?!! Well, the ‘what matters to me’ has suddenly shifted its perspective. The ‘matter’ has now taken the mass of a grave situation that needs to be addressed (the weight of now having to save your own life) and the space which probably will fill the rest of your life (get out of this hopeless situation and live another day). Matter, in life, now seems to  have its relevance to ‘mass’ and ‘space’. The significance of the word ‘what matters to us’ is as relevant to the understanding of ‘matter’ in the real world of observed science as it is in the application of our lives. Just like that Physics text book, which gave us so much of life's lessons to imbibe from, but we chose not to, because all that mattered then, was to mug up the definitions and vomit it on the examination paper. Understanding Physics did not matter, getting good grades in Physics did. A lot!

What matters to us in life and living, shall dictate how we go about creating the mass to weigh in our actions and the space within which we go about following upon them.

Leadership is an art and science. It is an enabler to strive for in a social form. It does not mean that if you are not a leader or possess leadership qualities, you are in a lesser life. On the contrary! In fact, one is never NOT leading in life. What matters….(matters!)....is how much does knowing or imbibing leadership and life skills matter to you? The significance you give to Leadership….as an enabler, as a direction finder….as a goal achiever. How much of your mass and space are you considering investing in it to make it a trait that will empower you? That is an individualistic choice, but a choice that matters of what the consequences thereafter (of not giving leadership significance in life) will lead to.

Our second workshop “Does Leadership Matter?” helps you explore and discover how much ‘knowing more’ matters in individual growth and why it matters that a person should always be eager to push his boundaries towards the path of personal excellence. If it matters to you, then what matters is that you register for this workshop and make things happen in your life!

People who matter don’t fail you, people who fail you don’t matter. We at Leadership Tribe, know what it matters to NOT make you fail in your quest for life. Join us for the two day workshop, not just to hone your skills in leadership, but to have loads of fun….for in life having fun matters a lot too!!