The Power of Mattering

It begins earlier than we remember.

A newborn, cradled between worlds, tilts its head back, searching for eyes to meet its own. Fingers grasp toward touch, a silent plea: Do I matter? Will you see me?

This primal question—ancient as breath itself—never leaves us. It follows us into boardrooms, classrooms, kitchens, and quiet Sunday mornings. Beneath every ambition, every hesitation, every leap of faith or quiet withdrawal, the question waits: Do I matter here?

I remember hearing about Jane, a custodian at the university, her story passed along by a Dean I was working with. She spent years in the background—people brushing past without a nod, without a hello, as if she were a fixture, not a person. The weight of being unseen wore heavier than the work itself.

Until one day, a professor in one of the buildings she tended to handed her a dictionary with the page marked with the word: Custodian. He said. “A person responsible for looking after something.” He looked her in the eye. “That’s you.”

In that micro-moment, Jane’s story changed. She stayed for eighteen years—not because the tasks grew easier, but because she grew deeper. Someone had shown her the truth of her significance. She mattered.

Zach Mercurio, in his book The Power of Mattering, calls this the “mattering instinct”—our built-in, lifelong quest to feel seen, heard, valued, and needed. When the need is nourished, people rise. They innovate, they connect, they persist. When it’s starved, they withdraw. They ache. They disconnect. They leave.

Organizations spend fortunes chasing engagement, retention, performance. But it turns out that some of the most valued currency of a thriving culture is much simpler: attention.

The daily acts of noticing. The radical courage to affirm another’s unique gifts. The simple, powerful acknowledgment that you are needed here.

Mattering, Mercurio reminds us, isn’t an HR program or a bonus or a perk. It’s built one conversation, one glance, one genuine “thank you” at a time.

It’s not about inflating egos or offering hollow praise, rather it’s an act of reflecting back to someone what they have forgotten or feared wasn’t true: Your presence changes things. You are indispensable to your team, your family, your friends and colleagues, to this world.

And here is the quiet, astonishing secret:

When you show someone they matter, you unlock a force greater than productivity. You awaken their will to live meaningfully.

You build not just better teams but better human beings. And, better humans make better leaders and team members.

To lead, then, is to see more.

To hear more.

To recognize and name the worth that already resides in each person.

This is the real work: To make mattering visible again.