Kelly speaks with Zach Mercurio, a positive leadership and organizations researcher and Honorary Fellow of Psychology in the Center for Meaning and Purpose at Colorado State University. He has a new book: The Power of Mattering: How Leaders Can Create a Culture of Significance. 

I want to start with the last lines of your book because I think they offer the perfect prompt for the modern leader. You write, “Here’s a good rule for every leader. Always assume that people around you feel unseen, undervalued, and lonely, and act accordingly.” Say more. 

“One of my favorite proverbs is a Navajo proverb. It’s actually on hospitality. And it says, always assume your guest is tired, cold, and hungry and act accordingly. I mean, imagine the meal you would prepare or the attentive attention to detail you would have if you assumed that, you know. Our assumptions drive our actions. Oftentimes we underestimate the impact that we have on others, especially in small ways. And right now, we’re facing a mattering deficit. More people feel unseen, undervalued and lonely than when we look at the data from anytime in recent history.” 

Mattering is an especially tricky thing at work. 

“We can’t keep expecting something to matter to someone who doesn’t feel that they matter. And we see this as employee engagement has been flatlined, for example, in work for a decade. It’s the lowest it’s been in a decade. That’s despite employee engagement becoming a $1 billion industry. And why is that? Well, there’s one piece of data that shows up time and time again, just about 39 % of people say that someone cares about them as a person at work.” 

It’s interesting because we know that we have to make a habit of exercise or eating healthy, but how about how we care for each other at work? 

“And we have to apply that, those principles that you’re talking about habit formation when it comes to caring for people. And that’s really what my work is all about. I mean, that’s it because common sense is not common practice. A lot of people say to me, ‘Zach, this stuff’s common sense.’ I have a kid, a fourth grader now, and I remember one of his friends asked him what I did. And he goes, ‘My dad helps people be nice to each other.’”