Reflections on Jennifer Wallace’s Mattering: The Secret to a Life of Deep Connection
In many workplaces today, people are technically employed but emotionally absent. They show up, deliver, and move on. Yet engagement surveys point to elevated levels of fatigue, cynicism, and detachment. At the center of all of this sits a deceptively simple human need: the need to matter.
In Mattering: The Secret Life of Connection and Purpose, Jennifer Wallace puts language to something many professionals feel but rarely name. Mattering is the experience of being seen, valued, and needed. It goes beyond receiving praise or performing at the top of their game. At its core it’s about knowing that who you are and what you contribute genuinely counts. In other words, that you matter.
What makes Wallace’s work particularly relevant now is that we are seeing the erosion of mattering in professional environments shaped by constant change, restructuring, automation, and pressure to do more with less.
The difference between achievement and mattering
One of the most important distinctions Wallace makes is between achievement and mattering. Let’s get on the same page here: Achievement is about outcomes while mattering is about connection.
Our contemporary workplaces are highly optimized for achievement. We set goals, track metrics and reward results. What often gets lost is whether people feel that their presence makes a difference beyond their output. Do their contributions make a difference, do they matter?
Research cited by Wallace shows that people can succeed by external measures while feeling deeply invisible. Over time, this disconnect leads to disengagement, anxiety, and burnout. So the problem is not lack of ambition but the fact that people fail to feel their own significance in the organization. When a company is constantly cutting great contributors, they make those who remain feel easily replaceable. This deeply impacts how employees feel about their mattering to the organization. And if you don’t matter then, why bother? Why remain loyal? Why give your best?
Why mattering has declined at work
Wallace points to several forces that weaken mattering, many of which are amplified in today’s organizations.
Speed is one. When everything moves quickly, relationships become transactional. People are valued for what they deliver today, not for who they are or how they think.
Scale is another. Large, complex systems make it easy for individuals to feel interchangeable. When decisions are centralized and communication is impersonal, personal significance erodes.
Constant evaluation also plays a role. When worth is continuously measured, people begin to equate mattering with performance. This creates a fragile sense of value that rises and falls with results.
It’s not about recognition
A critical insight in Wallace’s work is that mattering is often confused with recognition. But it’s important to notice that recognition is episodic — it rewards success— while mattering is relational — it affirms presence and the intrinsic value of the person. When you look at your daily work life, recognition is usually connected to outcomes. Mattering is built through everyday interactions such as being listened to, being consulted, being invited to the table, being asked about things outside work that interest you.
Research shows that people who feel they matter demonstrate higher resilience, stronger commitment, and better judgment under stress. This is not because they are praised more often but because they feel anchored.
The cost of ignoring mattering
When people stop feeling that they matter they stop offering ideas, they avoid risks, they protect their energy rather than invest it in their work and colleagues.
Wallace highlights how lack of mattering contributes to anxiety and withdrawal. In organizations, this shows up as reduced innovation, slower decision-making, and quiet disengagement.
The problem is that more often than not leaders misread these signals as lack of motivation or capability when in reality, they reflect a relational deficit. People do not stop caring because they are weak. They stop caring because caring no longer feels meaningful.
How mattering is built at work
It’s not that complicated to build mattering at work. There are simple signals you can send to others to show that they matter. One of those signals is attention. When you give someone your full attention during a conversation you communicate how much you value them more powerfully than if you were to praise.
Another signal is usefulness. People feel they matter when their input influences outcomes. This means involving people earlier, asking for perspective, and acknowledging how ideas shape decisions. As with everything related to mattering, it’s not hard to make someone feel useful. You can easily say to them: “Thanks to you we’ve been able to do X.” Or “If it weren’t for your advice, I wouldn’t have been able to do Y.” Observing what others do in your team, your department, your industry and letting them know how it has impacted you or your team directly, is a great way to make them feel valued and seen.
Consistency also matters. Research shows that reliability in relationships is one of the strongest predictors of feeling like you matter. And it’s important to note that mattering doesn’t require becoming over involved with others. It requires intentionality in your interaction with them.
Why mattering protects against burnout
Burnout is often framed as exhaustion but Wallace’s research points to the fact that burnout is frequently about feeling expendable. When people believe they could disappear without impact, their effort becomes meaningless. No amount of resilience training can compensate for that belief.
But when people feel significant, they recover faster from stress and they are more willing to stay engaged during uncertainty because their effort feels connected to something real. This is why mattering acts as a burnout buffer.
Mattering in the age of AI and restructuring
As work becomes more automated, the human need to matter becomes more pronounced, not less. AI can replace tasks but it can’t replace significance. Wallace’s work reminds us that people do not need to be irreplaceable to matter. They need to feel that their presence contributes in a way that is recognized and valued.
During periods of reorganization, mattering becomes fragile. Silence, ambiguity, and distance can erode it quickly. Leaders who protect mattering during these difficult periods by maintaining connection, transparency and respect are able to retain trust even when outcomes are hard.
Virtuous Circle
You can help create a virtuous circle by making others feel like they matter to you and to the organization. In turn, they’ll make you feel like you matter to them.
For example: Recently, a colleague shared with me her volunteer work supporting a girl with a serious cancer who had no financial or social resources needed to carry out her treatment. After our conversation she sent me a link to an account where she was fundraising for this girl. I shared it with my network and several people donated money. The next day I received a call by my colleague who was extremely moved because thanks to those donations she had been able to secure housing for the girl near the hospital where she was receiving her treatment. I had made her feel seen and valued and in turn, she made me feel seen and valued. As a result, my colleague remains resilient in the face of the uphill battle that entails fighting for someone in this girl’s situation.
This is the powerful virtuous circle that we can easily create in our organizations and in our lives.
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