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LEADERSHIP COMPETENCY
Emotional maturity to leadership
Emotional maturity is the ability to understand reality, facts and the quality of
response to a situation by detaching from the pulls and pushes of pleasant and
unpleasant feelings, says M R CHANDRAMOWLY.
THERE was a philosopher who was a businessman too. He was waiting for the safe arrival of large
sailing ship carrying aboard his wife and children and all his wealth. On day, he heard a knock on his
door and found a breathless messenger who announced: “Sir, your ship has sunk” “What?” “Your
ship has sunk!” “So what?” “Sir, you have lost all your wealth” “What?” “You are a pauper” “So
what?” “Sir, You have lost your wife and children” “What?” “You are an orphan” “So what?” Look at
these two types of responses from the same person. The first response is an emotional “What” The
second is cool, “So what?” The difference is obvious.
Swami Dayananda who narrates the story explains, when the businessman said “What” it is not that
he had not understood what he was told and that he was asking for a clarification. The messenger
had announced the news clearly. “What?” means “Oh, no! Not really!”, a response of non-
acceptance of fact. An ordinary person will keep on building up on that non-acceptance seeing
variety of associated things missing in a snap. “So what?” comes from emotional maturity accepting
facts as they are. Maturity is not just meant for some chosen people like philosophers. It is the need
of every one who would like to have right understanding. A right understanding makes a person
matured.
Emotionally matured person sees the world as it is without distortion of perception. What really
vitiates our perception to see the facts are our anxiety, insecurity, concern and fear. A non-
performer is not problem of organisations. The problem is how a manager deals with him. If he
looks at the fact and tackles the “performance” part there could be a solution. If he looks at the
person who is the cousin of a director, the objective f