Greatness is never declared. It is remembered

One of the more amusing, albeit tragic, observations of modern society is that man, though born insignificant, refuses to die without a fuss. He must matter. He must count. And if heaven does not assign him a starring role in the cosmic drama, he will claw and howl and scratch his name into the curtains of eternity with the manic zeal of a rejected actor storming the stage during someone else's soliloquy.

This affliction, let us not mince words, is the desperate hunger for significance. In its milder forms, it produces poets, professors, and parliamentarians. In its acute manifestations, it begets dictators, demagogues, and motivational speakers. Like an undiagnosed fever, it grips the soul with a flush of importance and convinces the afflicted that their slightest utterance should echo across empires.

Now, I am not one to oppose the human desire for meaning. That would be as foolish as opposing the sunrise or tax collection. But I do take issue with how we pursue significance, particularly when those in positions of power become enslaved to it. The leader, who should ideally rise above personal vanity to steward the common good, too often becomes a theatre of his narcissism. He governs not from a sense of service, but from the tremulous fear that he may cease to matter if the world stops looking.

Let us begin, as all psychologists do, with childhood.

Imagine, if you will, a child, rosy-cheeked, impressionable, slightly sticky. This child, like all others, arrives in the world howling for attention. At first, this is charming. A coo here, a cuddle there, and the baby believes himself the sun around which the household rotates. But as years pass and toys are replaced by textbooks, he encounters a ghastly revelation: others exist. Some are faster, brighter, richer, taller, or worse, more liked.

Herein begins the quiet tragedy of comparison, the soil in which the roots of significance sink deep. The child, no longer content with being, must now be more than. His entire psychological scaffolding is rearranged to accommodate this need: not to live, but to matter.

Psychologists have named this desire many things: esteem, ego, identity, purpose. But all these are merely respectable hats worn by that unruly child crying out, "Look at me!" The need for significance is not a luxury; it is, for many, the very engine of their identity.

When such a soul enters leadership, the consequences are seldom comic. A desperate need for significance in a private citizen might result in an unfortunate memoir or a series of Facebook posts. But when such a need animates a president, prime minister, or pontiff, nations tremble.

The leader afflicted by the disease of significance behaves not as a steward, but as a spectacle. He does not ask, "What is good?" but rather, "What will make them applaud?" The applause, mind you, need not be unanimous. Indeed, outrage is often more intoxicating than approval. A boo is merely the inverse of a cheer—it still proves you exist.
Let us consider a hypothetical fellow and call him Applaudius. Applaudius rises to power not under wisdom or merit, but by mastering the art of visibility. He knows how to dominate a headline, rile a crowd, insult his enemies with poetic vulgarity. He has learned that in the theatre of modern politics, significance is won not through service, but through noise.
Applaudius governs not with policy, but with performance. He is addicted to the spotlight, and like any addict, he grows increasingly reckless in pursuit of his fix. He will provoke, polarize, even persecute, so long as it keeps the cameras pointed at him.

Now, you may argue that not all leaders are Applaudius. True. Some are merely his understudies.

The desperate leader is not merely tragic; he is costly. Consider how such individuals twist the machinery of governance to preserve their image. Decisions are made not on merit but on optics. Critics are not engaged but silenced. Institutions are not protected but plundered for personal mythmaking.

In the court of the significant man, the greatest sin is irrelevance. Truth may be negotiable, morality optional, but to be ignored. This is damnation itself. He will risk war, ruin, or revolution rather than surrender his place in the great opera of history.

And what of those who follow him? For every insecure tyrant, there exists an audience complicit in the delusion. Citizens who, bored with the drudgery of their own anonymity, project their longing onto the loudest figure in the room. The leader becomes their avatar, the embodiment of their rage, their fears, their dreams. They cheer not for him, but for themselves through him.

Thus, a vicious circle is formed: the leader who needs to matter finds comfort in followers who want to feel they matter, too. Together, they build monuments of ego and call it patriotism.
It would be wrong to imagine that this need for significance is merely a political affliction. It pervades the arts, academia, business, and even spirituality. The modern saint does not retire to the desert; he launches a podcast. The philosopher does not ponder in silence; he tweets in capital letters. The guru does not renounce fame; he monetizes his enlightenment.
We are a society addicted to being seen. We crave followers more than wisdom, claps more than truth. In this marketplace of vanity, the loudest becomes the most righteous, and the reflective are dismissed as irrelevant.

It is not leadership that is broken; it is our collective definition of what it means to matter. We no longer ask what a person contributes, but how much attention they attract. A man may lie, cheat, or maim but if he trends, he wins.

And yet, all is not lost. There exist, in quiet corners of the world, leaders who do not suffer from this disease. Leaders who find their significance not in being seen, but in seeing others. They do not mistake the microphone for a mirror.

These rare individuals are not without ego…no human is, but their ego is tempered by purpose. They are not desperate to matter; they are desperate for something to matter beyond themselves.

Such leaders often go uncelebrated in their time. They build institutions, not statues. They empower others, rather than gather acolytes. They know the true irony: that by surrendering the craving for personal significance, one attains a far more enduring kind.

If we are to rescue leadership from the abyss of self-worship, we must reorient our admiration. Let us not cheer the loudest, but the wisest. Let us not follow the flashiest, but the most principled. Let us value contribution over charisma, substance over spectacle.

And as individuals, let us examine our own hunger. What if you mattered simply because you are? What if significance were not something you chased, but something you lived, quietly, nobly, without applause?

Imagine the liberation of no longer craving to be special. You could finally be useful.

In a world addicted to performance, the truest rebellion is sincerity. The leader who is not seduced by the spotlight is the one most worthy of it. Let us raise a toast, not to the man who shouts the loudest, but to the one who listens, serves, and disappears without ceremony.

After all, greatness is never declared. It is remembered.

(This article is written by Dr. Srabani Basu, Associate Professor, Department of Literature and Languages, SRM University AP.. This is an opinionated article; EPN has nothing to do with this editorial.)