hidden image

Bob’s Banter by Robert Clements Your Chair and You..!

Robert Clements Robert Clements
23 May 2022
Bob's Banter - Size your chair talks about your personality

As a writer and journalist, I often had to visit men and women in different leadership positions at their offices. As soon as I was ushered into their offices, the chair on which they sat told me where I stood. The chairs came in all shapes and sizes. Small made men sat in big, huge, opulent chairs and towered over the people who came to visit them. In the same way some sat with ease on chairs that were the same size and height of the visitors.
The height of their chairs told me how the meeting would go: How I would be treated and how I should treat him. The chair told me where I stood.
I remember a meeting with a religious leader who wanted me to write a book on him, offering me a handsome amount to do so. I entered his office and found him towering over a huge table. I sat in front and listened and was astonished to hear a man of God talking with such vanity. Somewhere during our talk, he excused himself to go to the bathroom, and suddenly I found him actually climbing down from a high chair: He was a very short man! All he wanted to do was to look down at the people who came to see him. I did not write his book.
Kings and queens of old, did this. Their thrones, palaces and castles were made to frighten and intimidate their subjects.
But I remember quite often walking into the office of a chairman or director of a leading company and finding him sitting on an ordinary chair with normal height, very often on a sofa and inviting me to sit across. Some did not even need a table between! These are men and women of confidence! They don’t need to be lifted up physically to show their power. Their power is within, and not outside themselves. Some wear simple clothes; they don’t need a double breast suit to show how big they are. Some of them arrive to work in self-driven cars like JRD Tata used to do.
I am not making fun of people whose office has supplied them with furniture, nor am I making fun of anybody for that matter, but my plea to you today is to work towards increasing the size of your confidence, not the size of your chair. Build a foundation of values based on truth, not on the legs of your chair.
Also leaders don’t need gigantic Parliament buildings and God doesn’t need huge structures too; leaders need to serve with humility, and God wants to reside in your heart!
Like I said, as soon as I was ushered into an office I knew where I stood. Tell me, what kind of a chair you sit on? I wonder how I’d feel if called over to your office?

bobsbanter@gmail.com

Recent Posts

Modi does not have the magnanimity to admit that whatever progress India has achieved is the result of the work done by the people of India
apicture A. J. Philip
27 Mar 2023
Over the last few weeks, we have been reading a lot about the US banking system. The Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), which was the 16th largest bank in the US
apicture Jaswant Kaur
27 Mar 2023
The Supreme Court while hearing a matter, on March 15, regarding the action of the Maharashtra Governor in ordering a floor test in the wake of the alleged Shiv Sena split
apicture Joseph Maliakan
27 Mar 2023
This India belongs to all of us. The controversy about who is real Indian is fallacious. It can only stoke hatred, division, and inhumanity.
apicture P. A. Chacko
27 Mar 2023
The Supreme Court of India has come out with a landmark verdict in the following words: “Un-satiated greed for wealth has facilitated corruption to develop, like cancer
apicture Dr. M. D. Thomas
27 Mar 2023
“Hi Buddy”, I said to my friend, whom I was meeting after a long time. “Where have you been, and what have you been up to, these years?
apicture Bishop Alex Dias
27 Mar 2023
As I read the news of his gentle departure at the ripe age of 101, I recall Sadhu Ittiyavirah with love and reverence.
apicture J. Prasant Palakkappillil
27 Mar 2023
The manner in which a 59-year-old senior cardiologist was assaulted by a patient’s family members in a Kozhikode hospital this March 5
apicture Aarti
27 Mar 2023
God the Father, in creatng each and every one of us and conferring upon us different graces and blessings, has implanted in us seeds of gifts and talents of different kinds.
apicture Patrick Crasta
27 Mar 2023
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827), German music composer and one of the top world musicians
apicture P. A. Joseph
27 Mar 2023