Visibility vs availability
I was moved to tears. And looking out at the room, I could see I wasn’t the only one.
I was in conversation with Job van Woensel, Professor of Paediatrics and intensivist, who until February this year headed the Department of Paediatrics at Amsterdam UMC. He has also worked several times with Doctors Without Borders.
Impressive titles, but above all, a remarkable human being. We talked about leadership. What is it like, as a medical professional, to lead other medical professionals? People who often know better than you, or who know a great deal about things you don’t? What is it like, inside a hospital, a complex system of interests, money flows and politics, to keep putting that one thing first: making children better?
What makes you a good leader, I asked him.
“Being visible.”
Visibility, I realised, has always had a slightly negative ring to it for me. Personal branding, putting yourself in the spotlight, making sure you get noticed. I associate it with showing off and ego-driven behaviour, with doing things mainly for your own gain.
It was his stories about patients that showed me what he meant. The moments that truly touched him, and how he dared to let that show. The choices he had to make when curing a patient was no longer possible. How he made them together with parents, nurses and colleagues, by really listening, searching openly and following his intuition.
Or the wordless connection with a little boy in a clinic somewhere in Myanmar, lying alone in a room, very ill, without his parents. For a week, Job sat with him for a while every day, simply to hold his hand. By sheer coincidence, a few weeks later he ran into the boy in a community, completely healthy, and the boy didn’t let go of his hand for the rest of the day.
For a whole hour, nobody looked at their phone. All the attention was here, in this room, in this conversation. Partly because these are intense stories, of course. But mostly because, without ever putting it into words, he showed us that leadership is a quality of being. Not simply “just being yourself,” but being truly present. Wholeheartedly.
Availability. That’s what it’s about. Being present and paying attention to the people around you. Daring to say out loud that you don’t know. Letting your tears show when something really touches you. And in doing so, opening the floor for others to show themselves too, and to be more than a smart professional.
Or, as someone in the room reflected: “I’ve discovered that I can bring myself to work during the week too.” A beautiful sentence in its own right.
That’s possible anywhere, in any organisation.
Annemarie de Jong
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