MUSINGS....2023 AND BEYOND.....

As another year dawns, I, for the first time wonder about the many thank you notes I’ve received over the years from bright young talent I’ve had the opportunity to work with. Perhaps it’s the middle age that is making me reflect!

One particular note given to me recently has made me ponder. The young lady presented me with a heartfelt note at the end of her work with me, which, among other things, mentioned that she considers me her role model. As flattering as it was to read it, it was concerning at the same time. I don’t think I am perfect, and neither are any of us, to be considered as role models…

Over the years, in my own work experience, I’ve come across some fabulously inspiring leaders who have taught me a lot. But do any one of them qualify to be my role model, I am afraid the answer is a resounding ‘NO’.

By definition, we are all human and hence prone to human failings. I remember a senior colleague in medicine whom we all looked up to for his knowledge, but sadly, his knowledge rarely translated into surgical performance on table. Then there was this head of a clinical department, a fine doctor, but unable to take responsibility for his team’s performance…. Vicarious responsibility, which by law, lay on him. From insecure bosses, to vengeful ones, from very capable bosses to trailblazing ones, I’ve seen a lot of them over the years, but none near the role model idea that the young generation is at times looking for. I distinctly remember a foreign educated young boss who one would expect to be widely travelled and exposed to working in a multi-cultural and multi-national setting, tell me categorically that we shouldn’t be hiring “young girls” in management as they would “join, get pregnant and go on maternity leave”! I vividly remember his office and the words that came out of his mouth. It’s a different matter that I took strong objection to his statement and refused to follow such dictates’ and clearly told him to heal his sexist mind-set! And in the years that followed, he branded me as “high- maintenance”! Another encounter in another organization left me much bewildered when the senior most person in the organization, someone who should’ve been a role model for the rest of us, vehemently opposed the proceedings of the legally constituted committee under the POSH act, just because the accused was his favourite. This unfortunate behaviour in fact led to some of us resigning. There have also been bosses who have been extremely accomplished and unbelievably supportive. They have helped achieve things which perhaps have never been done in the country before. However, their failing has been their inability to give credit where due. There have also been very well meaning bosses who have lacked the courage to support when I have tried to take up something very risky. The fact that I have gone ahead, and succeeded, despite their well- meaning advice against my chosen course of action, is entirely on me. Then there have also been those bosses who have been non-doctors and perhaps insecure of their limited knowledge of medicine and hence behaved petty. There also have been bosses who have been doctor administrators but have on purpose tried to give unrealistic assignments perhaps to fulfil some lacunae in their own careers or psyche. ?Interestingly there have also been the newbies in the healthcare field who’ve treated healthcare as all black and white without realizing that the practise of medicine has a lot of grey and that two plus two doesn’t always add up to four! They have been the ones who’ve branded people like me as those that put spanners in the growth of a new company by reading out the rule book to them and being an alarmist.

Though the above are just a few examples highlighting the dark side, each one of them have had a positive side too. But it’s this darker side in each of the experiences that ensures that none of them qualify to be a role model. In fact, I would fault the quest for a role model itself as all human beings by definition are not perfect. The quest for a role model maybe a quest in futility. And I speak entirely from personal experience.

It is wonderful to learn and imbibe from those who have traversed the path before us, our peers and even our juniors. There is always something to learn from everyone. At the same time everyone also teaches us what not to do. Both the learnings are equally valuable in my opinion. It is up to us to distinguish the wheat from the chaff…. And in that sense everyone around us is a role model. It’s just the context is slightly different- everyone is a role model in what to do and everyone is a role model in what not to do. What we pick up from each interaction is on us, what we do with that learning is up to us; and what we make of ourselves is again up to us.

Here is a thank you to each one who taught me what to do and to each one who taught me what not to do; and many a time, they’ve been the same person.?