The Ego's Penetration Force
The more you expand your horizon of perceiving human experience, the more intense your receptiveness and empathy become in relation to the realities and emotions of others.
In the book "Every patient tells a story", Lisa Sanders highlights a very important aspect. Namely, that in medicine often what seems to be is what is not and does not seem to be !
Crystal Lessing was barely twenty years old. She was sound as a bell all her life. But in the day when she went to the dental office to remove her wisdom tooth, included in the bone, fell ill. She was tired. She had pain. Fever. Her health deteriorates so much that had to be admitted to emergency in intensive care at the great academic medical center on Long Island. She was pasty-faced. She seemed very weak. Her heart beat faster and faster. She was breathing faster than normal, despite the oxygen that was pumped into her nose. Kidneys did not work.
But no one knew the true cause of disease. The doctors have seen her, and nursed her with great seriousness and attention. But it was not clear to them whether the mystery of her illness would be resolved in time to save her life. Her medical sheet was filled with numbers which proved how sick she was. There were many anomalies.
Do you interpret the way people react as a form of reflection that gives you the chance to know yourself more deeply through your own sensitivity?
Dr. Steven Walerstein, Head of Pharmacology of the hospital was called by emergency. But he did something else than the all other doctors have done. He hasn't read the girl's medical records. As he did not want to be influenced by the thinking of those who already saw her. Too often, in these difficult cases something was passed or misinterpreted.
Instead, he went to the patient's bed and presented himself to her and her mother, and asked the girl to tell the whole story all over again. When first the pain has occurred, what she exactly felt and in what place, etc. He had to put things together alone. After the reported events, doctor allowed himself to look into her record. He had to find an answer otherwise the girl would have died within days.
Walerstein stopped a moment to seek in her medical record a kind of thickly print in the chaos of figures and analysis. And then have noticed that the team that cared for the girl had not considered looking for a specific diagnostic analysis. This information was simply taken aside. He went immediately to the hospital library to check his intuition. Yes ! He was right. The girl suffered from Wilson's disease.
The tests for the respective disease were done again to the girl and indeed the results confirmed the Walerstein's suspicion. She was immediately transferred by helicopter to New York; finally she received an organ and survived.
Do you try to interpret people’s emotions even when you are not ready to understand the consequences of your own mistaken perceptions?
If you want to know how works the leadership, then you need to know how "are working" people, what are their emotional states: their experiences, their attitudes, feelings and their thoughts. Just as a doctor thoroughly examines the patient's problem to make a correct diagnosis - so you must study the behavior and attitudes of the people, and analyze what happens in their mind and soul that you can anchor them to your side. You must prove that subtlety in the observation that penetration force of the human ego.
You show a growing interest for what feel people around you? Leadership failure is due to a multitude of false steps accumulated over time and lack of safety in the establishment of an objective and fair "diagnostic". Learn to take into account and other aspects than the ones you usually see, and especially, learn to listen to them.
The more you know about people, the better you will be prepared to understand them.
Do you try to understand a person in their entirety, at the risk of confusing their path with the rhythm of your own evolving consciousness?
People are not all equally. Each is a distinct personality, a particularly "ego". You cannot just look at them and understand. To be able to influence them you need to listen to their "story" - and to try to infer what they can get excited, what motivates them, what are their aspirations and their failures, to understand how work their minds, which is the fuel that puts in motion the engine of their state of mind. And to make them understand how they can fully participate in their own "healing" following the steps you indicate.
Just as a physician must have a sound base of knowledge and a large enough experience to know how to interpret what patients say - so you have to have that penetration force into the inner world of others, in the mysteries of their universe, in their ego, in their conscience and to intuit what goes wrong. You cannot increase their other's value if you do not understand their value system. Remember that good diagnoses lead to better targeted therapies, with great chances of cure.
As a leader you must know how to listen, not only to ask questions and get answers. Just as a doctor listens to the patient so they can put things together, and finally to establish the correct diagnosis - so you should listen to people, to put emphasis on patience in time, to give them much attention, and freedom to express their reasons for not "working" properly.
Leadership means becoming aware of the impact of your own reactions in the face of life’s contradictions, cultivating through reflection and openness an empathetic and balanced attitude toward others.
Conclusion: A great leader must hold the art of listening to what people say. Knowing how to interpret objectively and impartially what you listen, giving you the opportunity to penetrate the depths of the ego, and learning the most about these egos you will be ready to understand them and will be able to act effectively.
* Note: Lisa Sanders - Every patient tells a story, Publishing House Trei, 2011.
