Sarasvati Kalpa

By: Sadwika Salain

In public health promotion, the values within community – where the program is being implemented – need to be admired and then taken into account to support the leadership capacity (Eckerman et. al (1995) quoted in Talbot, L. and Verrinder G (2005).  Furthermore, Talbot, L. and Verrinder G. (2005) extracted the community values become equity, equality, social justice, human right as well as cultural safety. In addition to Talbot, L. and Verrinder G. (2005), Rowitz (2001) has also highlighted the efficacy of considering social justice and equity to augment one’s leadership capacity.

Dr Hetzel is an Australian medical scientist who gave major and exemplary contributions in combating the Iodine Deficiency Disorder (IDD) in many developing countries; India, China, Indonesia, Thailand etc. (Hetsel, B., 2005). He was born in London, UK in 1922 of Australian parent and grown up in UK and Australia (The Bob Hawke Prime Ministerial Centre, retrieved 10 October 2008).

Dr Basil Hessel grown up in the western community – Australia-UK, where  it has different cultures and values with those of such developing countries.  Yet, he successfully promoted the IDD recovery program in those countries. From this,  it is implied that Dr. Hetzel has successfully implemented the right approach and strategy and deftly deployed it to deal with the values difference.

A good example to show his faculty in elaborating the local values – especially the cultural safety – was the IDD program in Sengi Village, Central Java in Indonesia, 1973. To support the program, Dr Hetzel involved Prof. Djokomoeljanto – who had both genealogical and cultural similarity with those of Sengi’s villager. This involvement was obviously held by intention and therefore has meanings. Not only was Prof. Djokomoeljanto an expert and previously conducted the Iodine Deficiency research in Sengi, this involvement was also aimed to bridge the gap in regard of language, cultural and even ideology so that the ‘cultural safety’ is achieved.

Special assets and pre-conditions of Hetzel’’s leadership

The special and important asset of Hetzel is his expertise. As a scientist, he fully understood of things related with the Iodine Deficiency. He knew how worse the effects of iodine deficiency are, he perceived the cause why the people suffered from iodine and more importantly know how it could be solved. This asset is obviously an important point.

His expertise also became a good practice of his leadership. As a founder of Research Department and Endocrine Clinic, he made worldwide network then eventually catapulting his leadership capacity.

Important Learning

In order for Hetzel to successfully implement his idea into a worldwide-movement, no doubt that he has conducted series of efficacy approaches that we can learn such as:

• Being consistent and contingent

Hetzel – through the Hetzel wheel – has shown us the important of consistency and contingency to obtain the goal (Hetzel, B. 2005). None of the step upon the wheel could be eliminated to gain a success, more specifically in health care.

• Being Communicative

Hetzel successfully established communication with politician as policy makers to support the program. In addition, Hetzel also established communication and therefore synergy with other stake holder; salt industry, education system and the media as well as professionals within public health sector (Stanbury, John B, retrieved at 9 October 2008).

The influence of Hetzel story to our leadership approach

As an engineer, I am being accustomed to a straight forward and “black-white” way of thinking. In this scheme, the right thing is absolutely right wherever it does to apply. From Dr. Hetzel approach of leadership, I implied that such black-white approach will not necessarily work as there are no absolute “right or wrong”. It seem to me that Hetzel’s leadership consistently flowed and mutually co-operated with other leadership trait of the program stake holders; politician, scholars, community leaders and eventually community members.

The changes of leadership definition

I defined a leadership as:

“a mutual relationship to influence the follower to conduct things as the leader’s hope, yet they are own-motivated to do so with or without rewards”.

After went through to the Hetzel’s leadership approach, I realized that the previous definition of leadership is still relevant. However, there is important component need to be added for emphasizing the significance of multisectoral involvement – or sometimes defined as collectivism. Therefore, it may be corrected become:

“a mutual relationship to influence others to have collective concern of importance to reach the goal”

In this corrected definition, I emphasize the significance of togetherness or collectivism to make change and transformative action as defined by Dunoon (2002).