Few activities are more satisfying than visiting a good bookstore, picking out a few fine books, and then paying for the books at the checkout with book tokens. It is one of the things on my program for this week. On the occasion of my recent birthday, I received a good number of book tokens that are crying out to be spent. But I also received some books from people who know me well, and thus were able to choose something that matches my interests. One of these I read and enjoyed this past weekend. I can recommend this particular book to everyone. I am a lover of biographies and the giver was aware of that! The book in question is a biography of a physician in the Dutch city of Kampen, who became famous, mainly because of his part in the development of an artificial kidney, entitled: The man who saved millions of lives: Doctor Kolff – 1911-2009. The author is journalist Herman Broers and the book was published in 2018 by the Amsterdam publishing house Balans .

The book is the fascinating story of a man who in World War II managed to use the medical knowledge of himself and a group of Kamper medical colleagues to save the lives of a large number of people, whom the Germans wanted to take away for “Arbeitseinsatz” or worse. But from the very beginning of his career Kolff was obsessed with the idea that people with kidney failure could be helped if there would be a device that could remove the fatal surplus of urea from their blood.

Eventually, in the years after the war, there were too few opportunities in the Netherlands for this gifted man to realize the further development of his dialysis device. He moved with his family to the United States, where in time he became the main pioneer in the field of developing artificial hearts.

As I was reading, it occurred to me that this book could play an important role in leadership training. Not because Kolff was a perfect leader in alle respects, with an even temperament and impeccable interpersonal skills, but because he was an excellent team leader. Kolff worked with a team that eventually consisted of dozens (or even more) of people. What made Kolff a very special leader, was his ability to form a good team and enthuse it for long periods of time. In the early stages of his career he often paid his associates out of his own pocket. Very special was also his regular habit of meeting with his staff every morning for half an hour to keep each other informed of what everyone was doing. He knew that good communication was essential.

Perhaps the most extraordinary thing about Kolff’s leadership qualities was that he gave other people on his team much of the credit when there was a breakthrough in their research or when a milestone was reached in the application of a device or instrument that they had developed together. When the first artificial heart, that Kolff and his team had developed, could be implanted, it was named after one of the collaborators who had an important part in the final stage of its development. It became not the Kofff-heart, but the Javik-7 heart. This attitude ran like a thread through Kolff’s career. Disappointments–and there were many of them–must be dealt with together, and successes were credited to the entire team!

This principle of good teamwork, in which all members of the team have the opportunity to develop their gifts and in which all share in the honor when something is successfully completed, is fundamental when it comes to good leadership. Unfortunately, this is not always the case and a big ego of the leader often demands that he/she receive all the credit. We see this in the realm of business, in the scientific world, but unfortunately also in the church environment. Even in local congregations and in ‘higher’ church organizations, leaders often take all the credit for themselves. And, surely, they ought to know better, because the great Leader, whom Christians claim they want to follow, has given them a very different example. Kolff was not a believer, but on that point he has been an example to many Christian leaders.