Daily Image
09-07-2009
Power, Responsibility, Leadership.
| Submitter: | Harry van der Laan |
| Description: | On Thursday 11 June, Harry van der Laan (*1936) gave a special colloquium in the context of ASTRON's sixtieth anniversary. Professor van der Laan was closely involved with Astron in the period 1967 - 1987, and was the "CEO" of what was then called SRZM / NFRA as 'delegated board member' (1969 - 1974) and executive chairman (1975 - 1987). The outline of his talk: PROLOGUE 1. 1968 - '70 Revolution or Transition 2. 1970 - 1980 From simple 1.5 km SRT to multiwavelength 3 km array 3. NFRA, ASTRON, NCA 4. The UK/NL Strategic Alliance 5. The submm telescope from La Palma to Mauna Kea 6. The Kapteyn Sterrewacht Werkgroep KSW EPILOGUE In the course of over an hour, Harry sketched the turbulence of the transition from the modest operation of the Dwingeloo telescope to that of the Westerbork SRT. Then came the excitement of the first decade of WSRT operations and continual extensions. This near-monopoly lasted till the completion of the VLA in New Mexico. He then told the story of initiating the strategic alliance of the UK and The Netherlands and all the consequences that had for SRZM and its personnel. He lauded the amazing creativity of the staff as it managed to design and build state of the art instrumentation and s/w for submm, infrared and optical telescopes, wholly new wavelength domains for the organization. A special tale was how the Dutch prevented the submm telescope from being constructed on La Palma but to have the world's best submm telescope, since known as the JCMT, erected on Mauna Kea instead. He said that the willingness of personnel to move, with families, to the UK and to the faraway islands to meet the UK/NL agreement's obligations, had demonstrated heartening courage, inventiveness and adaptability. The formation of the Leiden-Groningen optical instrumentation group KSW in Roden was yet another episode of this active period. Without these tremendous efforts, ASTRON could not have achieved its world-leading role today. Nor would ALMA have been feasible without the JCMT experience on Mauna Kea. The speaker ended with some reflections on all the responsibilities, often in the form of holding three to five offices at once, entrusted to him by Jan Oort, Henk Bannier, Henk van de Hulst and his peers. He noted that while some regarded this as exercising naked power, he himself had often felt it a burden of responsibilities, but that most of the time he had enthusiastically used the opportunities to give Dutch astronomy direction and momentum. The latter he regards as not just good management but rather as the essence of leadership. Figure caption: Three perceptions of leadership: A. Pinnacle of power. B. Crushing responsibility. C. Leadership: providing direction and momentum. |
| Copyright: | HvdL |
| Tweet |  |