“Seeing with The Heart’s Eye” by Kari Martinsen
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Why It Matters 💡
Modern professional life trains us to see efficiently, objectively, and from a distance. But this way of seeing often comes at a cost: we stop truly encountering the other.
In this deeply philosophical and humane text, Kari Martinsen explores what it means to see with the heart’s eye — a form of perception grounded in care, vulnerability, and ethical responsibility.
What It Explores 🤔
Drawing on nursing practice, phenomenology, ethics, and the parable of the Good Samaritan, Martinsen distinguishes between different modes of seeing:
the recording, classifying, objective gaze, and
the participating, attentive, receptive gaze that allows another person to appear as a human being, not a case or object.
She shows that perception is never neutral. How we see already contains a moral stance — one that either opens space for care, or closes it.
Key Ideas & Distinctions 🧭
Seeing is not passive — it is an ethical act
The “recording eye” vs. the “participating eye”
Attention as moral responsiveness
Vulnerability as a shared human condition
Care as presence, not intervention
Professional distance vs. human closeness
What the Reading Reveals 🔍
Martinsen makes visible something we often overlook:
That professionalism can unintentionally harden perception
That efficiency and objectivity can silence what most needs to be heard
That suffering, need, and meaning appear only when we allow ourselves to be affected
That true understanding arises not from detachment, but from attentive presence
She reveals how easily modern systems — healthcare, organizations, leadership structures — train people not to see.
Practical Implications 🛠️
Although rooted in care ethics and nursing, the implications extend far beyond healthcare:
How leaders listen — or fail to
How professionals meet vulnerability in others
How organizations treat people as roles, data points, or problems to be solved
How speed, distance, and abstraction erode moral awareness
The text invites leaders to reflect on how their way of seeing shapes their decisions, relationships, and impact.
Why It’s Relevant for Leaders Today 🚦
In a time of acceleration, AI, dashboards, and performance pressure, the dominant gaze is instrumental. Martinsen offers a necessary counterweight. She reminds us that leadership, like care, begins with how we attend — and that ethical judgment cannot be separated from perception. What we allow ourselves to see determines how we act.
The Takeaway 🥡
To see with the heart’s eye is to allow oneself to be touched — and therefore to respond. Care begins not with action, but with attention of the other.