WORKING AS A COORDINATOR MIDWIFE IN A TERTIARY ...

Leaving Work Behind and Moving Forward
The characteristics of an executive leader which are described by The Boston
Consultancy Group (2006) are equally applicable to the delivery suite coordinator. They
suggest leaders will need to “strive to achieve a balance between their working and
family life” whilst living their leadership skills (p.24). So, to conclude the interpretation
of experiences coordinators have shared for this chapter, the question is asked, how do
these women manage when they leave their workplace? Do they achieve a work/life
balance?
Alice explains:
I often wake up in the middle of the night thinking about things, or on my walks
with the dog I think about things. You have to. You don’t want to be obsessed by it
but you still have to process things to make sense out of them and you don’t have
time at work to do that necessarily because it’s bang, bang, bang…………
Leaders are described by Malloch and Porter-O’Grady (2005) as individuals who are
“simply playing a role they do not need to live every moment of their lives” (p.31). At
the end of her shift Alice leaves her ‘lived space’ of delivery suite and she returns home
to her “lived other” life world (van Manen, 1990), where her role is very different (p.76).
However, her work experiences catch up with her and reveal themselves to her at home
where she often finds herself processing her thoughts as a matter of necessity. Her sleep
is often interrupted with thoughts about work and there is a sense she has no control
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