The Leaders Coming Behind Us Need More Than Advice

September 11, 2026
By: Nicole Jones-Gerbino, President

I can trace a lot of my career to people who saw something in me before I had fully figured out what to do with it.

They gave me responsibility. They let me into rooms where I could listen and learn. They challenged me. Sometimes they simply said, “You can do this,” at exactly the point when I wasn’t entirely sure I could.

I remember being one of the youngest people in leadership meetings and feeling the pressure to prove I deserved to be there. I thought credibility came from having answers quickly and looking certain. It took experience to understand that leadership was less about proving myself and more about what I could contribute to the room.

That experience shapes how I think about developing the next generation of radiology leaders now.

We talk a lot about mentorship. We should. Mentorship matters.

But advice alone will not build the next generation of leaders.

They need access.

Mentorship and sponsorship do different work

A mentor can help someone think through a difficult situation. They can offer perspective, share what they learned the hard way, challenge assumptions, and help someone recognize where they need to grow.

A sponsor does something different.

A sponsor puts your name in a conversation when you aren’t there.

They bring you into a meeting. They recommend you for the committee. They give you the project with enough visibility that other people can see what you can do. They make an introduction that changes who you know and what becomes possible next.

I have benefited from both throughout my career, and I believe leaders have a responsibility to provide both.

People rarely rise because they were pushed. They rise because they were seen.

That idea is deeply connected to how I think about leadership.

Seeing someone is only the beginning, though.

Eventually you have to do something with what you see.

Put them in the room

There is a point in leadership when your own visibility becomes useful to someone besides you.

That matters to me more as my career progresses.

If I have a seat in a room where decisions are being made, I can use that seat to make another person visible. I can invite someone into the conversation. I can ask for their perspective in front of people who need to hear it. I can recommend them for an opportunity that may stretch them.

Sometimes the most consequential thing a leader can say is someone else’s name.

I have become much more intentional about that.

And there is another side of visibility that emerging leaders need to understand.

Visibility invites opinion.

The moment you start showing up more, speaking more and leading more, people will have thoughts about it.

When you step into bigger rooms, more people will have a perspective on you. Some of it will be helpful. Some of it won’t.

That’s part of growth, not a sign you’re doing it wrong.

You have to learn how to hear what matters without getting pulled off track by everything else.

We do people a disservice if we give them visibility without helping them understand what comes with it.

Give people responsibility before they are completely comfortable

I don’t believe development happens by protecting people from every difficult assignment.

Some of my greatest growth came from being trusted with responsibility before I felt completely ready for it.

There is judgment required here. Giving someone an opportunity they cannot reasonably carry is not development. Giving someone meaningful responsibility, clear expectations, support, and room to learn is.

Those are very different things.

I see this in our work at PBS. Radiology is changing quickly. Revenue cycle is changing. Technology is changing. The expectations of the people doing the work are changing with it.

The leaders we are developing need judgment, adaptability, and the ability to understand how their piece of the work connects to everything around it.

That is difficult to teach from the sidelines.

Give people real problems.

Let them participate in decisions.

Ask them what they think before telling them what you think.

Let them present the work.

Let them make a decision and then talk through what happened.

And give specific feedback.

“Great job” feels good. It rarely tells someone how to become better.

Tell them what worked. Tell them where they lost the room. Tell them what you would have handled differently. Ask why they made the choice they made.

Feedback tells people how others experience them. That becomes increasingly important as their influence grows.

Don’t build people in your image

This may be one of the harder parts of mentorship.

The goal is not to create another version of yourself.

I have more than two decades of experience in healthcare and radiology. I should bring that experience to people I mentor. I should not expect them to approach every problem the way I would. This is hard to accept sometimes, and even harder for us to practice as leaders.

I want experience behind us and curiosity in front of us.

The people coming into leadership now are asking different questions. They are entering a different industry than the one many of us entered. They are working with technology we did not have, expectations we did not have, and workforce dynamics we did not have.

I can teach what experience has taught me.

I can learn from their curiosity.

Good development should make room for both.

The strongest leaders around us may challenge some of the ways we have always done things. Good. We need people willing to understand what came before them and curious enough to ask what should come next.

Pay attention before the person is obvious

This may be the piece I care about most.

Leadership potential does not always arrive packaged perfectly.

Sometimes it is the person asking unusually good questions.

Sometimes it is the employee who sees a problem outside the boundaries of their role and cares enough to bring it forward.

Sometimes it is someone whose career has not followed the expected path.

Sometimes the person is still learning how to use their voice.

I know something about nonlinear paths. I was working full time before I finished high school. I finished college later, when I was already leading people. My path did not look like the paths of many of the people sitting next to me in those early leadership rooms. Those experiences became part of how I learned to carry responsibility.

That history makes me careful about deciding too quickly what leadership potential is supposed to look like.

Look for judgment, curiosity, ownership.

Look for someone who wants to understand why, not just what.

Look for the person who makes the people around them better.

Then invest before everyone else notices.

Our visibility should eventually create visibility for someone else

The more visible you become, the more opportunities you have to change someone else’s trajectory.

You give someone a shot they didn’t expect. You put them in a room they weren’t in before. You connect them to someone who opens a door. You invest in them before they fully see it themselves.

I don’t take that lightly, because I’ve lived what happens when someone does it for you.

Radiology needs strong leaders for what comes next. Developing them will require training, certainly. It will require knowledge and technical skill.

It will also require those of us who already have influence to use some of it on someone else’s behalf.

Mentor them. Challenge them. Give them honest feedback.

Put their name forward. Bring them into the room.

And when they get there, give them enough space to become a leader who may look different from you.

A seat at the table can change a career.

What we do with our seats can change a lot more.