Chinua Achebe once said, “When a rich man is sick, a poor man will go to see him and say, ‘Sorry.’ When a poor man is sick, he recovers and then tells the rich man he was sick.” 

At first hearing, this statement may sound like a clever observation, perhaps even humorous. Yet beneath its simplicity lies a deeply revealing truth about society, power, and human behaviour. It is not merely about sickness. It is about visibility. It is about whose pain is noticed, whose struggles are acknowledged, and whose experiences are quietly ignored. 

Human communities, whether we admit it or not, often distribute attention unevenly. Sympathy frequently follows status. Concern often gravitates toward influence. Those perceived as important attract urgency, while those without power are left to endure quietly. The proverb captures this imbalance with uncomfortable precision. 

For leaders, this insight should not be amusing—it should be unsettling. Leadership, in its truest form, is not defined by authority, titles, or recognition. It is defined by awareness, responsibility, and fairness. A leader’s role is not simply to respond to what is visible but to perceive what is hidden. Not to amplify only the loud, but to seek out the unheard.

One of the greatest failures of leadership occurs when societal biases go unchallenged. Influence naturally draws attention; this is human nature. But leadership demands something higher than instinct. It requires the discipline to recognise that visibility is not the same as importance, and silence is not the same as absence of need. 

True leadership begins where convenience ends. In every society, there are individuals whose burdens remain unseen—not because their struggles are small, but because their voices carry little weight. Their difficulties do not trend, do not interrupt, and do not demand immediate reaction. Yet these quiet realities often represent the most urgent needs. Leaders must therefore cultivate a deliberate sensitivity: the ability to notice what others overlook.

Empathy, when selective, loses its moral force. Dignity cannot be distributed according to wealth, status, or usefulness. Every individual carries equal human worth, regardless of their position in social hierarchies. Leadership that forgets this principle becomes transactional rather than ethical—concerned more with prominence than with people. 

The measure of leadership is not how it treats the powerful, but how it treats those who have no power at all.

Perhaps the most profound lesson hidden in the proverb is this: those who struggle the most are often the least likely to seek attention. Many endure silently, adapt quietly, and recover without acknowledgement. Their resilience should not become an excuse for neglect. Rather, it should sharpen a leader’s sense of responsibility.

A just society does not arise by accident. It is shaped by leaders who choose fairness over preference, attentiveness over assumption, and humanity over convenience. It is built by those who expand the circle of concern beyond the obvious and the influential. Because leadership, at its core, is not about being seen. Leadership is about choosing to see, judge and act transformatively. And the most important voices are often the quietest ones.