THE ADA PRACTICAL GUIDE TO LEADING AND MANAGING THE DENTAL TEAM 5 Walk the Walk: Leadership by Example A collaborative leader takes the extra step to inspire the team to work together. This type of leader creates a cohesive strategy and outlines each person’s role so that everyone is working in tandem. In this scenario, the chances of drama are greatly reduced, and the odds of meeting the project’s objectives improve dramatically. At the end of the day, any new initiative must start with the dentist. Leading by example is not only the best way to build credibility among your staff, but the team is also exponentially more likely to support a plan when the dentist is guiding everyone down the path to success. Dental Drama #2: My dental team hates change. As the saying goes, the only constant in life is change. And the only way to keep a dental practice moving forward is to continually implement new process improvements. However, without strong leadership in place, the team can become resistant to change and new initiatives can end up doomed from the start. When a dentist has made repeated past attempts to initiate process improvements without much success, he or she may feel it is because their team is stuck in their old habits and doesn’t adapt well to change. The actual problem could be that the staff didn’t understand how to implement new processes effectively or lacked sufficient training to do what they were asked. This could lead them to dismiss the new direction as unclear or impossible to achieve and to return to their previous behaviors by default. Acclaimed leadership expert and author Stephen Covey once said, “What you do has far greater impact than what you say.” Adopting a “because I said so” strategy for implementation doesn’t do much in terms of motivating the team to change their behaviors, and can in fact erode trust. Effective leaders provide the team with all of the necessary training and feedback to succeed, lead by example and inspire others to follow them. So if the dentist sees something that needs to change in the practice, the dentist should be the first person to become a part of the solution. How? First, gather the staff together for a team meeting to address the reason for the change and outline the steps that should be taken to start the process. Once the team understands the new way of doing things, next comes implementation. Take the opportunity to model the behavior you wish to see in your staff. Allowing them to observe your behavior demonstrates your commitment to the change and builds credibility. Finally, it can help to have an expert (such as a consultant or mentor) whose advice you can lean on and who can help provide the team the training they need. That way, if you don’t know how to remedy a given problem, you can ask your consultant — and he or she can help the team acquire any new skills that will be required.