Leadership

Leadership: The Prerequisite to Prosperity 

by Jay White
Northwest Dentistry / January-February 2007

The responsibility of creating dental offices able to quickly adapt to the fast pace of change lies solely with those in leadership roles. More often than not, this is the doctor. However, in highly developed, team-centered offices, it will also be the team members. Their success depends on their ability to empower their people and to have them take responsibility, or ownership, of the practice’s objectives.

According to John Naisbitt, author of Megatrends 2000, leadership in the coming years will move toward decentralization with more decisions being made at the lowest possible level. Consequently, the classical command and control type of management style will be thrown out.

Traditional dentists tend to focus more on “hard” issues such as: 1) quality, 2) service, 3) profitability, 4) cost control, and 5) productivity. These issues most often take the form of declining profits, productivity declines or plateaus, unacceptable patient service and personnel problems. In reality these issues are only symptoms of the real underlying issues. Dentists tend to focus on hard issues because they are easy to see, recognize, measure and, in some ways, they seem easy to address. SEE MORE