What makes a great dentist manager?

Mar 21, 2010

Editor's note: The Coaches Corner column appears regularly on the DrBicuspid.com advice and opinion page, Second Opinion.

The best dentist managers are the ones who think of their staff in terms of their potential, not their actual performance, because they know that their staff is only manifesting a portion of their true potential in the office environment. Why is this?

If your practice doesn't encourage self-direction and personal empowerment because of your office policies, lack of acknowledgement, and top-down management style ("Do it my way"), what personal sense of fulfillment can your staff possibly have? What would drive them to use their potential?

Other factors that may influence your staff's performance could be more personal to your staff's own story about themselves -- for example, fear of failure, lack of confidence, or lack of their own self-management because they don't see the "Vision."

Your staff needs to know that their successes are a result of their own efforts, that "management" believes in them and encourages them to make their own choices in service to the practice. Unfortunately, most busy practices don't find the time for this, believing instead that it is more efficient to instruct, dictate, and blame. Paradoxically, if the manager does support and empower their staff, the staff will assume greater responsibility, freeing the manager from this lower level of management-by-control to a management that is more efficient and effective based upon support.

If time is the criterion of success, then doing it yourself or dictating is the fastest way of managing. If quality is the criterion of success, then awareness and empowered responsibility are the way of managing. If learning is the criterion of success, then actual "doing" is the way -- not just being told or shown, but experiencing it.

The sad truth is that in most dental practices, time takes precedence over quality and learning. Therefore, it is no surprise that your practice performance falls short of what it could be.

What's next? Consider the airplane crossing the ocean: If the course is off by even one degree, you will end up in an entirely different place than if you keep the status quo. A little change can go a long way.

Dan Kingsbury, D.D.S., life and dental coach, is a co-founder of the Dental Coaches Association, an organization of dentists who are professional coaches committed to bringing coaching to the dental profession. Learn more by visiting DentalCoachesAssociation.org.

The comments and observations expressed herein do not necessarily reflect the opinions of DrBicuspid.com, nor should they be construed as an endorsement or admonishment of any particular idea, vendor, or organization.