Fearless leaders

Leadership isn’t a title. It’s a way of life. by Shirley Beaver, RDH, PhD and Stephen Grove, MBA

What makes leaders succeed? The most influential leaders are those who know their professional responsibilities; give attentive and caring service to customers (patients); and are constantly sharing information with associates. Those who meet those three criteria—from the boiler room to the boardroom—are leaders.

FROM THE FRONTLINES

Recently, Shirley was delighted by a dentist who couldn’t say enough about the difference a former dental hygiene student of Stephen’s was making in the dental practice. The dentist was a junior partner. She bought into an established practice and will take over when the older dentist retires. She found strong resistance among staff to the new standards she set for the office, until Stephen’s former student joined the team. Together, they helped the founding partner appreciate the value of the recommendations.

THE IDEA OF LEADERSHIP

Leadership is about the will of an individual to lead a purposeful life in service to others. This is what drove the collaboration of the young dentist and dental hygienist. The idea of leadership as a “will to serve” is clearly  brought out in the book Good to Great. Author Jim Collins sifted through 30 years of performance history of 1,435 Fortune 500 companies to find 126 “good” companies who met their criteria, of which just 11 made the journey from good to great. All 11 companies had a core group that exhibited “Level 5” leadership. Their leadership exhibited incredible ambition that was first and foremost for the institution, not themselves. Level 4 leaders first set goals and plans themselves, and then follow up by enlisting a crew of capable helpers to make the vision happen.

FROM GOOD TO GREAT

The split between good and great came as leaders with these different value perspectives confronted challenges to their passions and goals. Ultimately, the harder the market the more great leaders listened to the right people and retained the faith that their vision would prevail. The good companies, lacking both breadth and depth of commitment to a shared vision, eventually found themselves selling the future to compensate for lack of results.

The young dentist in Shirley’s story found that her vision took greater shape only after she found the right dental hygienist to join her in confronting the challenges the practice faced. Dental hygiene is meaningful work. Your leadership can only make it more so—not just for you, but for everyone in your practice.

Shirley Beaver, RDH, PhD, is an Associate Professor and Director of the Kennedy-King College Dental Hygiene program at the University of Illinois Chicago College of Dentistry.