Article Insights for Dental Practice Leadership: The Power of Mattering at Work

By Jamie MorleyJune 12, 2025

Article Title: The Power of Mattering at Work

Source: Harvard Business Review May-June 2025

Link: https://hbr.org/2025/05/the-power-of-mattering-at-work

Summary

Mattering is the experience of feeling significant to those around us because we feel valued and know that we add value. It is a primal need. When people know that they matter at work they thrive.

Many employees today feel that they don’t matter at work and this leads to low employee retention and engagement, high rates of employee mental health struggles and disputes between employees and employers. A poll they reference suggests that 30% of people report feeling invisible at work, 65% feel underappreciated and close to 82% of workers feel lonely.

This is partly due to a reliance on brief digital communications and our condescension towards soft skills, which has weakened our ability to convey to others that they matter.

The article suggests that leaders need to demonstrate in their daily interactions with their people that they are seen and heard. They must affirm their value and show them how they are needed by:

1. Seeing & Hearing Others. Individuals must make time and space for their people. Pay deep attention to them. Really listening to what they are saying. Ask questions to be genuinely curious about what they are saying an listen for total meaning. Respond appropriately.

2. Affirming people and showing them they’re needed. Recognise and affirm the work that people do and the significance that is has. Give feedback and appreciation that is not a generic thank you but specific to what they have done and the impact it has. Tell stories of that impact.

3. Scaling the skills within the whole team to create a culture of mattering. Train your team. Develop and practice the right skills amongst your leaders and the broader team to create this culture. Measure mattering. Use self-assessments and team assessments in the form of questionnaires to rate and measure mattering. Optimise the environment to create time and space for mattering.

Insights for leading your dental practice

Although this article is based on broader workplaces I feel sure that this is relevant for many dental practices. Whilst dental practices are more likely to have more face to face interaction because not many people work virtually, I believe they are faced with another great challenge of being under significant time pressure and not having the time and space to allow each other to matter, sometimes because there is also so much focus on the patient.

It is not about policies or a new wellness scheme, it is about your day to day interactions with your team members as the leader of the practice. To make the team members of your dental practice feel they matter more:

1. Create the time and space. You are normally in a very hectic environment. Team members may try to grab you when you are running from one thing to the next when it is not appropriate. Give them the appropriate time and space, which maybe later, where you can really engage with them and pay attention to them rather than being distracted by something else.

2. Respond appropriately and follow up. Really listen and pay deep attention to your team members when you are speaking with them. Show genuine curiosity in what they have to say. You don’t have to do everything they say, but you do have to pay attention to what it is they are saying. Once you really understand this you can then give your perspective and consider what to do with it. Follow up appropriately, even if it is to explain why you won’t be doing anything with what they have said. It shows that their voice matters.

3. Give unique and specific positive feedback about the work they do. Recognise the specific work that your team members do. Not just a generic thank you, but a specific recognition about specific work they have done and the impact that it has. That it matters.

4. Train your team. Help your team members to be able to develop the above skills and then the whole team to do the same.

5. Measure mattering. Use self-assessments and team assessments in the form of questionnaires to rate and measure mattering.

Critique

From my experience this article is really relevant for leading a dental practice. The data they give on why mattering is important is based on significant number of businesses. Even though this is not specific to dental practices I believe it is totally applicable.

The article also gives relevant and practical advice in how to do this.