Why is leadership important?

By Jamie MorleyMay 17, 2020

There is always plenty of talk about improving leadership but why is it so important?

Let's revisit the definition of leadership from the last article:

‘Leadership is the ability to influence, motivate and enable others to contribute to the effectiveness and success of the organisations of which they are members’. With this in mind then the question to ask is…

Are you able to achieve what you want to achieve without motivating, inspiring and influencing those around you to contribute to the success of the practice?

Within a dental practice and within the dental industry this is simply not possible. In the majority of cases you will not be able to achieve what you want to achieve without leadership. If we think about it in terms of the scale of leadership that is taking place then you may be able to achieve what you want to achieve with relatively low levels of leadership, although this is doubtful. Ok….The follow up question would then be…

How much more could you achieve if you motivated, inspired and influence those around you to achieve the goal you have set out to achieve? Or even, how much quicker could you achieve the goal you wanted to achieve if you motivated, inspired and influenced those around you to achieve the goal you set out to achieve?

Ultimately a lack of leadership leads to poor results.

I think there are 2 quite hard measures which directly suffer as a result of a lack of leadership and that is the levels of engagement from team members and a high level of staff turnover. Within dental practices both of these are a common issue. High staff turnover and low levels of engagement amongst team members. Is this something that you routinely measure? There are very sophisticated methods available for measuring employee engagement, but it doesn't have to be that complicated. For minimal cost you can create very simple employee engagement surveys for your team members within the practice which would give you a good indication of engagement levels and is something you could consistently and routinely measure every 6 or 12 months. It would certainly give you an indication. Staff turnover simply needs a bit of maths and regular review!

Where there is minimal or no leadership then the following symptoms will also be present: 

There are likely some other symptoms of poor leadership that I have missed out that you could addd to this list.

On the other hand where there is a high level of leadership the following symptoms will be present:

The impact of all these symptoms on the practice is highly significant and directly affects the hard measures of employee engagement, staff turnover and ultimately results.

The other thing which it effects is the ability of a practice or practices to affect change. Without leadership change is a real struggle, yet with great leadership change takes place rapidly and effectively. With the broader environment moving at such a pace these days change is required all the time. An inability to change ultimately puts the practice at risk whereas those who can change rapidly and effectively will flourish. There has been no greater example of this than the advent of practices going digital, especially with the advent of COVID. Those who had already started to make the change happen were in a great place to flourish.

I always think it’s good to consider leadership in this way……

You can spend time individually doing things or you can spend time leading. It comes down to numbers…..If you have a team of 20 people and you can do something that will inspire them and motivate them towards the goals of the organisation then this is going to be 20 times more impactful than doing an individual task yourself that has nothing to do with leading your team. This is very relevant when it comes to dentistry and individuals leading within dental practice. There is always the pull of being a clinician and often the argument of not having time to lead. Somehow dentists and individuals who have people under their responsibility must find time to lead, especially those who own individual or multiple practices.

Step back and honestly ask yourself what symptoms do you see? Can you afford not to spend time on your leadership?