Some people have innate traits that make them great leaders. Even if you aren’t confident in your leadership skills yet, you can still learn how to become a great leader at your dental practice. With several key leadership qualities, you can set an example at your practice for other staff to follow and even improve patient care.

7 Qualities of Effective Leaders

With practice and active listening, any dentist or office manager can improve their leadership style, take on more important tasks, and show others the way forward.

Here are some key leadership qualities you can learn to help your dental practice:

1. Take the initiative. Great leaders don’t hesitate; they’re constantly moving forward. New systems, processes, and programs are constantly appearing. Do the research and look for the best check-in, scheduling, and billing systems. If you want to acquire new patients, review your marketing efforts and focus on the areas that work best.

2. Set a good example. Great leaders inspire others with their drive, attitude, and behavior. Stay positive in the toughest situations and treat coworkers with respect. In many instances, the way you behave shows your employees how they should work through certain situations.

3. Try daily or weekly huddles. Getting everyone together for a quick chat to discuss goals is a good way to stress what is important. It’s also a great time to let employees know what they should be striving to achieve that day or week. Keep these meetings positive and upbeat! Our Morning Huddle has all the information you need and ready to go to run a meeting efficiently.

4. Prioritize ongoing education. Inspire yourself and coworkers to develop professionally with continuing education. There’s a plethora of available information online, at trade organizations, and through in-person courses. Feel free to check out our CE Webinars.

5. Start or join a peer group. Dentists, dental hygienists, billing professionals, and others can learn a great deal from each other. By getting together, you can learn how to deal with difficult situations, discuss trends, and develop leadership skills.

6. Create a process for communication. It’s important to clearly communicate with coworkers when it comes to your intentions and work goals. When issuing tasks, be concise with easy-to-follow steps. You might have some great policies in place, but if they’re hard to understand, your staff may not follow them.  

7. Set up for success with the right communications tools. Staying up to date on the latest communication technology will also show your drive and desire to help the office run smoothly. Dental Intelligence can help you to communicate better with our easy-to-use Team Chat.

Organizational Goals Are Crucial

If you want to learn how to become a great leader at your dental practice, it’s important to consider organizational goals. Defining your organizational goals can help you grow your practice and acquire new patients. 

These goals are general targets you set for your office around objectives you want to achieve during a specific time period, like filling more appointment slots or increasing revenue by a certain amount. Metrics & Reporting can help you manage and track these goals and more.

Organizational goals also:

• Define employee output
• Guide operations and expected office outcomes
• Determine workflow

Take Action When Problems Arise

A chaotic dental practice could run into several problems. If employees aren’t doing their jobs properly, productivity and customer service could suffer. When that happens, you could start losing patients.

Take control of the situation by having meetings to discuss any workplace issues. If someone is cutting corners or not pulling their weight, speak to them privately and provide constructive feedback to help them improve their behavior.

Get straight to the point, and let the person know what they’re doing wrong, then offer positive feedback to help them improve. This is also where setting a good example can immensely help. 

Stay open-minded and think about how you handled problems earlier in your career. Maybe you tweaked something that you can tell your coworker about to help solve their problem. Keep in mind that the way you behave shows your employees they should work through certain problems.

Being a Great Leader Starts with the Right Digital Solutions for Your Practice

Still wondering about how to become a great leader at your dental practice? From welcoming a new team member to handling billing and patient care, your leadership skills set your practice up for success. Dental Intelligence provides more onboarding and leadership tips on our blog, so check it out today! Schedule a demo to see how our digital tools can streamline day-to-day operations and free you up to focus on leadership. 

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