Leadership is like a single drop of water that sends ripples throughout an entire pond.
Not long ago, while I was mentally preparing to write an article pertaining to leadership for practice success, a recurring thought stuck in my mind and I couldn’t help but follow this thought to its natural conclusion.
What struck me so profoundly was the realization that leadership is like a single drop of water that sends ripples throughout an entire pond.
My own personal experience is testimony to this fact. When I look back over my 41 years in dental practice, I can make a clear distinction between my initial years spent managing as opposed to my later years spent leading my practice.
From my perspective, the managing years created no ripple effect for me. It wasn’t until I began applying solid leadership principles in my practice that I began to experience my universe expanding and creating opportunities that I could never imagine.
Allow me to share a stream of consciousness, just as it came to me, regarding the ripple effect of transformational leadership for practice success:
- Leaders have clarity regarding their values and purpose.
- Leaders are authentic, and authentically express their values and purpose through their actions, presenting to others a very clear image of what they stand for.
- Understanding what the leader stands for allows potential team members to decide whether they are aligned with the leader’s values and purpose.
- Strong organizational cultures are formed by team members that share the leader’s values and purpose.
- Leaders understand that maintaining this strong culture depends on their ability to maintain staff commitment through collaboration and a sense of individual contribution to the practice’s overall success.
- Committed teams that believe their contributions matter become self-motivated and proficient in self-management, allowing the leader to delegate tasks without having to micromanage. Removing this burden frees the leader from this enormous encumbrance, and creates more time and space to think creatively and attend to other more meaningful tasks.
- In the service industry, our culture serves as our brand and our only strategic competitive advantage which distinguishes us in our marketplace. Strong cultures with committed teams attract brand-loyal patients who willingly and eagerly refer friends and family, creating a tipping point at which our practices grow exponentially rather than linearly.
Is your leadership creating a ripple effect in your practice? Is your universe expanding?
If you are interested in going deeper on this concept and others to help achieve Peak Performance in your practice, our next cohort of the Leader to Leader Group Coaching program is open for registration.
In the Leader to Leader group coaching program, we meet you where you are and help you get to where you are intended to be. This involves addressing any urgent issues (happening a lot these days!) and then helping you, your team, and your business become a more robust version of yourselves.
We focus on specific competencies found in highly effective leaders who serve the highest performing businesses. Click here for more details on this leadership program and mastermind created just for dentists, physicians and healthcare professionals.
Dr. Joel Small and Dr. Edwin McDonald, the founders of Line of Sight Coaching, are dental practitioners, authors, speakers and Business Leadership Coaches who work with healthcare professionals to help them build more successful practices so they can live the balanced life they seek.
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