CYNTHIA STAMATION
CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER
Most leaders, especially business owners like endodontists, are leaders by necessity. Someone must be in charge and make the tough decisions, as well as set day-to-day priorities. Someone must make sure that all the things that need to be done get done.
It’s often a thankless, difficult, solitary and stressful responsibility, but someone must do it. As a result, practice owners are often reluctant leaders. Doctors enjoy providing clinical care and helping patients, but dealing with team issues, addressing business problems, or creating accountability often drains energy.
The dilemma of reluctant leaders
Just like practice owners are the last to get paid and they only get what is left over after everyone else is paid, practice leaders are the last to define their job role. They get everything heaped on their plate that is not being done by somebody else on the team.
For many doctors, they take on too much. It interferes with their enjoyment of endodontics and can add extra hours of work time after patient care. And that leads to the fundamental dilemma that reluctant leaders usually have: “Even if it’s an unpleasant or poor use of my time, if I don’t do it then who will?”
The obvious answer is the office manager, who is usually the most experienced administrator on the team. Many of the things that clutter up the doctor’s time would be better described as management tasks, rather than leadership tasks. A leader’s true job is to:
- Define and evolve the business’s vision and values
- Set priorities and establish goals
- Motivate and inspire the team
Everything else, especially tasks that are procedural, systematic or repetitive, can technically be delegated to a manager. I say “technically” because, before a practice leader can delegate anything, they must be confident that they can train a manager fully. Often that includes tasks where the doctor hasn’t had any training themselves. Plus, there needs to be some kind of feedback system to know that tasks are being executed properly.
As a result, contemplating better delegation to lighten the leadership burden can feel more difficult and time-consuming than just doing the task themselves. Many doctors don’t even know where to begin. And so, the cycle of reluctant leadership continues.
Simplifying practice leadership and management
As part of practice coaching, Endo Mastery excels at helping doctors simplify practice management and leadership. We set up the right team accountability and put systems in place to ensure doctors have pinpoint control without time-consuming burdens.
We love when doctors are the first to leave at the end of the day, and they are not taking any work home with them. We love when the doctor can focus on what they do best: excellence in patient care. Coaching helps teams rise to the challenge of high performing self-leadership while letting doctors become high performing true leaders, rather than jack-of-all-trades managers.