Most of the people who reach out to me are doctors who are frustrated with their practice or looking to grow. They tell me they wish they had team members like mine. They say they wish their team members would take more initiative. They want their team members to contribute more.
What most of these doctors don’t know is their team members often feel similar frustrations. While most of the people I hear from are doctors, I also hear from team members, either directly or through my free Dental Marketing and Profits Facebook group. It surprises some dentists when I tell them this, but the team members who contact me often want the same thing as the doctors. They ask how they can hold their doctors accountable for growing, scaling, and putting systems and processes in place to make the practice run smoother. They ask how they can make a meaningful contribution to their practices. They ask how they can be given more responsibility.
In other words, many times the doctors and team members want the same thing. This is true in dentistry as much as it’s true in any other business. Most people want excitement, advancement, and opportunity. They want to make a meaningful impact on their family, company, or community. They want to be trusted and valued.
If you’re frustrated with your team, chances are they’re frustrated with you, too. Sometimes that means you have the wrong people working with you. Many times, however, it just means you aren’t building team members into leaders within your practice. If you ever want to grow and scale your practice, you need to develop team members into leaders. Team members who are leaders are just as driven as you are to grow the practice and lead it forward. You can’t scale if you’re the only one who can lead.
Here are three ways you can build your team into leaders.
1. Share your vision with your team.
Everyone needs to be on the same page for you to develop leaders. That starts with setting and sharing a vision for your practice. Your team members cannot become leaders if they don’t know where you want your practice to go.
Amazing things will happen when you set your vision of what you want and share it with your team. It will give team members other ideas about how to accomplish practice goals. It will help people focus on what’s most important. It will help people make better decisions. It will give people better ideas about how to improve your practice.
Sharing your vision for your practice also helps you find amazing people who buy into your vision and want the same thing. It also encourages people who don’t share that vision to look for a better fit.
Finally, sharing your vision with your team gets the best team members excited and recommitted to your practice. A lot of times, our team members feel stuck and will think there’s no advancement in your practice. I’ve felt that way before. If we’re honest, most doctors feel that way at some point in their career.
With me, I got bored with the practice of dentistry when I realized that fillings weren’t challenging me anymore. I wanted more excitement and variety, so I decided to focus my practice on more complex dentistry. When I did, my passion for dentistry returned. I even enjoy the fillings more than I used to because they’re only part of my practice now.
Your team members might be feeling the same way. Share your vision for your practice with them and you can see renewed passion, energy, and focus in your team.
2. Make team members feel safe to share ideas and hold you accountable.
After sharing your vision with your team, let them know how important they are to achieving your vision. Encourage them to share ideas about how to achieve your vision. Make them feel safe to offer ideas, ask you about progress, and suggest ways they can help.
If someone comes to you with a good idea for improving the practice, give them the opportunity to try it out. Not every idea will work out, of course. But amazing things will happen when your team is motivated and comfortable suggesting how to improve your practice. You can even set aside brainstorming time during team meetings where people can suggest ideas.
Encourage them to share ideas. Encourage them to share things they want to take the lead on to serve patients better and grow.
By doing so, your team will feel open to sharing ideas. When you’re comfortable accepting ideas, they’ll begin to take more leadership roles. And when everyone’s on the same page and working together, magic happens. Everyone will discover the collective ideas of the group to be better than your ideas alone.
3. Delegate things that won’t get done.
A lot of times as dentists, especially in the early years, we feel like we need to do everything ourselves. Even as we get experienced, we feel like we need to handle everything ourselves.
The problem is if we do that, everyone loses. We end up stressed and overworked. Our practice never reaches its full potential. Your patients don’t get the best care possible from you and your equally-stressed team. Also, your best team members will leave for jobs where they’ll feel more valued and less stuck.
To prevent that from happening, look for opportunities to delegate. If a team member suggests a great idea, ask them to take the lead. If a great team member asks how they can help, ask them to take the lead on one of the best ideas you won’t have time to implement. Ask team members to help implement systems and processes to make the practice run smoother.
Together, those things will make your practice more efficient, take work off your plate, and show team members they have opportunities to advance into leadership roles.
Your best team members will step up. Your patients will get better care. And your practice will move closer to your vision.
Are you building a team of leaders?
Doctors often get stuck. Many times, they get stuck because there are things they wanted to have implemented in their businesses but they’re tired. They’re exhausted by the end of the day. I know. I’m often tired, too.
When you step back, empower your team, and let them take control, you’ll build a team of leaders and amazing things will happen.
As you’re looking to grow and scale, start thinking about whether you’re allowing your team to step up to the next level. Are you letting your team members grow into leadership roles?
If you want more help growing, running, and marketing your practice, sign up for your 14-day trial to Delivering WOW U. There, you will find my best training, systems, strategies, and more. You’ll also find exclusive deals and discounts from the best dental product and service providers.
You can also join my free Dental Marketing and Profits Facebook group, where thousands of dentists and I help each other build better practices.
Finally, if you want even more personalized help, sign up for my next business bootcamp session, where I work directly with you and a small group of other dentists to improve your dental practice.
This article originally appeared on DeliveringWow.com.