Every dentist should have qualities such as leadership qualities as they help run the dentist's office smoothly. Apart from leadership, every dentist should be polite, kind, understanding, sympathetic, empathetic, and honest. It is the implementation of these qualities that is difficult because interacting with humans can be difficult.
Here are ten key skills every dentist can use and should master in order to improve their performance.
1. Be Optimistic About the Future
The first skill set you need to achieve as a dentist is to be optimistic and believe in a bright future. This is important because when you believe in a bright future, it creates a vision for your team to follow and gives them motivation and a great sense of purpose for working hard. When people have a goal and a sense of purpose to work towards, they focus less on themselves and work towards achieving what needs to be accomplished. Talking about your vision, goals, and how you want the future more often will inspire your team and reduce conflict.
2. Good Communication Skills
As a dentist, it is always a good idea to hold a regular staff meeting. Staffs meetings help bring everyone together. You can start the meeting by asking everyone to share one good thing that is happening in their life. This way, you can create bonds with every person and get to know people better, become more compassionate and understanding, and create a positive environment.
However, you need to keep in mind that staff meetings are not enough. Dentists should have a one-to-one meeting with each team member to make sure your practice runs smoothly. Every team member can present to you ideas and thoughts that can help to improve the practice.
You should also practice good communication skills with your patients. Listen to them and help them understand their disease or problem. Explain to them the treatment options, solutions, costs, and outcomes. This will help you gain the trust of your patients.
3. Be Transparent and Open
Doctors feel like they need to keep their feelings secret and pretend like superheroes. If you are thinking of new ideas, facing challenges, or stressed about something related to your dental practice, share it with your team. Your team will then help you solve the issues together. If you try to solve the problems on your own, it will only make things worse. Discussing problems with your team members can result in fruitful opinions and solutions.
4. Help People Around You
Your team will require training, guidance and mentoring, and some financial support. The other dentists and staff in your dentist office are the reason why you are where you are today. Make sure you help them out if they ever need help. A dentist's office can only become successful if all team members work together day and night to improve the practice. You need to go out of your way to help the people around you. These people will greatly appreciate your generosity.
5. Be Positive
Being positive creates a positive environment for people working with you. Staying positive should be an everyday thing. You can spread positive positivity by complimenting your team members, recognizing their contributions, and appreciate them whenever you can. Thinking positive allows you to act in a positive manner which lifts up the mood of people around you.
6. Compassion
It is important to keep in mind that every member of your team is a human being. They all have personal lives, personal challenges, and emotions, and they can all make mistakes. By displaying empathy towards your team members, it is essential to show them that you care about them and earn their respect.
7. Decisiveness
When times get tough, people look towards a strong leader who can make tough decisions and a clear plan on how to tackle the difficulties. It is important that you take your time to consider all the possible solutions to the problem. However, delaying the process of making a tough decision will not allow you to win the trust of your team members. If you face a difficult situation, simply trust your gut and make the tough decision. Once you have made the decision, stick to it and guide your team through the hard times. As a leader, it is your duty to get them back on track to success.
8. Adequate Knowledge
You can not be a good dentist without having adequate knowledge about dentistry and how to run a dental practice. The field of healthcare is such that you never stop learning. As each day passes by, there are new technological advances, developments, and new scientific data which you need to keep up with. This might be difficult with running a dental practice, but it is important.
9. Humility
When people think of leadership qualities for dentists, humility is one of the first characteristics that come to mind. It is also one of the most important ones. As a good dentist, you should be able to admit when you are wrong. You should not be afraid to apologize when you do wrong. This trait will allow you to earn the respect of your team members. You should stay open to all sorts of ideas and respect every team member's opinion. You should not be stubborn and open to new information. If new information comes to you and it becomes clear that the current model and approach that you are using is not effective, then you should consider a better solution. Humility can avoid conflicts and prevent the waste of time and money on strategies that are not effective.
10. Patient-Orientated Personality
Patients love a dentist who allows them to talk, understands them, and puts them first. Adopting a patient-orientated approach increases patient flow as patients respect you more and consider you a good dentist. Listen to what your patient has to say, make them feel comfortable, and consider their financial situations and issues before making the final decision.
In a Nutshell
Dentistry is a noble field of work and requires you to adopt some special personality traits such as humility, kindness, compassion, sympathy, and empathy. These traits are very important for a dentist as they will help them better understand their patients and team members. If you follow the above-mentioned tips, you will surely see a difference in your dental practice. It will not only make you a better dentist but also a successful one.