Delegation in Leadership, How it all can go so wrong: Ep 004

Welcome to episode four of dentistry support the podcast. I am your host, Sarah Beth Herman. And today's episode is all about learning to delegate as a leader. I've got a couple of really hard truths. I had to learn over the years. And one story I still feel embarrassed about, but I'm going to openly share my experience. And I hope that you'll learn a couple of things too. There are some moments in life where you get called out as a leader that really stick with you. 

And today's episode is nothing short of that.  It is definitely on the vulnerable side, but I hope that you're going to learn how I could have been different. How I should have been different. How the future generation of the leaders that I have sought and committed to create could have received better from me. In today's episode, I'm going to talk with you about a time when I had been in my dental career for about 12 or 13 years.  I happen to think that when you get to about 10 years in any field, your confidence is a little bit stronger, but your ego is probably at its height. At least it was for me. And I'm not sharing anything today in hopes that you'll feel sorry for me. That you'll think I'm crazy for being so hard on myself. Or that you simply think I'm trying to gloat on my experience. As a quick reminder, I am changing names, genders locations, and some details ever so slightly on the stories that I share with you in each episode. Out of respect for those who I've worked with or the companies that I have shared experiences with, but the actual facts of what happened are always true. Dentistry is such a juicy industry. I've often thought about creating a couple of episodes in this podcast. That would invite people just like you from the dental industry. To just come on and share experiences and stories because I'm telling you it is the juiciest industry I have ever worked in. And I've been in a few other industries in my career and I've even created businesses that ventured out into other industries outside of dentistry. So, I guess here's the shameless little plug. 

If you'd like to join me on sharing some juicy stories in dentistry, I'd love to have you as a guest on a future podcast episode. And if not, and that really irks you just brush past the last 10 seconds and let's get to it. Back to the story. At the time that this story takes place. I was in my early thirties working for a large dental group out of Nashville, Tennessee, where I was the director of operations. 

In this role, I oversaw over 30 dental practices.  One of those dental practices under my leadership was in need of a brand new office manager. We had gone through several and this particular dental office was owned by the owner of the dental group that I was part of. I know that might sound a little strange because you might be thinking, well, the dental group owns all of the practices, but this dental group, the dynamic was a little bit different. 

They manage dental offices and very few of them were actually owned by anyone who was part of the organization. I worked for. This specific dental office had gone through quite a few dental office managers. And we were looking for really. The perfect person to take over the leadership there.  Notoriously this office was always top notch, highest performing best close rate on treatment plans that were diagnosed. 

Fullest hygiene, most new patients, the marketing was always on point you name it. This was the best office we had. But we just couldn't keep office managers. So I newly had this office in my region and I was being introduced to the office manager. That would now be overseeing this location. 

So here's a fun fact about this office manager. I was not able to interview them. I was just told that they were going to be the office manager. And shortly after that was shared with me. I came to find out that this office manager was actually the spouse. Of another director of operations that worked as a sideline team member of mine. 

So they weren't a manager of mine. They weren't underneath me, but they were a sideline director of operations. Now, this was always going to be an interesting dynamic, especially for me. Because not only was this office manager under my direct supervision, but then being the spouse of one of my sideline coworkers. Was also kind of odd because I didn't feel like this sideline coworker of mine was my biggest fan. From my vantage point. They were part of the group of people that I worked along with that were quote, unquote, my friends, maybe even frenemies.  I kind of felt like they had it out for me. 

You see? Everyone that I worked with in my career. in dentistry has always been way older than me. I mean, 15 to 25 years older than me working in the same job, same title, or maybe I  oversaw them. And they were older than me.  Regardless of how strong I felt I was, people tend to treat you differently when they see your age, when they think you're younger or they think you make more money than them, or they think you make equal money to them. And they've been in industry a lot longer. So, if you think this was a challenging dynamic for me. 

Oh boy, it really was. This spouse was older than me, the director of operations. That was a sideline team member. Much older than me. It was a crazy dynamic. When I was first introduced to the idea that I would be overseeing this office manager and that they were the spouse. So one of my coworkers.  I wasn't really intimidated by the fact that it was their spouse. Because I was never really worried about offending the team member that I worked alongside by managing their spouse, but I was intimidated by the thought. That this spouse would share their experiences with me to their spouse. 

And then my coworker would go to our c-board in a dishonest way that bothered me. And I always tried to carry myself in a way that when someone said I did something wrong, or if someone tried to share a lie about me, others would know me so well that they would say, oh my gosh, not Sarah Beth. 

There's no way she would say that. But the thing about climbing a ladder in any corporation is that you're always going to have haters. And I always did. 

 I'll say this by the time I was supervising this spouse, I feel like I had already overcome so many challenges. I was really confident in myself because I learned to be. Strong. I learned to understand dental business in a way that my financial acumen was tip-top shape. People in the industry knew me very well. I had already had a track record of high performance. I understood the dynamics of what needs to be done to grow a successful dental business. My ego though, was really getting the best of me. 

And I definitely can admit that right now. I don't think I would have admitted that before, but I can definitely say that now. 

 Quickly. I went from not just working in a back office. Sending dental insurance claims and filing charts and filling schedules to then becoming an office manager. And I wasn't just overseeing one dental location. I had grown in the last 12 or 13 years from just being in one office to overseeing three dental offices. 

Then with another company overseeing 15 dental offices, then with another company overseeing more than 30 practices. At this point, I knew my stuff. Right. My track record was there. I had proven myself. But that darn ego was also there. And as I began this journey supervising and leading this spouse of my coworker. The one thing I know for certain that I was lacking in this journey or this juncture of my leadership. Was my own emotional intelligence. 

It wasn't where it needed to be. And I didn't know that about myself at the time. I also believe I was at a point where I really knew dental business, but because I didn't know emotional intelligence. And understanding that of those I led and what was required of me.  As a leader. My ego was so big. And I feel like that ego is what took over so many decisions early on in my career. 

  I think that as we grow in our confidence as leaders, in any specific industry, we get to that point where we are really, really smart. And we really understand that industry. And we're so confident in our role, but we don't realize that the next step in our leadership is to understand our own emotional intelligence.  So I can confidently say that my lack of understanding on my own emotional intelligence. At this point stopped me from being the generational leader. 

I really needed to be. 

 I'm going to take you back about six months into leading this office manager. I'm going to share with you some details that are actually true about what I uncovered about her. I guess you could say some of these details. They reaffirmed just how juicy dentistry really is.

 I found out that she was rumored to be in a secret relationship, having an affair with her front office team member. She was also rumored to be giving special exceptions to other team members. And rumored to not really know how to do her job and that she was displaying inappropriate behavior. 

I also found out that my coworker was randomly showing up at this office to do work for her. To prove to our leadership team and our company as a whole. That he had made a good decision in hiring her. For the sake of this story so that it's not so confusing with words like manager, coworker, spouse, the office manager's name is Lisa. 

 And my coworker's name is Jerry.

So let's bring this full circle. Lisa is the office manager I'm overseeing. Jerry is her husband.  And Jerry, he's not my biggest fan. And mostly, I think Jerry, wasn't my biggest fan because I was 30 years younger than him. I was extremely successful with the team that I oversaw. 

 And every time we entered a meeting, I was always prepared.  Our leadership team was constantly recognizing me publicly  for the achievements at the dental offices that I oversaw month after month, year after year, my offices were always excelling.  I oversaw the majority of the dental offices that were part of our network.

One day. I was traveling about 40 minutes north of Nashville to one of the other locations that was part of my region.  The office that Lisa worked at was 20 minutes south of Nashville. So about an hour from the location I was currently at. I get a call from my chief operating officer who was out of town at the time and extremely concerned about Lisa's office. She was concerned because the owner of this practice had called her, who was also the owner of the company I worked for. 

And they were freaking out. Their associate dentist was not happy. The schedule every day was constantly falling apart. Their collections ratio was at 82% when across the board, as a company, our goal was 98%. There were so many things going wrong.   I remember my chief operating officer just rattling off all of the problems to me on the phone. And instantly, you know, my anxiety's through the roof,  I'm panicking because I'm technically an hour away. And when you're in that space where you oversee so many offices and your chief operating officer calls, you.  You have anxiety because you're not there. That anxiety comes from the fact that you just want to fix something immediately. 

You want the chatter to stop. You want them to stop harassing you about what's going on because ultimately, even though I'm not the office manager, it's my responsibility. To have known that this practice was declining.

When I tell you as a director of operations, I ran a tight ship.  I really thought I ran a tight ship. When I made site visits to each one of my locations and I visited them all every month. I wasn't just looking to see if a schedule was full. I wasn't just looking to see if  patients being greeted at the front, or if  money being posted on a regular basis. Or if the office was meeting their numbers every month. 

Sure. Those are important things. But as a director of operations, I learned to look at things from a much different vantage point. I learned to pay attention to how clean the office was, even down to the baseboards. I learned to walk into an office from the aspect that I had the glasses of a patient on. 

How did a patient hear us talking? What activities that a patient see us doing? If I were to go run an audit of my office manager and everything they did inside of Dentrix or open dental or Eaglesoft. What activities were they doing on a daily basis? Did my team take a screenshot of what the schedule looked like at the beginning of the day, and then a screenshot of what it looked like at the end of the day and how many appointments actually canceled.  How many appointments were added. What was the production per hour. 

And was that consistent on a daily basis?  If I looked at all of the treatment plans that were generated for that office, how many were accepted and what did the followup actually look like? When I did a site visit, I was trying to look at such different things. Then the surface level complaints or chatter that I would hear from an office.  I wanted to know all of the information I possibly could. On a granular level,  so that if someone asked me. Why an office. 

I was overseeing wasn't performing. I knew more information than just the standard answers. And looking back now. While I supervised Lisa. I think that I trusted her more subconsciously because she was the spouse of Jerry and Jerry was a hard worker. He was a director of operations. He knew his stuff and I. I assumed. I assumed I didn't have to work so hard at that location because Lisa was said to be awesome. Supposedly she had an incredible track record. And when I went in there, everything always seemed to be legit other than the traditional office gossip really. But it wasn't all right. So let's talk about what happened after I got that call.

After I got that call. I was furious. I got in my car. I drove to the office and hour away. I started doing all of the things I normally do at my operation visits. I noticed that the office manager was sitting at the computer in the front of the office, seemingly researching patients to call  looking through Dentrix modules, to look at patients, looking at claims, but not really doing anything. I started to look at treatment that had been diagnosed. 

And what the notes look like as to why patients weren't scheduling. I asked the office manager to get up and I sat down. I started making phone calls to fill the schedule.

In my mind when I am looking at a schedule. Today is the most important day then tomorrow, then the next day. That's it.  We don't go beyond that until those three days are absolutely perfect. So I looked at today's schedule. Everything was full the rest of the day. There was nothing else I could add to today's schedule.

But tomorrow, and the day after they were rough.

So I first worked on hygiene. Hygiene is our bread and butter. Then I filled that whole day. And I moved on to treatment for tomorrow. I filled all of the treatment schedule for the next day. I worked for about four and a half hours, filling the schedule, just non-stop calling and calling and calling and calling and doing anything I could to get that schedule full. 

I was absolutely not going to tolerate any sort of reputation that an office under my department, my division, my district was on the decline.

 I was doing everything from pulling patients forward to calling on treatment plans that weren't accepted for patients this morning. I mean, I was on a mission to fill the schedule. And as patient treatment plans were ready from patients who were in the office right now  and the doctor was ready for a treatment coordinator to present treatment. Which in the dynamic of the dental offices that I oversaw, the dental office manager was always the treatment coordinator, always presenting treatment. So as those patients were ready and treatment plans were ready, I let the office know that they were to come and get me. 

 Because I needed that schedule full. And everything that I had learned about dentistry to this point was teaching me that as a leader, I show the way I know the way I work, the way I show, how it can be done. So I did. I showed exactly how it should be done, how I knew it could be done and how it was going to be done. I showed how it was possible to deliver treatment plan after treatment plan and get patient after patient to schedule and even prepay for appointments. After about two and a half hours. Maybe it was three. Of all of this commotion, me making outbound phone calls to fill the schedule, me doing all the treatment plans. I let Lisa know that she had watched me do enough at this point. And I wanted her to deliver the very next treatment plan. I needed her to do this because her team needed to see that she could do this work without me there. 

And that she was a strong enough leader.

 So I tell her she's on deck. This next treatment plan is all hers. She's going to be successful.  I was trusting her to take it on, follow it through.  And make sure this case was scheduled.

It was a $30,000 all on four case. I made sure that she understood everything that was on the treatment plan. We printed it out. We reviewed the cost and how to explain everything to the patient. She heads into the operatory and she delivers the treatment plan. I estimate she was probably in there for about five minutes with the patient. I turned around and all of a sudden I see the patient getting up and heading out the front door. As I watched the patient get up and head there. 

I'm literally running over to Lisa to find out what is going on. This was like a slam dunk situation. And she said they didn't want to schedule, they didn't want to move forward with putting a deposit down and they didn't even want to start a portion of the treatment or talk about any other options. 

And also she tried to offer financing options, but she said the patient stated they could not afford it. She said nothing was working that she was trying to do. Here's what I know about the doctor who diagnosed the treatment plan for this all on four case.  This doctor is extremely talented. This doctor also happens to be the owner of the practice. And the dental company I work for. As a doctor, I trust him. He's treated me and my family.  I have watched him deliver treatment plan diagnosis after treatment plan diagnosis. With nearly a hundred percent case acceptance. 

And that sounds so crazy, but he's really that great. I'll tell you this. I know this doctor is so well. That if a patient needed work to be done. This doctor was the perfect doctor to deliver a treatment plan. He was wonderful at educating patients and meeting the patient where they were,  if it was time, money, fear of dentistry. This doctor would spend the time to really educate that patient and give them the confidence they needed to move forward with treatment. We absolutely should have been able to close this case, get them on the books and complete the treatment. So as this patient is walking out to the door, they're hand, firmly gripped on that lever, getting ready to leave. I felt like I was watching dollar signs, walk out the door and opportunity leaving our fingertips. And as dramatic as it sounds, I couldn't believe it because I knew this was an easy one. 

This was an easy win for the office. This was an easy win for the manager. I stopped the patient and I said, excuse me, Mrs. Smith, if you could please come here for just one moment. I'd like to chat with you about one more thing on your treatment plan. I went over the entire treatment plan with her top to bottom. Length of time cost insurance breakdown, finances.  At the end of the conversation we get spoke for about 20 to 25 more minutes. She prepaid on her own credit card, $30,000. She scheduled the entire appointment. The treatment was to begin two days from now. We were doing the all-on-four. 

We were scheduled. The collections for the office this day, was that an all time high? We collected over $50,000. And that was just in patient over the counter payments for treatment or scheduled out treatment that doesn't even include the insurance checks that we got that day. The hygiene and treatment schedule we're fully booked for the next two days. 

So solid. You couldn't fit another patient in if you wanted to. And what happens next?  Still breaks my heart to this day. Recording this podcast, I can still feel the exact feelings I felt that day. And what I'm about to tell you. You are probably going to want to feel sorry for me. Be angry for me. Feel like something was super unfair. And I'm going to challenge you to not. I have felt sorry, enough for myself to make up for everybody who could possibly listen to this podcast. 

I closed up the office. I finalized the deposit ticket. I said goodbye to the team I got in my car.

My house was about 45 minutes from this office. So I'm in my car. I got to the stoplight, my phone rings. It was my chief operating officer. Truth be told I was so excited to hear from her because I just wanted to make her proud. I wanted to tell her about how much money we collected. How full the schedule was. I wanted to brag on this office and this day and how we turned it around. I can not express to you in words right now, how stinking pumped I was, I was on cloud nine. 

I'm telling you right now I was the happiest I'd ever been in business. I get so excited when I get the opportunity to grow a business and see the fruits of the labor that we put into something. I love growing something. I love feeling accomplished. I love reaching the next level and any time that I get the opportunity to grow a business, I go at it with. My whole entire heart. And whenever you hear someone say, run it like you own it. Please remember to do that, because that is what I did. 

Was I getting any of that $50,000? No. That wasn't going into my pocket, but I was super excited  that I had reached an incredibly successful level with this team. I had reached Heights at this office that they had never seen. We overcame a $30,000 case.  

So in true Sarah Beth fashion speaking faster than you can imagine. I immediately start telling her we collected 50 grand today. How I scheduled 30 hygiene appointments, 17 treatment appointments. We collected a $30,000 prepay on a case in two days. I was so excited. I'm telling you. Cloud nine does not describe it. Her next words. They were awful. She was so disappointed in me. 

She laid into me, like I had never been late into before. I never felt so disrespected by a leader of mine, regardless of the fact that I filled all of these hygiene appointments, the treatment appointments closed this $30,000 case and collected over $50,000 in one day. She was disgusted with me and how I acted as a leader, disgusted at me. As a leader. I remember tears falling down my face as I was on this call. Uh, sucking them back as quickly as I could so that she couldn't hear them in my voice. I was just listening to every word. And how disappointed she was in me. 

All of the ways I had undermined this manager. All of the ways I showed this team that their manager didn't matter. All of the ways I tried to make myself look good. And instead of allowing the team to feel successful, I wanted them to see me successful. This call was heartbreaking.

 I don't know what kind of employee you are or leader you are, or team member you are.  Or a person in general you are, but for me, For a long, long time. And sometimes even still today. When I hear really negative things about myself. I have a habit, of rehearsing those negative things. A million times over beating myself up on what I should have coulda and probably didn't do right. 

 This call it lives rent-free and my mind.

I do believe I've learned from it and I've become a greater leader because of this call. But it was a hard one. 

 Now after about five to 10 minutes of her telling me how disappointed she was and how this day went incredibly wrong.

I was introduced to the fact that the chief executive officer of the company I worked for was also listening to this conversation and I was on speakerphone. And in similar disgust with my leadership and what I chose to do that day. He also went off on me.  I know that sometimes we can be really dramatic. And saying things like they went off on me. It's a little bit overzealous and doesn't really depict what actually happened.  But these two leaders, I respected them. They were part of the C-suite. Of the company that I worked for, that I was so proud to work for.  And they were so disappointed. At the leader I displayed. At the person, I was who I was when I walked in that door. And I was devastated. And I know that you're probably thinking they went off on you. 

Really? Sarah Beth. Yeah, they did. Their words were strong. They were created and they knew exactly what words to say to me that literally got to me to my soul. They knew exactly who I was as a person.  I also believe that they really did understand my emotional state and emotional intelligence.

 Whenever I take myself back to this call. I remember never feeling more disappointed in myself. Never feeling more disappointed in who I was as a leader. And honestly, never really remembering a time that I felt more sorry for myself. I was so disappointed that I worked for such ungrateful jerks.  That they would be so disappointed in me instead of so proud of me. I remember the owner of this specific location, the doctor that I just closed that all on for case and pre collected $30,000 for. Before I left the office that day. He sat down with me in the break room. He looked at me straight in the face and he said, Sarah, Beth, you've got the magic. 

You are amazing. He was proud of me. And so thankful that I showed up to his office that day. In his mind, I saved the day. I was leaving this office on such a high that I had gone there and done everything that I'd ever been trained to do. And I executed it with complete excellence. 

All I kept thinking as I'm listening to every word that they're saying, that's just like a dagger to my heart. Is that this dentist, this owner doctor has no idea. That I left his office. He was so proud of me and I was just getting the chewing out of a lifetime. And future episodes. I'm going to share more stories with you just like this one. 

 I remember when I made the decision to leave this company, this same owner doctor asked me why I was leaving, what the reason was, why I chose to leave there when I was doing so well. 

I chose to leave in a way. Where I didn't need to take down the whole ship.

 My choice to leave that company. Was ultimately my own decision  to move forward in my own leadership journey. And I didn't need to say a bad word about anyone that I worked with.  I did not want to leave with that kind of reputation. I remember several months after I left, I got more text messages from him.  Inquiries as to why I left. But I never once told any of these stories.  I hope that this is an encouragement to you, that you don't have to leave somewhere and take the whole house down with you. You can go quietly.  You can move forward in your life and in your leadership and create generational leaders behind you. Generational leaders in front of you. And many multimillion dollar companies. Without having to take the whole ship down.

Let's head back to the story. Now at this point, you either agree or you disagree with what happened to me. You either feel really sorry. The hair on the back of your neck is standing up. Your anxiety or frustration is through the roof because you think I was treated really and righteously. Or you completely agree with my supervisors, the CEO and the COO. 

You think that they're completely justified and chewing me out?  You are disappointed in me because I did disgrace the mission that I was on as a leader. I was absolutely out of line. You know exactly why I received the chewing out that I did.

Now, I don't know what kind of leader you are or how you would have handled this situation. But I'm telling you never in my life, have I ever had more of a desire to leave a company? Never was I  more encouraged that I had reached the peak of my career with this company and I was ready for my next step.  After I got off that phone call. I was led to do some soul searching. Into what kind of leader I was. Who was I portraying? Who was I fighting for? What was I doing when I went to that office? Everything inside of me tells me that the reason I did everything I did that day. The reason I went in and took over.  Was because I didn't want the owner to be disappointed in me. I didn't want my reputation. To be in jeopardy. 

 What do I think today? 10 years later, what do I think? 

I think that.  I went into that office. Needing to change something immediately because my leaders.  Put such pressure on me. Because there was a lot of pressure on them. And I just wanted to turn it around. I wanted to make it better. 

 I don't think that I was treated from a fair vantage point, but I do think it was appropriate that I did hear everything my leaders had to say to me,

I think what went  wrong though. Is that I heard so much gossip about Lisa. I had so much pressure on my shoulders from my supervisors and wanting to impress and make sure this owner doctor saw and knew that I was equipped enough  to continue to supervise this office, maintain this office. 

I was a strong enough director of operations and I was in the right space. But there was a lot stacked against me for this office.  I was overseeing a dental office manager. Who was. The spouse of one of my coworkers, I didn't even get to hire this person. There was such a magnifying glass on me as a leader, and I was not mentally equipped or emotionally ready to deal with what that needed to look like. 

I took this opportunity of knowing this gossip about Lisa. And the pressure that was on my shoulders.

 I chose to build myself instead of supporting Lisa.

 In a moment when I could have chosen anything.  Instead of choosing to teach her more on delegation. Instead of hearing her out and learning her perspective  of, what was truly going on in this office. Instead of choosing to build her as a leader. And teach her how to manage high level strategic tasks in her dental practice and teach her team that I was there to support her. I did the exact opposite. I showed her that she had no skillset. I showed her that she was not strong enough to lead that office, that she wasn't worthy enough to be in that office.  I showed her that my track record was more important and that I believed every word of gossip. 

I knew about her, even though she may not have known, I had heard all of these things about her already. 

 And so today, I'm going to teach you exactly how to be the leader that you need to be so that you never have to take the call. I took that summer.

We're going to start at high level strategic tasks and low-level strategic tasks.

We're going to break these apart and talk about what they mean and your dental practice and for your leadership.

 When we talk about high level and low level.

These are all tasks that have to do with delegation. What are you delegating? And what are you keeping for yourself? High level is everything that you, as the leader are going to take on and low level is everything that will be delegated out. High level strategic tasks in a dental office are things as a leader that you should be focused on. Things like developing and implementing marketing strategies that attract and retain new patients. Like establishing financial goals and actually monitoring the practices, financial performance.  Designing and overseeing staff training. Developing programs that make your team stronger every week as you progress. High level strategic tasks in your dental office. Are evaluating and investing in technologies that improve patient care and operational efficiencies. It's creating and maintaining relationships with suppliers and vendors. It's developing and updating policies and procedures so that you always have compliance with regulatory requirements. It's analyzing industry trends and adapting business strategies accordingly. It's leading and participating in strategic planning meetings with key stakeholders or owners of your dental businesses. It's fostering a positive work culture and maintaining high levels of employee engagement. 

Even if you are not an owner. This one, this one might sing a little.  It's removing statements like. Not my circus, not my monkeys. And learning to develop partnerships with other healthcare providers. To offer comprehensive care to patients. That maybe other offices don't offer. It's learning that every time someone comes into your office and they offered to do a lunch and learn. That's really annoying to you. Instead of saying no, not interested. You instead say. Are you part of a? I have a podcast. Do you have a social media campaign or do you run an Instagram that we could collaborate together? Because in your future, collaboration is the only way that you are going to continue to grow your dental businesses. It's learning to give time to things that irritate you, because you know that in the future, you're going to need those relationships to Excel your career and grow your business. It's learning that delegation allows you as a leader to focus on high level tasks. And strategic planning by entrusting routine or operational tasks that your team is capable of doing and freeing up time and mental bandwidth for strategic decision-making and longterm planning. 

It is learning to empower team members to handle tasks so that you, as a leader can devote your attention to driving the vision of your dental office or your small business forward. It is addressing overarching challenges and opportunities and learning that effective delegation fosters a sense of trust. 

So let's for a minute. 

Talk about low level delegation. What does that look like in your dental office or in your small business? Low-level delegation tasks are things that as a leader, you are 100% proficient in. It's time that you embody what a servant leader is by showing the way that you know how to do something. Teaching someone how to do it. And coaching and guiding them as they do it. And learning how to truly implement low level delegation. To be the generational leader that you promised you would be. 

Low level delegation and your dental office or your small business includes things like scheduling patient appointments. Whether they are treatment or recare, doesn't matter. Answering phones, responding to patients who have questions about why they need treatment, greeting patients and checking them in upon arrival. It's delegating the management of patient records and updating electronic health records. It's delegating people to do the billing from both the patient aspect and the dental insurance aspect. It's ordering of office supplies and maintaining inventory levels.  Now, I know this. As a leader or an office manager. You want to have your hands in things like ordering. Or all of these five basic categories that I just talked about. But you sitting behind a desk doing these tasks is not growing generational leaders like you promised you would do. When you get up and you clean and organize the reception waiting areas.  You are teaching your team. What's important to you. And it is important that your team sees you do that. Especially taking out the trash and cleaning the toilets. Those are all really important things. You should do those things. But you've also got to learn to delegate them. Learn to delegate, assisting with basic administrative tasks like filing charts or data entry, learn to delegate, coordinating referrals to specialists and following up on appointments, learn to delegate providing chairside assistance to your dentists. Stop doing that. 

Stop assisting. When you do that. It allows you as a leader to focus on the higher level strategic tasks that we just talked about. Planning initiatives and driving growth and success of the practice by assigning those routine administrative and operational responsibilities to your front office staff or the team members that you have underneath you. You are very simply saying three words that every person who has ever had a manager wants to hear you are saying. I trust you. You are saying that I trust you to do this job. Exactly. As you have been trained.  Exactly as I would expect it to be done to achieve growth. You know, effective delegation fosters this sense of trust and empowerment amongst your team members. That you can't put a price on. When your team members become more proficient in their roles. They actually contribute to the overall success of your dental office or your small business.   They even enhance the actual experience of your patients or your customers.

Very loudly. 

And clearly I want you to understand pitfalls that I would really encourage you to avoid. I know firsthand how to make really big mistakes in leadership. And I want to help you make these better. First.  If you're going to delegate anything in your practice and your small business, whatever it is. You need to establish clear expectations and guidelines for what the outcome needs to be. You provide clear instructions. When delegating anything to any team member. What is the objective? What is the timeline? 

What is the desired outcome? And any specific requirements or constraints.  This helps prevent misunderstandings.  You might notice team members, they recluse back. They get overwhelmed. When you give them a task, they get shy to give you feedback. You need to learn to foster a culture of open communication, where everybody on your team feels comfortable asking questions, seeking clarification, or even providing feedback. You need to check in with your team. 

You need to identify and address any issues early on so that you aren't frustrated in the future by their lack of performance, because they're just not meeting your expectations. I promise you I've been there. And that small town, 20 minutes, south of Nashville at a dental office that should have been performing much better than it was when I walked into that office and filled that schedule on my own. And collected that money from that patient. And I completely undermined that office manager because I wanted to be better because they didn't live up to my expectations because I didn't encourage open communication because I didn't seek clarification on the expectations I had of them. I want you to learn. To promote autonomy and empowerment. 



 Today right now. I'm challenging. You. To start trusting your team members to make decisions and take ownership of delegated tasks don't micromanage or hover over their shoulders. When I ask good old Google, what autonomy meant? So that I could actually explain to you all the ways that I was thinking of using this word. It means the right. Or condition to self-govern. Our team members that we are trusted to lead. They need to learn how to self-govern and what I learned on that summer day. Is that I didn't allow my team. What they needed. To feel successful to move on without me. 

I was the epitome of micromanaging and preventing or blocking self-government. I could have been better. I should have been better. And one of the greatest ways that I could have began a much more successful day. Was by being a leader that asked questions, sought out true answers from a vantage point that, Hey, my team needs my help right now. 

They don't need me to be the star of the show,  but they do need me to help them. You see as generational leaders, our goal, our responsibility. Is to give the resources to our team members that they need to be successful. In their own journey. They're going to exist long after we were here. So, how was I helpful that day? I wasn't, I just made the business money. But I didn't do the right leadership thing. 

I could have been so much better by offering to support them. Offering to guide them offering to help them learn to delegate tasks that were probably taking over their time and consuming their day. And they just didn't know how to stand up and get out of the weeds. When you model positive delegation behaviors, you actually set the tone for the rest of your team and inspire them to follow suit. Now, before we go any further, we need to talk about delegation gone wrong and how it actually negatively impacts your team. 

The morale. And the productivity. You may have already caught on to how it can go wrong.  But let's talk about it for just a second.

One of the really interesting things that I've learned in leadership is that. Delegation can go wrong so quickly. When you are truly trying to be a leader, you're not delegating tasks that you just don't want to do. Person how you would have done it better or how you did do it better in the past or how, when you worked for a previous employer, you were excellent at this. That's not great delegation. When you delegate to someone, you have to understand that even though you delegated a low level task, you might need to provide additional training, mentoring, additional assistance from other coworkers that work alongside of them, or maybe even subject matter experts in a field. I have a friend who's in a completely different industry. And she just told me about how she spent $3,000 to go to a training on the industry that she's been in for 15 years. She spent $3,000. 

I asked her, I said, what was so great about that training that you learned that you didn't know before? And she said, you know, I always sign up for these trainings. I go to two or three a year and it's the way that I invest in myself because oftentimes I know everything that they're talking about, but sometimes I learn one new thing. And that's where it all changes for me. You see when you're delegating a task. It is a thoughtful and strategic move.  It provides your team with the ability to implement autonomy that self-government, that they need to have. When you model delegation behaviors, you actually set the tone for the rest of the team. 



What I learned when I walked in and I didn't model those positive delegation behaviors. Is that my office manager, Lisa, she became less engaged, less productive, and even resented me because I went in there. I overstepped her. I made her feel inferior. The hard truth I had to come to realize is that I didn't even provide Lisa with clear instructions on what she should be doing while I was becoming the amazing manager. While I was showing everyone else how awesome I was. 

 I was setting everyone up for failure in what I did. I was creating future situations where I would have to go back in that office and continue to save the day. Anyone who's a part of a team like that becomes unsure of what's expected. They struggle to prioritize tasks and what they should be doing right now. When the manager walks in or when the manager joins a call or checks in on their work, they immediately freeze up because they haven't been given clear instructions on what they're supposed to do on a day-to-day basis. Their manager just comes in and saves the day and finishes all the work because they screwed up.

Think about how much money you pay per hour to everybody in your team. And every hour that goes by someone is just sitting there not doing something. 

Those are dollars that come out of somewhere. So if you have five people in your office and each of them make $10 an hour, that's $50 an hour that your practice or business is giving away for zero reason.  Now of course, people make more than $10 an hour and you might have more than five people. But just do the simple math. 

How much time are we wasting by not giving clear instructions or by not delegating tasks that we really shouldn't be doing?  Or failing to provide support. Now you might be thinking, well, gosh, you really did provide a bunch of support. to Lisa. She knew exactly what she needed to do, but she didn't do it. 

You went in there and you supported her. You led with servant leadership. Yeah, I sure did. And my ego and everything I wanted someone to see in me was really, really present. And nothing that I wanted them to see in her. I wanted my CEO and my COO. To see that she failed. That she didn't do the job that needed to be done. When a manager or a leader, trust their team member to do the right thing. They have to understand the complexity of the task at hand and make sure that they have the proper support. Your team will struggle to do any task on time or any task in general. If you don't provide the proper support. 

Stop taking credit for other people's work. Please stop. For the love of everything in dentistry, please stop. If you decide you're going to delegate a project to a team member, you better recognize them for it. And you need to know how your people need to be recognized. If they like to be recognized in a public setting. Great. If they don't. I do it privately.  If they tell you they don't like recognition in a public setting. Try to find a way to gently honor them and not take credit for yourself. Team members feel demoralized and unappreciated. And  unwanted when their contributions are not acknowledged or recognized. It erodes the trust and morale within the team leading to resentment and disengagement just don't do it.   

 As we come to a close on episode, four of dentistry support the podcast. I want to remind you that every single person you lead. We'll have a very different level of emotional intelligence. They're not going to match yours. They're not going to match the way that you perceive situations or the way that you handle situations or even the way that you care about your work. Or there's. It is your responsibility as a leader. To find ways to understand the mental capacity of those you lead. Now that might seem like a lot to bear on your shoulders and it is. Leadership is powerful. But it's also generational.  It's amazing and you are going to transform lives, but you can't do that. Until you are ready to understand the lives that you are transforming. 

And I'll be honest with you. If I had everything to do all over again, the day, the call on the way home. When I spoke with my leaders. When tears fell down my face and I had to suck back the emotions to just not be vulnerable in that minute. I would ask them to pause  and try to see my side. That I wasn't trying to do anything bad and that my heart wasn't in a bad place. And to please don't judge me on what you think I did wrong, but more so on my intentions because they were really good. 

And I really just wanted to save the business.  But I know that wouldn't have mattered. Because the reality is I needed to grow as a person and realize that my efforts. My accomplishments. They are only recognized when my team is successful as a whole, and I've created future generations of leaders that can exist without me. So as much as that drive felt terrible. And that situation still kind of stings. And I still really feel sorry for that girl that took that call and that 45 minute drive felt so long.  When I pulled in my driveway that day. I was a different person than when I pulled in the parking lot of that dental office at 10:00 AM. I didn't handle that situation. 

Right. And I could have been so much better. 

And so here we are at our that's good moment. The time that I'm going to challenge you the most. Even in situations that you feel things are unfair.  I am challenging you that these are moments you must have so that you can change and you can grow. 

 I am challenging you right now. To see things from a totally different vantage point. Because you need to be a leader that can acknowledge where you've gone wrong. Even if you felt really successful. I am challenging you to move forward in a place of growth and productivity for the future generation of leaders. I am challenging you to learn, to delegate the small stuff so that the really big stuff can actually happen. I'm challenging you to stand up, get out of the weeds and become the leader you were designed to be.

I am challenging you. To focus on your people and where they're going to be 10 to 15 years from now. Because you aren't going to be their leader anymore. You won't be that leader. That's right there to save the day and fix all of their mistakes. You won't be there to show them how it should have been done. 

 So right now you need to focus on delegating those low level strategic tasks. So the high level strategic tasks can get accomplished. You need to focus on creating generational leaders that you promised you would commit to. I'll leave you with this. As a leader, you are not what you did before. I am not who I was 10 years ago. But you are what you repeatedly do. 

I know you can do this and I'll catch you on the next episode.