At Your Service: Championing Employee Leadership

Have you ever wondered, “How do I get my employees to think and act more like practice owners?” There may be different reasons for this desire—to have more accountable staff, to provide better patient outcomes, or to better achieve your vision. Whatever the reason, the ultimate goal is to develop engaged staff who perform at the owner level.

To realize this goal, we encourage you to cultivate a culture where employees are inspired, included, and rewarded to think and act with a leadership mindset. As author and inspirational speaker Simon Sinek says, “Leadership is not a rank or position to be attained. Leadership is a service to be given.” Embrace that mentality by building leaders at every level of your practice with these possible tactics.

Set Expectations

Expectations can be subjective if left up to the employee. Therefore, be open about your standards and vision for the practice. To do that you must first know what your expectations are and if they are realistic. Ask yourself: What does good look like? What does great look like? Does my staff have the tools to accomplish great? Have I asked them if there are any roadblocks in accomplishing great?

Once you know those answers, consider the following: Have I clearly communicated my vision to staff and the “why” behind it? Does my team truly understand their role and how they can contribute to the practice vision? Have I inspired them? Is their compensation aligned with my expectations? Should I include my employees in goal setting?

When appropriate, involve your employees in the expectation-setting process to create a partnership that ensures commitment versus compliance. This also helps to establish a sense of ownership for employees over their roles and responsibilities.

Listen

Your staff has different interactions with patients than you do. They hear what questions patients have over phones and when you leave the room. They also hear why patients decide to go elsewhere or not to re-book. This feedback may provide insight into how you can improve internal operations, patient experiences, and practice efficiencies (or lack thereof).

To get this valuable staff feedback, you must have an environment conducive to receiving it. Ask yourself: Do you have a culture that encourages open communication? Do you foster positive relationships with your staff? Are you accessible and approachable? Have you asked for feedback or brainstormed with your staff? Do you set aside 1:1 time to listen to your team and solicit feedback? Are you accessible and approachable? Have you implemented staff ideas? Have you given them recognition when their ideas were successful?

Truly welcoming and listening to staff input makes them feel like they have a say in the practice. And when you implement feedback, it shows employees that their words can inspire action and enact change. This can boost self-confidence.

Empower

The act of listening to your team can often support empowerment. That may be the most important principal in creating leaders, so it’s something to continually foster and encourage. Other ways to empower your employees include:

• Encourage them to teach back key learnings from a training or seminar they attended.
• Let an individual who is passionate about one aspect of the practice—for example, loyalty programs—be the “Center of Excellence,” or COE, for that subject.
• Allow employees to formally recognize others within the practice for their contributions. This can be done at a staff meeting or in an employee newsletter.
• Give them greater autonomy in everyday decision-making.

Luxury brands Nordstrom and The Ritz-Carlton are well-known proponents of that last empowerment tactic. They empower their employees by giving them the autonomy to make business decisions as if it was their own business. Former Director of Talent Acquisition at Nordstrom, Mary Porter, was quoted as describing the company’s culture as follows: “We encourage our employees to work as though it’s their name on the door—to build their own business and do what they feel is right to build lasting relationships with their customers.” With a similar customer-focused mentality, The Ritz-Carlton is famous for giving their employees a $2,000 allowance per incident to turnaround a guest experience without having to ask a manager.

Knowing that, do you allow your employees to make decisions and handle the responsibilities of their roles? Do you empower providers to customize treatments based on their medical knowledge and the patient’s desired outcome while keeping strategic partnerships in mind? Do you give your team the ability to act without having to ask for permission first? This level of autonomy allows staff to be more agile, build strong relationships, and feel invested in the practice and its success.

Invest in Development

Your employees help shape the patient experience and, ultimately, your brand. As such, they are your most valuable asset, so it pays to invest in their development.

With that said, do you provide training opportunities for everyone, not just providers, in your practice? Do you provide regular, ongoing feedback to your employees? If so, is your feedback positive and specific to the actions or behaviors you’d like to see continue? Do you embrace the differences of each employee in your practice and build off their unique strengths?

A best practice is to assess developmental strengths and opportunities on a consistent basis with each employee. This also provides an opportunity to better understand what motivates your employees and their development goals. Use that knowledge to invest in your people appropriately—focusing on their strengths, skillsets, interests, and career aspirations. When you invest in your employees, you also invest in the future success of your practice.

Offer Recognition

An easy way to build strong leaders in your practice is by simply acknowledging employees and their individual successes. Recognition, especially when it’s given frequently and in real time, is one of the greatest positive motivators. Recognition will make employees more productive and engaged in their role, and it does not need to be extravagant or expensive, but it does need to be meaningful and personalized.

Knowing the power of recognition, consider asking yourself: Do you show appreciation for your staff’s hard work and contributions? Do you have an Employee of the Month to acknowledge accomplishments? Do you recognize exemplary work publicly and in the moment, especially when employees take on a leadership role? Do you encourage peer-to-peer recognition? Do you leverage both social and monetary recognition? Do you recognize and motivate employees based on their core values?

When you recognize employees for their effort, you can positively impact practice culture, improve job satisfaction, and help retain and foster the leaders already in your practice. 

The Service of Leadership

Leadership is often talked about at a management/ownership level, but it can be exercised at every level. Remember, leadership is a state of mind, not a position, so everyone can grow and develop into leaders in the right environment. That means, as the head of the practice, creating a team of leaders starts with you.