July 2, 2025 • 12 mins
Leadership's echo effect shapes dental practice culture far more than we realize. As practice owners, even when we're not actively leading, our behavior creates rippling effects that influence team dynamics long after we've left the building.
True practice culture isn't what you declare in mission statements or team meetings—it's the accumulation of every feeling your team members have about working in your practice. These feelings develop through countless small interactions where your actual behaviors either reinforce or contradict your stated values. A deep sigh when interrupted, multitasking during conversations, or inconsistently holding people accountable all send powerful unspoken messages that can undermine everything you claim to stand for as a leader.
Ready to create a practice that runs smoothly with less stress and higher profits? Consider joining our September mastermind where we'll help you build leadership skills and systems that create positive cultural echoes throughout your practice.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Are you spending enough time leading?
Most people would answer no.
I know I need to be leadingmore.
But what we fail to realize aspractice owners is that even
when we are not actively leading, our behavior has a residual
effect on our teams and if wearen't careful it can have a big
negative effect on our culture.
You see, culture isn't what yousay it is.
(00:24):
It's just not that easy todeclare your culture at any
given moment, but rather it'sthe sum, it's the full effect of
all of the feelings that yourteam has about your practice,
and those feelings are stillhappening a long time, even
after you've left the office forthe weekend.
You see, your leadership has anecho.
All of your behaviors leave aresidue on your culture and on
(00:47):
your team.
And if you're not careful withwhat you do say or the way that
you say it, that echo candestroy the quality of your
patient care and completelychange the way it feels to be a
member of your practice.
And that's what we're going tobe talking about today.
How can we better control theecho of our leadership?
(01:07):
Now you are listening to theDental Practice Heroes podcast.
I'm your host, dr Paul Edgison.
I'm the author of two books ondental practice management, a
dental coach and the owner of alarge group practice in the
south suburbs of Chicago.
I am here to teach you how tocreate a practice, through
leadership and systems, that ishands-off, managed by the team
and that gives you an amazinglife with amazing profits, all
(01:30):
while taking amazing care ofyour patients.
So if you are interested inbeing the best practice owner,
you can you are in the rightplace, all right.
So I want to share a story thatreflects this idea of our
behavior having an echo.
I remember back about 2018.
Now we were a five-op office.
We just expanded to 11operatories, so we doubled the
(01:50):
size of our practice.
We doubled the size of our teamand we started seeing a lot
more patients because we wentfrom five to 11 chairs.
So the practice had changed alot in a very short period of
time.
Now I used to sit in my officeand I was often overwhelmed.
I was busy.
I was still seeing patientsthree days a week and it was
(02:11):
really hard to get to the thingsthat I needed to get to and,
honestly, there were a lot ofareas of the practice that were
really neglected because I justwasn't getting to them.
This was before I learned howto lead and delegate and create
the leadership systems that Ihave today, so this is long
before that.
So I remember this.
One day I was sitting at my deskin my office and I'm reviewing
the notes from the previousnight.
So I'm going through the notes,making sure that everything was
(02:31):
in there, seeing if there'sanything that I wanted to add.
And this was like the firsttask of the day.
Now I have a million otherthings to do, so I'm trying to
do this as fast as I can.
Sudden I hear a knock at thedoor.
And the second I hear thatknock.
I know it's always somebody tobring me something and I have
enough to do, so I say come in.
And who is it?
It's my assistant, Jacqueline.
(02:52):
Now Jacqueline knows when I amtyping.
She is not to interrupt metyping.
I cannot stand it.
My team knows this.
You don't say anything to mewhile I'm typing.
You wait till I finish what I'mdoing.
So she was doing that verypolitely, just standing there
waiting for me to finish what Iwas typing so that I could look
at her.
I just finished it up and Itook a deep breath and I let it
(03:12):
out and I turned and looked ather and said what's up?
And I could tell, right when Idid that, that something changed
in her.
And I said what?
And she goes nothing, nothing.
And I was just like what, whatis up?
Like what is your problem?
Because I could tell thatsomething was wrong.
It wasn't a normal thing.
So then she goes no, forget itAnyway.
So and I said no, I want toknow what you were just about to
(03:33):
say.
So then she paused for a secondand she looked me in the eyes
and she took a deep breath aswell and she said I know you say
that, your, but when you take adeep breath like that and let
out that big sigh and then lookat me and ask me what I need, it
doesn't feel like you believethat.
And right when the words lefther mouth, I was floored.
(03:55):
She was so right.
I mean, here I was.
I'm someone who says hey, myoffice door is always open, come
to me if you need anything.
I want to support you, I wantto do this and that.
And here she comes in to ask mesomething, in to ask me
something, and I'm acting like alittle entitled brat.
I'm so annoyed that anotherdisturbance is coming, and so
she points this out to me.
And the thing was, I'm thankfulthat she pointed out to me,
(04:17):
even though at that moment I didget defensive.
I was like, dude, I'm reallybusy, I'm really overwhelmed,
don't you understand?
You know what I am overwhelmed,but that doesn't excuse my
behavior.
And the thing is, how many ofmy other employees had come into
my office and just asked me forsomething or brought me
something or told me about apatient, and I threw body
language and signals like thatthat said, you know what Don't
(04:39):
bother me.
So I can sit there at our teammeetings and talk about our core
values of being open andcreating a safe environment.
But the fact of the matter is,my behavior wasn't congruent
with that, and my behavior,right there, was having a
lasting echo on the team.
It was causing them to feellike I wasn't there for them.
It was causing them to feellike I didn't care, I didn't
have the time for them, and thatwasn't my intentions at all.
(05:02):
But let's face it as leaders,we aren't judged by our
intentions, we are judged by ouractions.
So I'm glad that she called meout on it.
But this is what we do often,as practice leaders, we're not
trying to be rude, but the echoof our behavior is rude.
So just being busy it's not agood enough excuse.
Your team does not hear yourintentions, they only hear your
(05:23):
actions.
So what are some otherbehaviors that maybe you
experience or you do at yourpractice?
I'll share a few more of mineGossiping or being negative
about patients.
I remember we had a consultantcome into our practice and she
was just observing, okay, and wehad the morning huddle and
we're looking at the scheduleand I go, oh, mrs Jones, oh, my
God, I hope she does not cometoday.
(05:45):
And everyone was like, yeah, oh, we hate Mrs Jones.
And I didn't think anything ofit.
This was one of those reallybig pain in the ass patients.
But that consultant pulled measide later in the day and said
hey, would you like if your teamtalked about patients the way
that you talked about Mrs Jonesthere?
And I said you know what?
No, but Mrs Jones, she'sdifferent, she's different.
And she said if you don't thinkit's okay to talk about a
(06:07):
patient like that, you can't betalking to patients like that.
So that's another example.
There's the echo of my behavior.
What does it say to my team.
When I am comfortable talking,saying negative things about a
patient, all right.
Another one when we don't followthrough.
Have you ever told anyone onyour team that, hey, yeah, I'll
get that to you or I'll get thatto you by the end of the week.
Yeah, I'll get that to you orI'll get that to you by the end
(06:28):
of the week.
And then you don't do it.
You know you miss that promise.
If you don't follow through onyour promises, that erodes trust
.
The echo of that behavior isthat you can't count on me, you
can't trust me.
So if you want to be trustedand be someone that your team
can count on, you need to makesure that you follow through on
everything that you say.
Another one that I see often inmy coaching clients and maybe
(06:49):
you can relate to this is thatwe, as practice owners, we are
very loose on our management andour holding of people to the
behaviors that we want from them.
Until we have a big opening inour schedule and we're not very
busy, and then we're going tothe front desk to see have they
called anybody to fill theseholes?
Have we followed up on anyunscheduled treatment?
So we get pissed off because ofthis one thing and then we
(07:12):
start walking around findingevery little thing that people
aren't doing.
That is when everybody's like,oh shit, we better get in busy
mode because Doc's pissed offagain.
And what's the echo of thatbehavior?
We want to hold peopleaccountable to the behaviors
that we want, but at the sametime we need to be consistent.
We can't just pick and choose.
Sometimes we're going to holdthem to it and sometimes we're
(07:32):
not.
Another one you ever get upsetthat team members are maybe late
to the morning huddle?
Maybe they're late coming backfrom lunch?
Yeah, I'm sure you do.
Well, doc, are you ever late tomorning huddle?
Are you ever late coming backfrom lunch?
So we need to realize that, asthe leader our behavior has, so
we, more than anybody, need tobe on our best behavior at all
(07:56):
times.
Right, we need to be consistent.
We need to be the same everyday, hold people to the same
standard every day and not loseourselves to our emotions when
we're having a bad day.
We need to be consistent If wewant to be the type of leader
that the team can bring thingsto and they share things to.
They share their mistakes so wecan learn from them.
That means when somebody comesto you, you need to stop what
(08:19):
you're doing and give them yourfull attention, because the fact
of the matter is, you might bethinking that you're being
efficient and you'remultitasking, you're getting
multiple things done, but that'snot the echo that your team
hears.
Your team hears that they don'tmatter to you and you're too
busy for them, and more so thananything else.
We are so quick to call out badbehavior but so slow to call
(08:41):
out good behavior.
I want you to think about whatare some things that you are
doing to your team and what aresome echoes and what are some
unintended consequences that youmay not like that are happening
in your practice.
It doesn't hurt to ask to say,hey, I'm really trying to focus
on being the best leader I can.
Is there any behavior oranything that I'm doing that
(09:03):
might have some unintendedconsequences or that the team
maybe sees in a negative light,that I might not be aware of,
that you would be willing toshare with me?
And I guarantee you there aresome.
Everybody has these.
Now your team is probably goingto tell you some things that you
don't want to hear and youmight want to get a little
defensive about it, but you needto make sure, as a leader, that
(09:24):
you don't get defensive aboutit because, remember, if you get
defensive, what is the echothere?
The echo is that it's not safeto tell you things.
You need to listen, thank thatperson for taking the risk and
sharing it with you and just bebetter going forward.
Every little thing we domatters and it's that one little
echo.
And if you repeat it everysingle day, that becomes your
(09:47):
culture.
All those positive littleechoes becomes a positive team
culture.
That feeds on itself andbecomes something very special.
And when you see a behavior inyour team members that you don't
like, try looking in the mirrorand see if there's some
possible chance that maybeyou're doing something or saying
something that's making thatbehavior okay.
(10:08):
I challenge you to that.
And if you're looking to have apractice that runs itself with
very little stress, high profitand allows you to take a lot of
time off, that runs itself withvery little stress, high profit
and allows you to take a lot oftime off, please consider
joining our mastermind.
We are kicking this off inSeptember and oh my gosh, the
people that have already signedup.
I'm so excited for this groupthat we're building.
I know everybody that joinsthis group is going to have some
(10:29):
amazing results next year and,gosh, I hope that you are one of
them.
So thank you so much forlistening today and we'll talk
to you next time.
Are you spending enough time leading?
Most people would answer no.
I know I need to be leadingmore.
But what we fail to realize aspractice owners is that even
when we are not actively leading, our behavior has a residual
effect on our teams and if wearen't careful it can have a big
negative effect on our culture.
You see, culture isn't what yousay it is.
(00:24):
It's just not that easy todeclare your culture at any
given moment, but rather it'sthe sum, it's the full effect of
all of the feelings that yourteam has about your practice,
and those feelings are stillhappening a long time, even
after you've left the office forthe weekend.
You see, your leadership has anecho.
All of your behaviors leave aresidue on your culture and on
(00:47):
your team.
And if you're not careful withwhat you do say or the way that
you say it, that echo candestroy the quality of your
patient care and completelychange the way it feels to be a
member of your practice.
And that's what we're going tobe talking about today.
How can we better control theecho of our leadership?
(01:07):
Now you are listening to theDental Practice Heroes podcast.
I'm your host, dr Paul Edgison.
I'm the author of two books ondental practice management, a
dental coach and the owner of alarge group practice in the
south suburbs of Chicago.
I am here to teach you how tocreate a practice, through
leadership and systems, that ishands-off, managed by the team
and that gives you an amazinglife with amazing profits, all
(01:30):
while taking amazing care ofyour patients.
So if you are interested inbeing the best practice owner,
you can you are in the rightplace, all right.
So I want to share a story thatreflects this idea of our
behavior having an echo.
I remember back about 2018.
Now we were a five-op office.
We just expanded to 11operatories, so we doubled the
(01:50):
size of our practice.
We doubled the size of our teamand we started seeing a lot
more patients because we wentfrom five to 11 chairs.
So the practice had changed alot in a very short period of
time.
Now I used to sit in my officeand I was often overwhelmed.
I was busy.
I was still seeing patientsthree days a week and it was
(02:11):
really hard to get to the thingsthat I needed to get to and,
honestly, there were a lot ofareas of the practice that were
really neglected because I justwasn't getting to them.
This was before I learned howto lead and delegate and create
the leadership systems that Ihave today, so this is long
before that.
So I remember this.
One day I was sitting at my deskin my office and I'm reviewing
the notes from the previousnight.
So I'm going through the notes,making sure that everything was
(02:31):
in there, seeing if there'sanything that I wanted to add.
And this was like the firsttask of the day.
Now I have a million otherthings to do, so I'm trying to
do this as fast as I can.
Sudden I hear a knock at thedoor.
And the second I hear thatknock.
I know it's always somebody tobring me something and I have
enough to do, so I say come in.
And who is it?
It's my assistant, Jacqueline.
(02:52):
Now Jacqueline knows when I amtyping.
She is not to interrupt metyping.
I cannot stand it.
My team knows this.
You don't say anything to mewhile I'm typing.
You wait till I finish what I'mdoing.
So she was doing that verypolitely, just standing there
waiting for me to finish what Iwas typing so that I could look
at her.
I just finished it up and Itook a deep breath and I let it
(03:12):
out and I turned and looked ather and said what's up?
And I could tell, right when Idid that, that something changed
in her.
And I said what?
And she goes nothing, nothing.
And I was just like what, whatis up?
Like what is your problem?
Because I could tell thatsomething was wrong.
It wasn't a normal thing.
So then she goes no, forget itAnyway.
So and I said no, I want toknow what you were just about to
(03:33):
say.
So then she paused for a secondand she looked me in the eyes
and she took a deep breath aswell and she said I know you say
that, your, but when you take adeep breath like that and let
out that big sigh and then lookat me and ask me what I need, it
doesn't feel like you believethat.
And right when the words lefther mouth, I was floored.
(03:55):
She was so right.
I mean, here I was.
I'm someone who says hey, myoffice door is always open, come
to me if you need anything.
I want to support you, I wantto do this and that.
And here she comes in to ask mesomething, in to ask me
something, and I'm acting like alittle entitled brat.
I'm so annoyed that anotherdisturbance is coming, and so
she points this out to me.
And the thing was, I'm thankfulthat she pointed out to me,
(04:17):
even though at that moment I didget defensive.
I was like, dude, I'm reallybusy, I'm really overwhelmed,
don't you understand?
You know what I am overwhelmed,but that doesn't excuse my
behavior.
And the thing is, how many ofmy other employees had come into
my office and just asked me forsomething or brought me
something or told me about apatient, and I threw body
language and signals like thatthat said, you know what Don't
(04:39):
bother me.
So I can sit there at our teammeetings and talk about our core
values of being open andcreating a safe environment.
But the fact of the matter is,my behavior wasn't congruent
with that, and my behavior,right there, was having a
lasting echo on the team.
It was causing them to feellike I wasn't there for them.
It was causing them to feellike I didn't care, I didn't
have the time for them, and thatwasn't my intentions at all.
(05:02):
But let's face it as leaders,we aren't judged by our
intentions, we are judged by ouractions.
So I'm glad that she called meout on it.
But this is what we do often,as practice leaders, we're not
trying to be rude, but the echoof our behavior is rude.
So just being busy it's not agood enough excuse.
Your team does not hear yourintentions, they only hear your
(05:23):
actions.
So what are some otherbehaviors that maybe you
experience or you do at yourpractice?
I'll share a few more of mineGossiping or being negative
about patients.
I remember we had a consultantcome into our practice and she
was just observing, okay, and wehad the morning huddle and
we're looking at the scheduleand I go, oh, mrs Jones, oh, my
God, I hope she does not cometoday.
(05:45):
And everyone was like, yeah, oh, we hate Mrs Jones.
And I didn't think anything ofit.
This was one of those reallybig pain in the ass patients.
But that consultant pulled measide later in the day and said
hey, would you like if your teamtalked about patients the way
that you talked about Mrs Jonesthere?
And I said you know what?
No, but Mrs Jones, she'sdifferent, she's different.
And she said if you don't thinkit's okay to talk about a
(06:07):
patient like that, you can't betalking to patients like that.
So that's another example.
There's the echo of my behavior.
What does it say to my team.
When I am comfortable talking,saying negative things about a
patient, all right.
Another one when we don't followthrough.
Have you ever told anyone onyour team that, hey, yeah, I'll
get that to you or I'll get thatto you by the end of the week.
Yeah, I'll get that to you orI'll get that to you by the end
(06:28):
of the week.
And then you don't do it.
You know you miss that promise.
If you don't follow through onyour promises, that erodes trust
.
The echo of that behavior isthat you can't count on me, you
can't trust me.
So if you want to be trustedand be someone that your team
can count on, you need to makesure that you follow through on
everything that you say.
Another one that I see often inmy coaching clients and maybe
(06:49):
you can relate to this is thatwe, as practice owners, we are
very loose on our management andour holding of people to the
behaviors that we want from them.
Until we have a big opening inour schedule and we're not very
busy, and then we're going tothe front desk to see have they
called anybody to fill theseholes?
Have we followed up on anyunscheduled treatment?
So we get pissed off because ofthis one thing and then we
(07:12):
start walking around findingevery little thing that people
aren't doing.
That is when everybody's like,oh shit, we better get in busy
mode because Doc's pissed offagain.
And what's the echo of thatbehavior?
We want to hold peopleaccountable to the behaviors
that we want, but at the sametime we need to be consistent.
We can't just pick and choose.
Sometimes we're going to holdthem to it and sometimes we're
(07:32):
not.
Another one you ever get upsetthat team members are maybe late
to the morning huddle?
Maybe they're late coming backfrom lunch?
Yeah, I'm sure you do.
Well, doc, are you ever late tomorning huddle?
Are you ever late coming backfrom lunch?
So we need to realize that, asthe leader our behavior has, so
we, more than anybody, need tobe on our best behavior at all
(07:56):
times.
Right, we need to be consistent.
We need to be the same everyday, hold people to the same
standard every day and not loseourselves to our emotions when
we're having a bad day.
We need to be consistent If wewant to be the type of leader
that the team can bring thingsto and they share things to.
They share their mistakes so wecan learn from them.
That means when somebody comesto you, you need to stop what
(08:19):
you're doing and give them yourfull attention, because the fact
of the matter is, you might bethinking that you're being
efficient and you'remultitasking, you're getting
multiple things done, but that'snot the echo that your team
hears.
Your team hears that they don'tmatter to you and you're too
busy for them, and more so thananything else.
We are so quick to call out badbehavior but so slow to call
(08:41):
out good behavior.
I want you to think about whatare some things that you are
doing to your team and what aresome echoes and what are some
unintended consequences that youmay not like that are happening
in your practice.
It doesn't hurt to ask to say,hey, I'm really trying to focus
on being the best leader I can.
Is there any behavior oranything that I'm doing that
(09:03):
might have some unintendedconsequences or that the team
maybe sees in a negative light,that I might not be aware of,
that you would be willing toshare with me?
And I guarantee you there aresome.
Everybody has these.
Now your team is probably goingto tell you some things that you
don't want to hear and youmight want to get a little
defensive about it, but you needto make sure, as a leader, that
(09:24):
you don't get defensive aboutit because, remember, if you get
defensive, what is the echothere?
The echo is that it's not safeto tell you things.
You need to listen, thank thatperson for taking the risk and
sharing it with you and just bebetter going forward.
Every little thing we domatters and it's that one little
echo.
And if you repeat it everysingle day, that becomes your
(09:47):
culture.
All those positive littleechoes becomes a positive team
culture.
That feeds on itself andbecomes something very special.
And when you see a behavior inyour team members that you don't
like, try looking in the mirrorand see if there's some
possible chance that maybeyou're doing something or saying
something that's making thatbehavior okay.
(10:08):
I challenge you to that.
And if you're looking to have apractice that runs itself with
very little stress, high profitand allows you to take a lot of
time off, that runs itself withvery little stress, high profit
and allows you to take a lot oftime off, please consider
joining our mastermind.
We are kicking this off inSeptember and oh my gosh, the
people that have already signedup.
I'm so excited for this groupthat we're building.
I know everybody that joinsthis group is going to have some
(10:29):
amazing results next year and,gosh, I hope that you are one of
them.
So thank you so much forlistening today and we'll talk
to you next time.
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