As a leader, do you often feel frustrated with some behaviours of your team?
Are you annoyed at their lack of appreciation? Do they run out the door the second their shifts are finished? Are you concerned that they work slowly to clock up extra paid minutes? Maybe you are upset at their questioning over every minor aspect of the ‘fair’ working conditions.
Sometimes it may feel to you that there are so many reasons to doubt your team members that seeing their positive behaviours is almost impossible.
There is a strange secret that I want you to consider that may be the answer to most of the challenges you experience with your team: YOUR TEAM IS A MIRROR OF YOU.
Why is this ‘strange’?
And, why is it a ‘secret’?
It is strange because most dentists don’t seem to know it. And it is a secret because, indeed, most of them don’t know it.
Let me explain what I mean by the statement that ‘your team is a mirror of you’.
Your team members, as is the case with most of your relationships, fall in line with what you think and do.
If you are distrustful, others will exhibit untrustworthy behaviour.
If you penny-pinch when paying your team, they will minute-pinch when completing their shifts.
If you are looking for examples of inefficiency, they will show you evidence of inefficiency.
And it goes deeper.
If you do not CARE about them, they will not CARE about you, and even worse, they will not care about
If you are experiencing frustration with the behaviours of your team, it is not them who need to shift, to change…it’s you.
If you would like your team to be loyal to you, to ‘have your back’, to be patient with you when you are trying to achieve a great result, to be sympathetic when you are struggling, to be joyful when something wonderful has happened in your life, then you must act this way first. You must behave in these ways; then, and only then, will your team members align their behaviours with your new behaviours.
Your thoughts and actions are a message to the world of what you want, what you deeply desire. It is not that others RESPOND to you differently, it is that you manifest the thoughts, attitudes and behaviours in those around you. You control it.
The strange secret is this: you create the environment in your practice.
Therefore, you must learn to take responsibility for the space that you create.
In order for this shift to work, it must be authentic. Treat your team members with the respect you want. Trust them to the same extent that you want your patients to trust in your advice. Extend to them the generosity of spirit, the encouragement and assurance that they are valued and you will see evidence of a shift in your experience with them.
It is not that others react to your thoughts and actions; it is that you create your reality with your thoughts and actions.
Isn’t that strange?