By Rick Valachovic, DMD, MPH, Clinical Professor and Director of the NYU Dentistry Center for Oral Health Policy and Management
Today’s leaders in dentistry and dental education have a lot on their minds. The financial health of their practices, organizations, and institutions is ever present, and the lingering challenges of operating alongside a deadly virus are especially salient right now. Leaders also worry about broader social trends: changing demographics; 2020’s racial reckoning; calls for equity and inclusion; the partisan divide that stymies federal policy change; the climate crisis; the digital divide; mounting mental health concerns; the #MeToo movement … I could go on, but you get the picture. Given the breadth and diversity of the issues that keep leaders up at night, how can we prepare a new generation to lead the dental profession?
To get a better handle on this, we invited four panelists who have made significant contributions to leadership education to speak at our recent PROHmotion symposium. They shared their thoughts on preparing leaders for an uncertain future, and I want to share a few of their observations with you.
“Leadership is all about people. … It’s all about people
motivating people to get the job done.”
Count on Leo Rouse, DDS, president of the American College of Dentists, to speak eloquently on the topic of leadership. He joined us at the symposium, where he did just that, but he borrowed these particular words from the late General Colin Powell. Leo worked with General Powell while both served in the U. S. Army, where Leo commanded the Army’s worldwide Dental Corps. Motivating people to join us in leadership roles in oral health, now and for decades to come, is part of the responsibility that the Center for Oral Health Policy and Management’s co-director Michael O’Connor and I have assumed. Cultivating that leadership will be one of our core activities. To do this successfully, Leo stressed the need for communication and collaboration. “Make people feel valued and included,” he said. “People follow you because you have invested in them and helped them become leaders themselves.”
Despite the obstacles, leaders do what is right, and they seek policy change to make it easier to do in the future.
My NYU Dentistry colleague Richard Niederman, DMD, MA, professor and chair of our department of epidemiology and health promotion, talked about a fundamental challenge we face in advancing oral health: Dentists are trained primarily as surgeons and compensated for treating dental disease in well-insured patients. This “architecture of dentist and dental schools and insurance systems” makes it hard for dental professionals to focus on the preventive services that would help keep their patients — especially those on Medicaid — healthy, he told us. Rick argued for an approach that integrates treatment and prevention, “a policy challenge the Center could address at multiple levels,” he said. It’s a policy challenge we are eager to take on.
A leader’s chief function is to orchestrate the efforts of others.
Michael Baer, PhD, a partner at the executive search firm Isaacson, Miller, used the orchestra metaphor to describe how leaders engage others to make things happen. In a dental school context, he said those things would include having a vision and planning strategically; ensuring excellent leadership in classrooms and clinics; supporting research to improve oral health practices; securing a steady stream of students, staff, and faculty; providing the infrastructure that will be needed a decade or two in the future; and promoting public health through the translation of basic research into clinical practice. Mike’s presentation conveyed the magnitude of the job of leading a dental school and the diverse attributes a successful leader needs in this context. These thoughts are very much on our minds as we in the Center develop academic offerings to nurture a broad range of leadership skills.
Leaders must acknowledge the full range of stakeholders they serve and be prepared to face whatever comes their way.
Pamela Zarkowski, JD, MPH, provost and vice president for academic affairs at the University of Detroit Mercy, began her presentation by listing the many qualities sought by university leaders when they search for deans at all kinds of schools. She acknowledged the importance of traditional criteria but added, “Covid was a real eye-opener,” elevating the importance of crisis management skills in today’s leaders. In the case of dental deans, she underscored the need for them to understand the landscape beyond dental education. Pam noted that many candidates for dean positions have excellent track records in the narrow worlds they come from, but often lack the broader perspective they will need to function at senior leadership levels. They must keep their eyes on higher education and the professional landscape, both nationally and globally, she said. Emphasizing that deans should not be expected “to walk on water,” she stressed they nevertheless must be self-aware and able to balance their weaknesses by including individuals with complementary strengths in their leadership teams.
If all this sounds daunting, don’t forget that leaders don’t spring forth fully formed at birth; they grow into their roles over the course of years and decades and typically find support along the way from mentors, peers, and professional development initiatives such as the one we are developing. We can also take heart by remembering that as one generation exits the stage, another is usually waiting in the wings. To quote Leo Rouse, despite leadership challenges in education and organized dentistry, the future looks bright. “The leadership potential is there in our talented students,” he said.
I agree wholeheartedly. Now the task before us is to cultivate that talent so today’s students can carry the work we’ve begun into the future. That effort is already underway. We’re actively cultivating tomorrow’s leaders through a series of NYU Dentistry Student Leadership Track workshops. We’ve hosted a policy-focused virtual leadership retreat where students debated various approaches to dental licensure, and we’ll host another in April where participants will take on the challenge of shaping a Medicare dental benefit. In February, we opened the application process for the new NYU Dentistry Student Leadership Institute, which will provide mentoring and focused coursework to a cohort of current first year dental students through their graduation. I’m just getting to know this first cohort of student leaders, but I am confident they will soon be ready to lead us into the future.
