The Leadership Journey
One of the core beliefs we hold at Indie Practices is that transformational leadership is deeply powerful. Developing strong leadership skills not only impacts how a team operates and the success the team ultimately achieves; it also can transform how a leader experiences life–both professionally and personally.
I’m excited to dive into all of that, but first, here’s a bit about my own journey. I’ve worked for 20 years in the field of education–as a classroom teacher, as principal, as an instructional coach, and as a school leadership coach. Along the way I’ve been fortunate to learn from incredible leaders and have opportunities to develop my own leadership behaviors and beliefs. I’ve been able to work on teams with brilliant leaders from around the world doing cutting edge work in their field. I’ve also worked on teams that, despite having great people and huge potential, failed to achieve progress due to dysfunction and weak leadership. As a leader, I’ve been able to apply these lessons to my practice with tremendous results; I’ve also felt the bitter pain of leadership missteps and failing to push my team forward. All of these experiences have led me to a few core leadership beliefs:
- The leader has the ability to coach and transform their team. The successes and failures of a team are the results of the leader’s actions.
- Transformational leadership can be learned. It’s not something that you either have or you don’t.
- Developing as a leader is not just a “work” thing. It will change the way you perceive and interact with the world around you.
My leadership path has taken me from classrooms in Japan to leadership coaching in the US to leading an international school in Panama. I’m now able to focus on the next chapter of this journey: sharing the power of transformational leadership with dental practice owners through Indie Practices.
At Indie Practices, I provide the leadership-focused side of our coaching. We believe that all key aspects of dental practice management are underpinned by strong leadership. Through our leadership coaching, we help leaders with critical skills like building culture, developing communication skills, growing team members, and establishing accountability. These are intimidating but learnable skills.
An unexpected but profound part of the journey is that growing as a leader changes you as a person. Developing as a leader changes the way you communicate. It changes how you listen and what you pay attention to. Becoming a transformational leader will change what you think you can accomplish and it will change the places that you go–both in your career and around the world.
I love chatting about leadership and am passionate about sharing the journey with others. Feel free to contact me at mark@indiepractices.com to share thoughts and questions. I’m looking forward to sharing this passion with you and exploring the journey together.
- Mark
