Enhancing Our Students' Potential

When you hear the word leadership, what first comes to mind? For many, the term may feel aspirational yet nebulous; obvious yet intangible; deeply meaningful yet elusive. But what the term represents at its core is a set of capacities, attitudes, skill sets, and ways of thinking that can enable an individual or group to make an impact or create change effectively, inclusively, and, when done well, strategically.¹ The dental profession calls for dental practitioners who have the agility to navigate and contribute impactfully toward the future. However, strategic leadership thinking is not usually included in the dental curriculum in a formalized, integrated way.

If we believe in our students’ potential to impact the future, and that leaders can be taught and made, then it is our responsibility to provide structured, supported opportunities for our students to begin envisioning themselves as leaders and engage in educational pathways and curricula that challenge them to learn and explore how to achieve a better understanding of who they are as individuals, what their goals are, and the ways in which they might build on their personal strengths to create positive and lasting change.

Leadership: Learning It

Dental education is a rigorous program that prepares students to provide outstanding patient-centered care. Dental education can also be a holistic learning experience that prepares students to impact the future of oral health care and communities at large. Such future dentists will be prepared not only to provide excellent patient care but also to be more likely to return to dental education as faculty and future institutional leaders, and to contribute more readily to policy-making at the local, state, federal, and even international levels. This approach helps ensure that these future oral health care professionals see in themselves a responsibility to be a voice not only in the dialogue around where we are today, but also in the discourse regarding where we may go tomorrow, and perhaps most important, that they have the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to help us get there.

Leadership: Living It

Students who engage in leadership activities while in dental school have the opportunity to gain experiences that provide essential and invaluable life lessons in communication, team building, time management, conflict management, negotiation, goal-setting, problem-solving, and public speaking.

In fact, foundational research on student success shows that individuals who take part in “high-impact” student leadership activities, including student government and class councils, clubs and organizations, or serve as peer mentors, peer tutors, admissions ambassadors, orientation leaders, or peer review board members have measurable positive learning outcomes, and become skilled in many of the capacities essential to being an effective and impactful leader.^2,3,4 But this is only half the picture; without a formalized, structured educational program to accompany or unpack these or other lived leadership experiences, all that can be gained from moments of potentially great learning are likely to be entirely missed or lost.

Integration into the Curriculum

While courses that focus on or include some of the components of leadership, such as communication and diversity, equity, and inclusion may be present in the dental education curriculum, the lens through which these topics are presented does not typically include a leadership emphasis. Nevertheless, the study of leadership is poised to fit quite seamlessly into a dental education curriculum, as the philosophies of education are very much aligned. Dental students are taught to become flourishing practitioners by moving through a thoughtfully choreographed educational experience that includes didactic foundation building alongside pre-clinical training which ultimately moves toward applied clinical experiences and practice. A curriculum that strives to teach leadership lines of inquiry must apply an integrated approach that challenges students through not only an exploration of the literature and theoretical perspectives surrounding leadership, but also connects students with role models and positions them to solve applied, real-world challenges through collaboration, teamwork, and research.

By developing a leadership education portfolio that offers varied programs and experiences, rather than a one-size-fits-all approach, each student will be more likely to find an accessible point of entry for pursuing or continuing their leadership education. While some students may be more interested in programs or curricula that follow a structured path through continued advancement in leadership education, others may prefer the ability to choose from a menu of opt-in or standalone education and experiences with a specific focus, emphasis, or goal. Providing a diversity of accessible and equitable leadership opportunities within a broader leadership education portfolio will increase the likelihood that every student, regardless of background or prior experiences, will be able to find a leadership education niche that best fits their interests and future goals.

Representation and Inclusivity in Leadership Education

At its best, leadership is diverse and inclusive of individuals representing every combination of intersectional identities, cultures, communities, backgrounds, and lived experiences. By its very nature, leadership carries responsibility. If leadership education is too limited in its scope or reach, it may fall short in critical ways. Leadership education must be intentionally and actively diverse and inclusive to give voice to those who may not otherwise have had the opportunity to be represented or heard.

While a particular leadership style or certain qualities may be innate for an individual, there is no single type of leader; how to use one’s personal skills and natural strengths takes time to study and dedication and focus to learn. Certainly, the history, scholarship, and strategic tools for navigating leadership scenarios, including organizational development and change, should be embedded in the learning process, but the didactics of leadership are most effective when the emphasis of the educational process is placed on the supported self-exploration of each unique, individual leadership learner. Effective and inclusive leadership education must therefore facilitate the opportunity for participants to reflect on their own natural styles, character strengths, and deeply held values to help everyone find their personal leadership identity and voice.

Leadership learning experiences may also be maximized when they facilitate opportunities for collaboration within and across degree levels and programs. By integrating leadership education within and across the curricula of all degree-granting programs in dentistry and the allied health professions, dentists, dental hygienists, dental assistants, and specialists from across the field of dentistry would enter and advance through the profession with a shared knowledge and language of leadership, and opportunities for intra-professional collaboration, partnership, relationship building, and consensus-building would emerge.

Advancing the Future of the Profession through Leadership Education

Ultimately, having the knowledge, skills, and capacities to lead is about contributing toward advancing a broader goal in an effort to impact the future. While it may not seem immediately apparent how such theoretical perspectives apply to the kind of leadership roles individuals may find themselves playing within the profession of dentistry, teaching leadership within a dental education curriculum may actually enable the profession of dentistry and dental education to strategically advance while simultaneously preserving the deeply-rooted values, history, and traditions of the profession.⁵ The preparation and education of tomorrow’s oral health care professionals is therefore not complete without the inclusion of guided opportunities for students to live out leadership in practice while also facilitating formalized pathways for exploring leadership research and scholarship that enables them to understand the essential role they can play in contributing to the future of patient care, clinical practice, dental education, the oral health care professions, and the communities they serve.

References

¹Sloan J. (2019). Learning to Think Strategically, (4^th ed.). Routledge.

²Astin AW. (1999). Student involvement: A developmental theory for higher education. Journal of College Student Development, 40(5), 518–529.

³Kuh GD. (2008). High-impact educational practices: What they are, who has access to them, and why they matter. Washington, DC: Association of American Colleges and Universities. https://www.aacu.org/leap/hips

⁴Terenzini PT, Pascarella ET, Blimling GS. (1996). Students' out-of-class experiences and their influence on learning and cognitive development: A literature review. Journal of College Student Development, 37(2), 149–162.

⁵Ripkey SL. (2017), "Organizational Change and Ambidexterity in Higher Education: A Case Study of Institutional Merger," Research in Organizational Change and Development (Research in Organizational Change and Development, Vol. 25), Emerald Publishing Limited, Bingley, pp. 285-317. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0897-301620170000025008

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