#940: What Leaders Should Not Do

Kiera is joined by DAT Consultant Dana Morsell to talk about common leadership pitfalls, and how you can overcome them. They discuss such points as:

• Thinking you have to make all the decisions

• Navigating a lack of creativity or problem-solving

• Being too focused on goals, and not enough on happiness

• And more

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Transcript:

Kiera Dent (00:00.758)

Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and today is a great day. I have the one and only Dana Morselle on the podcast. Everybody who works with her loves her. She won our review challenge. If you want to help Dana out and you love her on the podcast, go leave us a Google review. Make her even the more triumphant winner. But really, like it would be awesome. We have a goal to hit 100 Google reviews before the end of the year. So you guys do it for your practices. We're asking you now help us out. If you love this podcast, go leave it.

Dana, how did it feel to win the Google review? Like most loved consultant apparently, according to those reviews, how did that feel for you?

Dana (00:34.995)

It was awesome. It felt really good. I wouldn't say most loved. I think that I have some viable competitors that are amazing. And it just felt good to see the love, not just for me, but I think for Dental A Team and all the things that we bring. I think being able to make an impact is so special to me. so, you know, seeing it in words just brought a lot of joy.

Kiera Dent (00:40.836)

you

Kiera Dent (00:57.732)

Mm-hmm.

Kiera Dent (01:01.856)

I agree. It was actually so incredible because I think that that's the proof, right? That's the proof of what we do. it's the proof of our clients showing up as well as the proof of our consulting works. Our consulting gets results. Our consulting changes lives. Like I say often, life is my passion and dentistry is my platform. so helping people have their most dreamy lives and doing it through dentistry and helping the systems and the pieces and helping evolve these leaders and

Day in day out loving them. I'm so excited 2025 we are doing in person events for business and leadership and I'm so excited to meet people more face to face and to have more collaboration and to have these brilliant offices and Offices who feel like they're not doing so well All of them are brilliant in their own way and helping them see that they have a special sauce even if they feel like

I'm less than I know when I go to groups, I'm like, what the heck do I have to bring to the table? And I think that that's just so unfortunate that as humans, we've trained ourselves to think that we're less than when as children, we were brought into this world believing that we're more than and so helping people realize they have something to bring to the table and what do you have to give and what can you share to help these other offices flourish? Gosh, this is what I'm here for. This is what we're about. So bring it on. If you want to be a part of our inner circle, reach out Hello@TheDentalATeam.com.

All of our clients were super pumped to have you, but yeah, reach out. is limited spacing. And so our venue has been booked. It's in Scottsdale, Arizona. And so if you want to be a part of that, reach out. Hello@TheDentalATeam.com have virtual and in-person, so be sure to check out. But Dana, on the topic of leadership, so business and leadership is really what we're focused on. You had an interesting point of on-call that we're always talking about, like leaders, leaders, leaders, and what should leaders do? But Dana, brilliant. Bring in the topic for today and let's dive right in.

Dana (02:49.661)

Sure, so today I thought it would be fun to take a look at the flip side and like what are things that leaders commonly do that they should stop doing or are barriers or are holding them back?

Kiera Dent (02:59.536)

I love it. Like the flip side of leadership, because you're right, like, leadership can feel like you've got to do, do, do, do, but actually, there's a lot of don't do and stop doing. So Dana, take it away. Let's get into this juicy. I'm really excited for leaders to hear. I actually think it's a breath of fresh air for leaders. Like, there's something I can stop doing. Amazing. I'm like pen and paper in hand. Let's go.

Dana (03:22.781)

Yeah, yeah, and I think number one is stop feeling like, for me, that I've been talking about lately, is stop feeling like you have to make all of the decisions. And I think that as leaders and as practice owners, we feel like I have to be the one to make all the decisions. I have to be available for everyone to come to me with everything. And I think that going in with the mindset of stop doing that.

because you have capable people around you. That's why you hired them. That's why you brought them on. And so I've just been talking about it so much lately and it is understand that your team has the potential to make decisions and to find solutions and to do the things alongside you and with you and you don't always have to be the decision maker.

Kiera Dent (04:14.76)

Amen to that. And I think it's tricky because I think we're so I'm almost like attuned to speaking up so quickly. And I know I was just in a leadership meeting with our leadership team. And I literally had to sit there and bite my tongue. But you're right, Dana. You want the team to come up with the solutions. You want them to struggle. You want them to throw out ideas that aren't the best ideas. Allow them, because that's how you actually got good at making decisions as a leader. And I find so often,

Like I think about, I want robots or do I want humans that think and take responsibility for their actions? The more they do it, yeah, they're going to fail. But like, is it really failing or is it actually just learning? Some things will be wrong. but ask the team. And I think a good way to redirect, if you're like me and it's like, I have the answer. I have the answer. I have the answer. Like, I just want to keep giving them the answers and telling them is what do you guys think? And then I literally have to sit there and in my mind, like count to 10, like one, two.

Like let there be silence because if you can let there be silence, they'll start to realize you are not going to always give the answers. And what do you think? And asking maybe some of your quieter team members, like, what do you think? What do you think would be the solutions? Our quietest team member is Shelbi and Shelbi sits and observes and Shelbi has wisdom beyond. But sometimes unless prompted, she won't speak up. And so really giving some of them an opportunity to might help you. So I love that, Dana. What happens if your team has a really dumb idea though? Like that's a real thing. Like, okay.

I'm not gonna have the solutions, but they come in and it is like, no, what do you say then? Cause you don't want to disempower them, but you also don't want to be the one who's like making all the decisions. How do you navigate that?

Dana (05:55.793)

Yeah, and I think if there's any part of it that you can take that is good, right? Consider that. And then I think, you know what? Keep bringing those ideas. I love that you spoke up today. Keep those ideas coming. You don't have to say that it was a terrible idea. You also don't have to necessarily acknowledge that it was a great idea. But what you want to do is keep the focus on keep bringing them to me. Keep speaking up. Like so proud of you for being confident to share an idea today.

Kiera Dent (06:23.14)

Mm-hmm. And I also think like another piece on it is asking your team like what What what do you think we should do about this? So instead of it like I know we'll have in our slack chat of hey I have this question What do you guys like what do you think and I love to redirect and be like hey? Why don't you tell me what you think first? And then I can give you some solutions and say I want you to do this because I always want you coming with solutions I always want you coming with answers because I like what if I'm not here one day?

I need to make sure I'm training you all to be able to make decisions just as good or better than I am. And if you have that mindset and the team knows that, now they're empowered to do it. So tip number one, leaders, stop making all the decisions and empower your team to do. All right? I love it, Dana. What else? What else do you have for leaders to stop doing?

Dana (07:07.528)

So one thing that I have been thinking about lately is, it's going to come up, you have to hear me out on this one, right? so, it stopped being so goal focused in that don't put goals over happiness.

Kiera Dent (07:15.722)

Okay, I don't know what she's about to say, it's surprise for me too.

Kiera Dent (07:29.