JACD 71-4 - American College of Dentists

Dominick P. DePaola, DDS, FACD
Abstract
Leadership is characterized in terms
of accomplishing mutual goals for the
organization, its employees, and its
community through vision and creating
a community of caring. The examples
of Herb Kelleher of Southwest Airlines,
Walt Disney, and Dean Arthur A. Dugoni
of the University of the Pacific are used
to illustrate how this style of leadership
plays out in specific accomplishments.
Journal of the American College of Dentists
Leadership: Creating a Culture of Caring
There are reams and reams of books,
monographs, papers, symposia,
and treatises on leadership. Some
of the materials written on leadership
describe long lists of traits of leaders,
forms that leaders use to assess progress
toward the attainment of their vision,
and a variety of process issues that
seemingly by magic turn a form into
function resulting in leadership.
In the same manner, a great number
of historical and popular figures have
been described as exemplary leaders.
Interestingly, the range of the individuals
so described as outstanding leaders
spans an enormous scope—from John F.
Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., Caesar
Augustus, Winston Churchill, Tom
Peters, Stephen Covey, and Jack Welch to
Attila and Tony Soprano. Unfortunately,
there is no magical way to predict who
will be an effective leader or to articulate
the specific traits that leaders possess,
either inherited or by learning. Indeed,
many individuals can elegantly write
about leadership or create constructs on
and about leadership, but they simply
do not know how to lead.
It is abundantly clear that there is
a great deal of intuition and inner
“savvyness” to make things happen and
when to “pull the trigger” or not. So,
the intention of this essay is to discuss
leadership in the context of individuals
who have made and who continue to
exemplify real leadership as differentiated
from those who talk a good game! Of
course, one of the former is Dr. Art
Dugoni. Some of the others, whom I will
describe briefly, are Walt Disney and
Herb Kelleher, the co-founder and former
Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery
CEO of Southwest Airlines. It is hoped
that you will see that all these individuals
share some common traits and one
truly exemplary characteristic, that is,
they lead by example and by creating a
culture of caring! In essence, they make
things happen!
Let me begin by sharing with you
two working definitions of leadership
and my summary thoughts. The first
definition is elegantly described in Gary
Wills’ wonderful book, Certain Trumpets:
The Call of Leaders (1994). Wills defines
a leader as one who mobilizes others
toward a goal shared by leader and
follower. Earlier, in Leadership for the
21st Century (1991), Roast expanded
Wills’ simplistic but elegant definition.
Roast describes leadership as a dynamic
relationship based on mutual influence
and common purpose between leaders
and collaborators in which both are
moved to higher levels of motivation and
moral development as they effect real,
intended change. The figure describes
these ingredients for successful and
effective leadership.
This figure suggests that leaders
must have a vision of the future that is
transparent to everyone, that has success
measures embedded in the common
goal, and that focuses on the “followers.”
The latter is particularly important
because to the extent “followers” are
Dr. DePaola is President of
the Forsyth Institute, an oral
health research center, in
Boston.
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