Making the Implicit Explicit: Leadership in Primary Care Dental Practice

Objectives
This paper reports on research aimed at understanding leadership activities in primary care
dental practice, an under-explored area within the extant literature.
Methods
The research employed a qualitative, exploratory paradigm, using Video Reflexive
Ethnography (VRE) and Activity Theory (AT) to capture the lived experiences of seven
participating dentists.
Results
The research outlines the ways in which dentists demonstrate leadership skills in their daily
work, identifying three interacting activity systems that define leadership in this
setting: Patient Care (PC), Running the Surgery (RS), and Running the Practice (RP). Findings
emphasise that leadership is directly related to patient care and is informed by explicit and
implicit ‘rules’ governing these activities, which are often learnt and developed tacitly over
the course of a dentist’s career.
Conclusions
Leadership is based on relationships and emotional intelligence and effects dentists’ general
well-being in addition to the effective delivery of clinical care.