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. Clinical Significance: Unconscious, implicit and often automatic behaviours, skills and activities related to leadership and teamwork have been uncovered and linked directly to patient care. Findings and conclusions can enhance patient outcomes and experience alongside clinician wellbeing; and underpin effective surgery and practice management. Relevant in the clinical patient care context for every clinician.