Carrie Webber [00:00:10] Hi everyone and welcome to the Jameson files. I'm Carrie Webber and I'll be your host today and I am honored and thrilled to have with us as our guest today Dr. Cathy Jameson our founder here at Jameson. 

Carrie Webber [00:00:25] And my mom. 

Dr. Cathy Jameson [00:00:26]It's great to be with you. It is great to be here. 

Carrie Webber [00:00:30] It's great to have you here. 

Carrie Webber [00:00:31] When we first launched this podcast we knew one of the first ones we wanted to do were episodes with you and with Dr. Don obviously. To not really just talk about where things began, but to talk about the continuation of those foundations that you started 30 years ago that continu to be so powerful and relevant for doctors and teams and practices today. 

Carrie Webber [00:00:58] So for all of you listening today what I really want to talk about is leadership. Ken and I know that's a broad topic that is a very broad topic. So I want to just focus in on it with you because I know you have such a heart for leadership in dentistry and you got your master's in psychology. You have your bachelor's in elementary education master's in psychology and you went on some years ago to get your AP HD in leadership. And I wanted to ask you at that time you'd already been working in dental practices working with doctors and teams for some time. What was it that led you to choose leadership as such a focus of your attention your study based upon the work that you were doing at the time. 

Dr. Cathy Jameson [00:01:53]It's a good question. After spending so many years in practices helping practices thrive we have base everything that we do on good communication whether it no matter what the role is of a person in a practice how they communicate makes all the difference in the world. But as I was working continuing to work in practices all over the country in fact all over the world I saw a single thread that really ran through successful practices or on the flip side of that practices that had problems moving forward. And it was either the ability to lead or the inability to lead. And in my opinion everyone in a practice is a leader right. 

Dr. Cathy Jameson [00:02:33]We are first of all leaders of ourselves, and so people decide how they're gonna approach every day they decide how they're going to handle their care of patients. They actually decide also how well they're going to interact with one another. So those three issues are become very important to the success of a practice making a decision to thrive in your own right to continue education to bring a good attitude to work to really do all that people expect and perhaps a little bit more every single day. And then the team becomes so critical. People working well together. 

Dr. Cathy Jameson [00:03:07]A dental practice is so intricately coordinated one person coordinating with another that if one person isn't functioning at their utmost that's going to affect other people through the practice. So again the systems are intimately related. So are the people. So I really believe that each team member is also not only a leader themselves but their leader of each team member their teammates. 

Carrie Webber [00:03:31] Right.

Dr. Cathy Jameson [00:03:32]So that again if you are looking at the definition of accountability. Accountability is in two words clear expectation. So a team member needs to have clear expectation about what they are supposed to do how they're supposed to do it when they're supposed to do it. And when they fulfill those expectations, then the next person can coordinate with that, and know "I would be able to count on him or her to do what they're supposed to do when they're supposed to do it. That means I'm going to be able to do that too." So it's a huge leadership piece in learning to be a leader of teammates. 

Dr. Cathy Jameson [00:04:07]And certainly last but not least is being a leader of patients.