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Bespoke Leadership Academy

Build confidence where leadership begins.

Develop practical habits for the office manager or team lead who must balance people, patients, and performance.

The opportunity

Clear thinking. Confident action.

This pathway is designed around the responsibilities of foundations leaders. Learn how to make sound decisions, build systems that support the team, and follow through.

What participants will work toward

Build expectations, delegate clearly, and coach difficult situations
Master morning huddles, accountability check-ins, and practical staff development
Understand scheduling health, collections basics, and service recovery
Build clear SOPs and a useful 30/60/90-day leadership action plan

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READING THAT SUPPORTS THIS PATHWAY

Practice by Design · Book I: Build

Each module connects leadership concepts to practice. Project Compass helps turn the learning into a focused action plan with an owner, measure, safeguard, and review date.

Explore this book Explore Project Compass

Pathway overview · 6 modules · 36 lessons

The lesson plan, from first principles to applied leadership.

Each module pairs clear instruction with a practical exercise and a tool to use in a real dental practice. Work through the lessons in order, apply the module assignment, and bring the learning together in the capstone.

MODULE 01 · LEAD YOURSELF AND SET THE STANDARD

Lead Yourself and Set the Standard

Build the self-management, role clarity, and team trust that make day-to-day leadership reliable.

LESSON 01.01

From expert to leader

Shift from personally solving every problem to setting direction, creating ownership, and following up. Map the decisions you should own, delegate, or escalate.

Practice tool: Leadership role map

LESSON 01.02

Trust, consistency, and expectations

Turn values into observable team behaviors. Set fair standards, model follow-through, and create a respectful environment where concerns surface early.

Practice tool: Team standards and trust check

LESSON 01.03

Set a weekly leadership plan

Translate practice priorities into a short plan with protected time for team support, patient flow, and follow-through.

Practice tool: Weekly leadership planner

LESSON 01.04

Manage pressure and reset priorities

Recognize when urgency is crowding out important work, pause, and choose the next useful action.

Practice tool: Priority reset and reflection sheet

LESSON 01.05

Use sound judgment and protect trust

Apply role boundaries, confidentiality, fairness, and appropriate escalation to everyday leadership decisions.

Practice tool: Decision and escalation guide

LESSON 01.06

Seek feedback and build self-awareness

Use observations and feedback to identify one behavior to keep and one leadership habit to strengthen.

Practice tool: Leadership reflection log

Apply: Write a one-page leadership charter: purpose, decision boundaries, communication promises, and three behaviors the team can expect from you.

MODULE 02 · COMMUNICATE DELEGATE AND COACH

Communicate, Delegate, and Coach

Make instructions clear, develop people through feedback, and handle difficult conversations with respect.

LESSON 02.01

Set clear expectations and delegate

Define the outcome, owner, deadline, authority, and check-in before handing off work. Practice adjusting support to the person and task.

Practice tool: Delegation brief and follow-up plan

LESSON 02.02

Coach performance and address tension

Prepare for a difficult conversation with facts, impact, questions, and a clear next step. Practice feedback that is direct, specific, and respectful.

Practice tool: Coaching conversation planner

LESSON 02.03

Choose the right message and channel

Match the message to the audience and moment, then confirm understanding without adding confusion.

Practice tool: Team communication planner

LESSON 02.04

Ask questions that build ownership

Use open questions, listening, and a clear commitment to help employees solve problems and learn.

Practice tool: Coaching question bank

LESSON 02.05

Address conflict and repair working relationships

Name observable facts, hear each perspective, agree on a practical next step, and revisit the commitment.

Practice tool: Conflict conversation map

LESSON 02.06

Train a team member on a repeatable task

Break a task into clear steps, demonstrate the standard, observe practice, and verify independent readiness.

Practice tool: Task training and competency checklist

Apply: Choose one recurring performance issue and prepare a coaching conversation with a documented follow-up date.

MODULE 03 · BUILD A HIGHPERFORMING TEAM

Build a High-Performing Team

Connect role clarity, useful huddles, scorecards, and staff development to consistent execution.

LESSON 03.01

Clarify roles and accountability

Identify who owns each key workflow, where handoffs fail, and how the team will raise a missed commitment.

Practice tool: Responsibility and handoff map

LESSON 03.02

Run huddles that lead to action

Use a short huddle to review capacity, patient needs, daily priorities, and blockers; finish with an owner and due time for each action.

Practice tool: 10-minute huddle agenda and action log

LESSON 03.03

Onboard new team members with clarity

Set first-week expectations, assign a peer resource, and confirm the new employee can find essential procedures.

Practice tool: First 30-day onboarding map

LESSON 03.04

Plan coverage around real capacity

Match responsibilities and cross-training to predictable absences, peak demand, and critical workflows.

Practice tool: Coverage and cross-training matrix

LESSON 03.05

Recognize contributions and address disengagement

Notice specific behaviors that support the team and respond early when participation or reliability changes.

Practice tool: Recognition and engagement check-in

LESSON 03.06

Document performance fairly and consistently

Record the expectation, observed facts, coaching offered, employee response, and agreed follow-up date.

Practice tool: Performance documentation guide

Apply: Run one huddle using the agenda, record commitments, and review completion at the next check-in.

MODULE 04 · STABILIZE DAILY PRACTICE OPERATIONS

Stabilize Daily Practice Operations

Improve schedules, provider capacity, patient flow, and repeatable workflows without losing sight of care.

LESSON 04.01

Read the schedule and match capacity to demand

Spot avoidable gaps, bottlenecks, overbooking, and mismatches between provider time and patient need.

Practice tool: Schedule and capacity review

LESSON 04.02

Map patient flow and write a usable SOP

Trace a patient journey from first contact through follow-up. Find one handoff to simplify and write a concise standard work instruction.

Practice tool: Patient-flow map and one-page SOP

LESSON 04.03

Use schedule templates to protect access

Review appointment types, provider preferences, and patient needs to reduce avoidable gaps and bottlenecks.

Practice tool: Schedule template review

LESSON 04.04

Coordinate urgent care without destabilizing the day

Create a consistent approach for triage, protected time, team communication, and patient updates.

Practice tool: Urgent-care scheduling protocol

LESSON 04.05

Keep supplies available with simple controls

Set minimums, reorder points, receiving checks, and a clear owner for routine inventory work.

Practice tool: Inventory par and reorder tracker

LESSON 04.06

Strengthen front-desk and clinical handoffs

Define what information travels between teams before, during, and after a patient visit.

Practice tool: Handoff checklist and exception log

Apply: Select one daily workflow, document its current state, test one improvement, and note what changed for the team and patient.

MODULE 05 · IMPROVE PATIENT EXPERIENCE AND GROWTH

Improve Patient Experience and Growth

Strengthen conversion, retention, treatment understanding, and service recovery through reliable team behaviors.

LESSON 05.01

Improve new-patient conversion and retention

Review inquiry response, appointment access, arrival, follow-up, and reactivation. Separate controllable process gaps from demand changes.

Practice tool: New-patient conversion and retention checklist

LESSON 05.02

Support treatment acceptance and recover service

Practice clear, patient-centered explanations and a consistent response when service falls short. Protect patient choice and trust.

Practice tool: Treatment conversation and service-recovery guide

LESSON 05.03

Respond to new-patient inquiries consistently

Set a reliable response standard, capture the reason for the call, and make the next step easy to understand.

Practice tool: Inquiry response and booking tracker

LESSON 05.04

Follow up on pending treatment respectfully

Coordinate follow-up that answers questions, supports informed choice, and avoids pressure.

Practice tool: Patient follow-up worklist

LESSON 05.05

Resolve complaints and learn from service gaps

Listen, acknowledge the concern, agree on a response owner, and identify whether a process change is needed.

Practice tool: Service recovery and learning log

LESSON 05.06

Build a dependable recall and reactivation rhythm

Segment overdue patients, assign outreach, track outcomes, and refine the message based on response.

Practice tool: Recall and reactivation cadence sheet

Apply: Review a small sample of recent patient journeys, identify one friction point, and test a respectful service improvement.

MODULE 06 · USE FINANCIAL MEASURES TO LEAD

Use Financial Measures to Lead

Understand core practice measures and turn a number into a focused, team-owned action.

LESSON 06.01

Understand production, collections, AR, and overhead

Learn what each measure says, where it can mislead, and which operating behaviors influence it. Distinguish activity from outcomes.

Practice tool: Core KPI glossary and daily dashboard

LESSON 06.02

Move from scorecard to action

Choose one meaningful variance, ask why before prescribing a fix, set an owner and date, then check whether the change helped.

Practice tool: KPI action plan and 30/60/90 tracker

LESSON 06.03

Set production goals the team can influence

Connect schedule readiness, patient access, and provider capacity to a realistic daily production plan.

Practice tool: Daily production planning sheet

LESSON 06.04

Improve collections through clear routines

Coordinate estimates, payment options, checkout, and follow-up while keeping patient conversations transparent.

Practice tool: Collections workflow checklist

LESSON 06.05

Work aging receivables with ownership

Group open balances by age and next action, assign owners, and review exceptions at a steady cadence.

Practice tool: AR follow-up worklist

LESSON 06.06

Manage expenses and explain monthly variances

Compare actual spending with plan, identify a process-related cause, and recommend a practical adjustment.

Practice tool: Monthly budget variance review

Apply: Build a 30/60/90-day plan with one people goal, one operating goal, and one measurable performance goal; define the baseline, owner, review cadence, and first step.

Pathway capstone

Demonstrate the work in a real setting.

Use the tools from all six modules to complete the capstone described in the final module. Your plan should name the baseline, target, owner, first action, review cadence, and evidence you will use to judge progress.

The full interactive curriculum is being tested in a private training portal. Public enrollment, delivery dates, and course access are not yet open.

Ideal participants

Who this is for.

Aspiring managers, new office managers, lead coordinators, and emerging team leaders.

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Develop a plan for stronger leadership.

Interested in this pathway? Start a conversation about what you want to achieve.

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