Planning to be a practice manager?

In the last decade, the world of dentistry has changed immensely from an overhaul of NHS contracts in 2006 to the introduction of a new CQC inspection regime in April last year. Anyone entering the world of practice management needs to understand the role is diverse, challenging and forever evolving. A practice manager is always learning and one day in work is never the same as the next.

A modern practice manager works in an ‘executive’ capacity without probably realising it or giving themselves credit for doing so. Once upon a time, being a good practice manager was wholly associated with sound leadership and management skills. Today, leadership and management are occasional activities as strategic-thinking, accountability and quality assurance processes have taken precedent. So, what does it mean to be an executive and how does it differ from being a leader or a manager? In a nutshell, being an executive is ‘the role’ whereas leadership and management are activities in the same way that delegating, setting objectives and problem solving are. In my view, we should be talking about executives, not leaders and managers, whose tasks include ‘leading’ and ‘managing’.