Dentists' leadership-related educational experiences, attitudes, and past and current behavior

The purpose of this study was to assess practicing dentists' perceptions of their leadership-related educational experiences during predoctoral education and after graduation, to investigate if these perceptions differed as a function of the respondents' graduation year and gender, and to explore the relationships between educational experiences and the respondents' understanding/perceptions of leadership, leadership-related attitudes, self-perceived effectiveness, and past and current leadership- related behavior. Of the 3,000 general dentist members of the American Dental Association who were invited to participate, 593 returned the survey for a response rate of 20 percent. Between 37 and 65 percent of the respondents indicated that their predoctoral dental education had not prepared them well on a series of factors related to being leaders in their practice, community, state, or at the national level. However, 33 to 77 percent of these dentists responded that educational experiences after graduation prepared them well for different types of leadership activities. Overall, respondents rated their predoctoral experiences significantly less positively than their experiences after graduation for each content area. The more recently the respondents had graduated, the higher they rated their leadership-related educational experiences. The better their educational experiences, the more important the respondents evaluated leadership activities in their practice, organized dentistry, and research/teaching, the more important they assessed leadership to be, and the more effective they evaluated themselves to be as leaders. The perceived quality of the respondents' predoctoral education was not correlated with their past and current leadership activities. The results of this study may suggest that improving leadership training during predoctoral education could positively affect future dentists' attitudes about leadership and ratings of their own effectiveness as leaders.