Senior executive behaviors for the Army Dental Care System of the 21st century

Challenges will most likely confront the Army Dental Care System as it moves into the next century. Like any other learning organization, the Army dental care system must develop a continuous stream of dynamic leaders to direct its evolution if it wants to survive. Using the Delphi method, the investigators surveyed senior dental leaders to determine the attitudes and behaviors believed to be required to perform successfully as commanders, residency directors, and senior staff officers. The essential executive behaviors appear to be consistent: be honest, act with integrity, be accountable for your actions, be dedicated to mission accomplishment, and perform your duty with care and compassion. Relying solely on ratings assigned to the behaviors, discriminant function analyses could predict proper group membership with an accuracy of 79.4%. When demographic information was included, prediction accuracy improved to 96.7%.