In 2021 we launched Planting Seeds, Growing Leaders, our initiative to cultivate leadership in dental assistants and our communities. During our multi-year project, we hosted workshops exploring leadership principles and behaviours, and creating culturally safe spaces.
We focussed on leadership and cultural safety as a daily choice. Our insightful speakers broke these concepts down and shared strategies for applying them to our professional practice and personal lives.
On March 15th we hosted our final workshop. Here is a look back on our journey:
Landscaping Vision: What and where to plant
We started with the Leadership Test. Drew Dudley introduced us to leadership qualities and broke down the barriers to seeing ourselves as leaders by helping us re-frame leadership to be a choice, not a title. He introduced us to the leadership values of impact, courage, growth, empowerment, class and self-respect.
We then explored teams that work and strategies to learn from each other to bring out the best in each other with Margot Ross-Graham.
Samantha Leonard shared her journey to leadership as a dental assistant.
Getting Started: Preparing the soil
Our next session with Drew Dudley started building on the individual leadership qualities identified in the Leadership Test. We explored impact – What have I done to recognize someone else’s leadership? and class – How did I elevate instead of escalate?
Myrna McCallum, the Trauma Informed Lawyer, introduced us to cultural safety and cultural humility. As dental assistants we can have an immense impact on ensuring our patients feel seen, heard and respected.
Planting the Field: Embedding seeds into the soil
We continued exploring leadership qualities with Drew Dudley with growth – What did I do today to make it more likely someone would learn something? and empowerment – What have I done today to make it more likely someone else will reach a goal?
We continued sowing seeds of kindness as Shannon Beauchamp led us through an intense session on cultural safety and cultural humility. At times painful, but still inspirational, Shannon’s message encouraged us to understand that our patients’ lived experiences are their reality. We need to meet them where they are and walk together with them to find healing.
Tending the new Growth: Nourish, encourage, feed
In our fourth session with Drew Dudley we explored courage: What have I done today that I thought might not work but I did it anyway? Leadership requires courage and we can amaze ourselves when we try, even if we are not sure of success.
Anthony McLean explored allyship in a broader sense. Rather than focusing on “cancel culture,” he emphasized building a respectful, inclusive environment where everyone is called to a higher level of communication. He related how small acts of exclusion affect employee mental health, performance, and sense of belonging.
Surveying the Crop: How have we grown?
In our final session with Drew Dudley, we learned about self-respect: What did I do today to be good to myself? It is imperative that we look after ourselves in order to live all the leadership values we have been learning about. Self-respect is the foundation of leadership. We need to take the time to cultivate happiness to be strong enough to do it again tomorrow and tomorrow.
Len Pierre joined us to talk about Indigenous allyship and anti-racism. We learned that actions are what count. Ally is not a title bestowed on someone, being an ally is rooted in action. We can aspire to be an ally with the actions we take. We also learned that fighting racism requires courageous conversations. There are times when we need to call out racism (shut it down), call in racism (have a quiet conversation) and lean in (a team approach to building inclusive and supportive behaviours).
Thank You
We truly appreciate everyone who joined us on this journey. It challenged us to think of ourselves and our relationships with others in a different way. Growth takes work. By doing the work together, we can support and encourage each other when it’s difficult, and share our achievements.
We hope that you will take what has been offered and be leaders and champions in our dental community and beyond.