Date of Conferral

2017

Degree

Ph.D.

School

Psychology

Advisor

John Schmidt

Abstract

Leadership training is virtually nonexistent for dental students, and practicing dentists rarely engage in any form of leadership development, relying primarily on mentoring by senior colleagues and on-the-job experiences. Dentists serve in a hybrid role as clinicians and managers to provide quality dental care and establish a profitable business, respectively. This quantitative study investigated the ways in which the emotional intelligence (EI) and leadership styles of 16 dentist clinician managers (DCMs) affected their dental teams. Specifically, the effects of leadership style and EI of DCMs on individual psychological empowerment (PE), team PE, and employee engagement were explored. Team PE effects on individual PE and employee engagement also were assessed. A multiple regression analysis and a correlational analysis were conducted to examine the effects of leadership style and EI on team and individual levels of PE and employee engagement of various groupings of dental teams in the Utah region. The results showed positive and significant predictive relationships between servant leadership style, transformational leadership style, and team PE and the dependent variables (DVs). DCM EI, transactional leadership style, and laissez-faire leadership style did not significantly contribute to predicting the DV outcomes. The results add to the limited amount of available research on the clinician manager model used extensively in the dental industry. The study also identified leadership styles that might be more conducive to clinician management, and it showed whether the clinician manager model is a viable model in the health care industry.

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