Lead Your Team

Authors, screenwriters, and even childhood classmates have strained their minds for years and years to find the perfect scary story to paralyze our minds with fear. A good spooky story haunts us for days, weeks, or even years. Interestingly, many of the best storytellers have realized that it is hard to imagine a perfect monster or creature that will shock and threaten their audience at a certain point. Everyone is a little different, and everyone’s fears are equally diverse.

Chairman’s CORNER
– Reid Robertson, OD

That is why many authors have discovered that the best way to scare someone is to create a vague threat but allows the reader’s mind space to fill in the gaps with what they truly fear. What we oftentimes find the most disturbing is the unknown itself. Our own imaginations work against us and fill the void of the unknown with what we find the most unsettling.

We have all had a huge dose of this fear with the outbreak of COVID 19. Months and months after the initial outbreak and spread of this disease, we still have very few answers and an enormous amount of questions. Like many of you, I have grown tired of listening to the news and dwelling on all the questions that I cannot thoroughly answer. Our nature is to try and find answers for questions, and when a clear solution is not apparent, this can cause us all a lot of unease.

I don’t have COVID answers for you. I do have great advice, though. Make sure that you take the time to lead your team in your clinic. Your employees have many of the same fears as you do; “Will I have work in the future? What happens if someone comes into the clinic that has COVID? What if I get COVID? What happens?” These fears can spiral out of control and lead people to make rash decisions, like deciding not to return to work. The worst thing that we can do as our clinics’ leaders is to be silent and let everyone’s imaginations run wild and create our employee’s greatest fears.

TSO has put out some incredible documents on what to do in many different COVID situations and had Dr. Joe DeLoach give an excellent presentation on this as well.

Take the time to review the guidance and create a plan for your clinic. Most importantly, take the next step and share your detailed plan with your clinic. When you get rid of the unknown, your staff will feel safer, and you will be able to prevent fear from ruling your team. Be the leaders that they need today.