Core Value Number One is to Lead by Example. Leadership is not an optional value, it is essential and it is CORE! Take away leadership and it isn’t long before confusion replaces vision. Activities replace purpose. Enthusiasm fades. Morale erodes. Achievement disappears into a sea of BUSY followers. Most people are followers. It is their value of choice. Why? It is easy. It takes no thought, no imagination, and not even real training. You simply follow, mimic, and copy others with no thought or concern about results!

What is it like to be a follower? Have you ever driven somewhere and your job was to follow somebody else? You make no decisions because your job is to just stay behind and follow. If the lead car goes 40, then you go 40. If they stop, then you stop. If they speed up, you will speed up. And if they get lost, you will officially get lost too! Most offices are FULL of followers. They never rise above the level of those around them. If everybody else is bland, then they are bland. If everyone else is bored, they are bored. If everybody else is unhappy, they are unhappy. It is the bland following the bland in most offices. The more mediocre the followers are the more mediocre the whole office becomes because nobody is really leading. With no leader, they are following each other in circles because nobody is really going anywhere.

Let’s look at some examples: When you see someone in the office who runs late whether it’s in the morning or coming back from lunch, do you consider running late too? Or if running late isn’t your thing, choosing something else to do slightly wrong like personal phone calls or texting or playing games on your phone at work. If they aren’t doing everything right either, what’s the problem with you letting something slip? The problem isn’t the fairness, the problem is the leadership value. Where are we going with this? We have a contest going now of “how slow can we go.” This would be following and not leading. You are being influenced by their mediocre performance to also be mediocre. Your core value must be leadership. You focus must be on leading by example and showing the winning way for performance and attitude.

Maybe one of your team members didn’t come to the Integrity conference and you did! For most people, that means there should be something THEY shouldn’t have to do to make it fair. They didn’t have to do this so I shouldn’t have to do that. This is choosing to be mediocre. We shouldn’t keep all the wrong things “even” in the office. We can’t keep the MISBEHAVIOUR “even” like it is a reward. That is what it is like to be a follower. It’s like there is an unwritten code to keep everybody at a mediocre level, but actually it is an office full of followers. The halfhearted following the halfhearted.

That’s not going to happen in this office. Our core value is leadership by Example! You don’t care where everybody else is at because you are determined to LEAD the pack. We require you to lead by example! It is a core value and one of our Crown Jewels!
Who do you lead? The patients, the doctor, and the staff. So, what does it mean to LEAD the patients?

The key to leading patients is INFLUENCE! Any time you walk into a room with more than one person in it, there are only two types of people there. Those who are influencing what happens and those who are being influenced. The controllers and the controlled. When it is you and the patient, who is going to lead? Who is going to influence who? Are they going to influence YOU on their care or are you going to influence them? We all choose different roles in different situations because it is our choice. Your kids when they go to school choose to influence or be influenced. They can be influenced to get good grades or bad grades. They can be influenced to study or goof off. They can have the core value of leadership and decide to be the number one student in the school and influence OTHERS to study, work, and get good grades. These are all decisions we make based on our core value. What is yours?

The only permitted core value in an Integrity office is LEADERSHIP. And that means you are going to be one who INFLUENCES the patient rather than the patient influencing you. We must lead them to follow through with their care after they get out of pain. Lead them to not miss any appointments. Lead them to become wellness patients. Lead them to refer other patients including their family.

If we’re honest, it’s easy to see that there have been times where we have slipped up and have become the influenced rather than the influencer. It’s very easy to allow the patient to take over with their influences. It can be excuses with their finances, schedule, or job. We slip up by allowing them to control our recommendations and expectations. The negative result of their influence is that in the end, they will lose! We must lead them to win! Patient leadership has to become a core value – where we lead them to health and wellness. We can influence them or allow them to influence us – who is going to win?
How do you lead the doctor and staff? We lead by example. The name leader implies that you are ahead of everybody else. It means that followers need to catch up with you in every area. You are the one to be chased and emulated. You work in such a way that we would be thrilled if all others followed you. You are the one setting the standard. You are in the LEAD! You are not in the pack.

Let’s take a look at some areas where you can lead the staff by example:
Be happier than everybody else. It only takes one bad mood to kill the day for everyone. You know it is true! One person can walk into the office having a bad day and suddenly everybody’s mood goes down. Another can walk in mad and before you know it we are all mad about something. Why is it that unhappy people are always leading the way? Some offices even wait to see what kind of mood the doctor or a particular staff person walks in with and that judgment controls the rest of the day. Don’t let the unhappy influence and lead you down their miserable path. You can shut that down! Happy staff need to outnumber them. BE a LEADER! Set the pace. You are HAPPY and you are going to influence THEM to be happy instead of allowing THEM to influence you to be miserable! That is leadership. You are a happy influence!

Be healthier than everybody else! You are energetic and awake! You love mornings and Mondays and Fridays. You feel GREAT and you tell everybody that! Leaders can’t be dragging. Lead the “I haven’t had my coffee” excuse right out of the office. Don’t let it hang around. Influence others to be HOT in the mornings instead of them influencing you to be cold. Lead with WELLNESS! You have got to feel well, even in the mornings. Even on Mondays. Even on Fridays! Lead in feeling great! Have you ever seen staff come in saying, “I feel horrible” or “I am so tired?” What kind of influence does it have? Pretty soon there is a contest as to who is the most tired or the sickest. We want a contest to see who feels the GREATEST! Who has the most energy and excitement? Lead them to a place of feeling AWESOME. Don’t let anybody’s “night before” be your downfall. Don’t let them influence you, influence them. That is what it means to lead the staff. You are a healthy influence.

Lead by Example with the Integrity Principles of Success!

Principle 1: Be a builder of the PURPOSE in your clinic – Make the DREAM happen! You believe in the purpose and you are committed to making it happen. You want your clinic to heal the community of dis-ease. You want the 80%. You want to change lives and make history in the community! You want to dominate the community with natural health care! Heal the land.

Principle 2: It takes a PLAN with strategies to get there. You are willing to follow the plan! Stay on task to get the strategies done! You can’t just have a dream, you have to have a plan to get there and you are committed to doing it.

Principle 3: Be more passionate than everybody else. LOVE the dream! Most people don’t care about anything. They live with no passion. They are like zombies. They just “like” stuff and don’t love stuff. They’re not mad or happy, they’re just there. Not you; you LOVE it!

Principle 4: you realize you cannot experience massive growth unless you accept massive change. You are willing to lead and embrace change!

Principle 5: This dream requires sacrificial work. You are determined that NOBODY can out work you and you are the model of work ethic! Success is not an entitlement, it is a result of massive work.

Principle 6: Think Successfully. No stinking thinking allowed. You must be a Possibility Thinker, a Results thinker, a Purpose thinker and a Clean Thinker.

Principle 7: Be an Inspiration! Plan ways to inspire your family, team, and patients.

Principle 8: Be coachable. When your doctor challenges you to do more, you should take it on! It could be a new responsibility in the office or handling a problem patient. Even if you don’t know how, be coachable. Even if you don’t agree, be coachable. Even if you don’t WANT to, just be coachable!

Principle 9: Be committed to the Integrity System. Our system is PROVEN! It has been proven in every state. In small towns and big cities. It has been proven to work thousands of times and not just in one clinic one time. It has been proven to work over the years and not just this year. There is nothing lucky or experimental about it. There is no way that you or the doctor could bring the kind of experience, knowledge, or proof of success to the system and procedures that we bring. This system is NOT on trial. Don’t help it. Don’t leave anything out. Don’t be satisfied with a partial job. Trust the system. You will only be successful if you choose to do it all; all of the time.

Principle 10: Be committed to the long term. You cannot change the health of the community in one week. It is going to take time to make the dream happen. The reason why so few people change the world is because you cannot change the world in a day and that is the way the world wants to do everything. The secret to success is the constancy of purpose!

Principle 11: Be financially successful. We must learn to do more with less. We must work to save the office money and find the best use of every practice dollar. Apply this same principle to your home. Use the money you make for working to provide a future for you and your family. Make it count.

Principle 12: Be a spiritual success. See your role as your God given opportunity to change the lives and health of people in your community! This is your part in the spiritual plan. God wants to use you to heal the land and rid it of dis-ease. Every day is a spiritual day!

Principle 13: Be resilient. Never quit, always keep working, keep fighting, and keep reaching for the starts! You can do this! Failure is not an option!

At this point, you may be wondering, what if we all choose to be leaders? Can the entire team lead? The answer is YES! The worst thing that can happen is that you all compete over who is the happiest, who is the healthiest, and who can inspire the patients the most to follow through with their care and become wellness patients! Now THERE is a competition that we want to see!
If the entire staff chooses to lead with the 12 principles, it would make the practice DREAM happen.