The Brian Wright Show

The Four Parenting Styles of Business Reshaping Workforce Culture & Compliance

• Brian Wright • Season 9 • Episode 142

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Ever feel like your team showed up to a gunfight with a butter knife? We unpack why so many workplaces are battling apathy, low compliance, and revolving-door hiring—then trace the cause back to something most leaders overlook: the psychology of parenting styles that shape how people give and receive leadership.

We break down the four core styles—authoritarian (brick wall), permissive (marshmallow), uninvolved (ghost), and authoritative (backbone)—and show how each plays out at work. You’ll hear clear examples of why “because I said so” collapses under modern expectations, how “be nice” cultures quietly drive away your best performers, and why absentee leadership starves teams of direction and trust. Then we get practical with the authoritative approach: high standards plus high warmth. That means non-negotiables explained with a strong why, empathy for real life, consistent coaching, and firm accountability. Expect real talk on good turnover vs bad turnover, building compliance without nagging, and turning role-play, scripting, and patient experience into daily habits that stick.

If you lead a practice or a growing team, this conversation gives you a lens to diagnose culture, reset expectations, and recruit people who want to build something bigger than a paycheck. You’ll learn how to deliver clarity under stress, pair praise with feedback, and replace endless reminders with systems that scale. The payoff is a tighter culture, stronger compliance, and a brand employees and patients recommend without being asked.

If this resonated, follow the show, share it with a leader who needs a backbone boost, and leave a five-star review so more entrepreneurs and practice owners can find it.


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SPEAKER_01:

The reality is the modern workplace does not have a participation trophy department. But when parents spend 18 years being their kids' friend, telling them showing up is enough and not holding them accountable for their actions, guess who ends up being on the receiving end? You and your business. Today we're going to be diving in and discussing the four parenting types defined by psychology, which one statistically is the gold standard. And I'm going to place a very unique spin on this, on how each style has a drastic impact on the culture inside your business, your ability to generate consistent revenue year after year, your employee and patient compliance, finding and retaining great talent, and just your overall ability to run a smooth, low-stress business with a team that has fun. Today you are going to fully grasp, fully understand why your leadership abilities are being tested unlike ever before, and why it's more important than ever before that you understand leadership is a trained skill set and you must be getting better. So if you're ready for a great one, let's go.

SPEAKER_02:

Welcome to the Brian Wright Show, a podcast that transforms the lives and businesses of all entrepreneurs, but dedicated to doctors that own their own practice. And now your host is a husband, father of two, founder and CEO of New Patient Group in Wright Chat, and a business consultant and speaker for Invisalign, Orthophi, and others, Brian Wright.

SPEAKER_01:

Hey everybody, welcome inside the studio. If you're watching over on YouTube, hey there, appreciate your support. Give this a thumbs up, make some comments, get some chatter going. Audio experience listeners, as always, appreciate you listening as well. Write a five-star review for us on whatever channel you are listening would mean the world. And today, baby, we are gonna dive into one that I have been waiting to do. My team has asked me about this one. I've even had some podcast listeners after I get off stage that come up and say, Hey, you've talked about that, you've mentioned it on podcasts in the past. When are you gonna do it? Well, today is the day, and I am pumped. We got off to a great start in January, lots of wonderful feedback, and today's gonna kick off February in an amazing way, and it's gonna set us up for quite a few future podcasts that I'm gonna be doing this year, this season, because I think today you being able to identify what I'm gonna be talking about is critically important for your leadership abilities to go to another level. I want to be very clear to get this started, though. I am not here to criticize whatever parenting style you end up identifying yourself as, right? This is not me criticizing. God knows Kristen and I are not perfect parents. I know I remember we still talk about this, and I talk about it on stage a lot. We bring Braden home from the hospital when he was first born, and he's in his baby carrier, and we get into the garage, and we get him out of the garage, and we bring him and sit him on the countertop, and we kind of look at each other and go, huh? Now what? And I mean, leadership is so much like that. It's so just like parenting in so many ways. And that's why I think putting a unique spin that we're gonna talk about today, I think is really gonna open up a lot of your eyes and you're really gonna enjoy it because leadership, just like parenting, it doesn't come with a manual. You know, the hospital did not say, okay, here is the perfect parenting manual set of instructions, just follow it. And Braden's gonna go up, grow up, and be a productive human in society. He's gonna produce more than he sucks out, he's gonna be a great human that helps others get better, right? There is no instructional manual with that, and leadership is no different. The reality is there isn't one perfect way of doing it, and and you will never become an expert at it either. I think a mistake we all make is you know, we go to a weekend event about leadership and we come home and we always say, Hey, we're the best leader ever, or you you watch a video, how to be a better entrepreneur, better business owner, and all of a sudden you think you're a great entrepreneur. Look, the reality of parenting, the reality of leadership inside your business, the reality of being a great entrepreneur is it's a lifelong learning effort with the passion of self-improvement. And self-improvement can be a lonely. I I have an episode probably next season about this on how on how the passion and the ongoing pursuit of of self-improvement can be a lonely life because the majority of people don't understand it. They're they're not into that. And when you are, a lot of people can't relate to you. And as an entrepreneur, that's sometimes my life. And and I can't wait to do that episode to kind of give you the behind-the-scenes world of what it's like to be an entrepreneur and do some of the things that that I do because it there's a lot of sacrifices, and I think a lot of you can can you can relate. But so really what today is about is is you being able to identify your parenting style and also be able to identify your leadership style inside your business. And and oftentimes the the two are the same, where how you lead your household and how you parent is exactly how you do it inside your business, or to our niche out there inside your practice with the doctors out there. But oftentimes you will find it's the complete opposite as well. I I have seen and worked with many clients where, you know, oftentimes we stay at each other's homes. And many of you have heard me talk about this and very how close we are and very passionate about that. But I get to see, you know, the kids of our clients grow up. I get to see the parenting style and take a lot of notes when I'm at people's house. But then I also get to see how that same person interacts with their team inside their business. And like I said, oftentimes it's the same, but oftentimes there there's a lot of differences, almost the complete opposite with their team compared to with their with their kids. And I think we all can agree, we we all want our kids to be happy. You know, we all want them to have the childhood that's that we didn't, or a childhood that's better than ours, less stress, more support, fewer, you know, hard knocks, obstacles. But I think looking at it and taking notes for some time now, I think in our quest to protect our kids and give them that kind of life, we've accidentally created a massive skill gap. And and it's not just one skill gap. I mean it's communication skills, presentation skills, the ability to handle difficult situations. I mean, I could just go on and on and on. And that's why today is more about identifying your parenting style, like I said. It's also about identifying your leadership style and also talking to you about the leader you need to be to be able to overcome all these HR headaches and finding and retaining good talent, motivating good talent, challenging good talent to get better, running a good business, all the challenges that we get. It's more about that because today's episode, I am going to spin off into probably 20 different episodes over the course of time just off of today. Well, in the end, by shielding our kids and wanting them to have a better life and kind of avoiding them and shielding them from the friction of the real world, we're ending up sending them into the workplace with a butter knife to a gunfight. That's kind of what that's kind of what I've been talking about on stage with some leadership talks, is we are not arming our kids with the things they need, and we're we're giving them a butter knife showing up to a gunfight. And and today we are looking at how the modern parenting style is quite frankly screwing kids over when it comes to their careers, and therefore the business owners are being screwed because of this modern parenting. I had a conversation with a doctor a long time ago, and and I don't forget things because a lot of these things I take and put down in my notes because almost every conversation becomes a new podcast idea in some form or fashion. And you know, as I'm taking notes, or how as we're having this this this conversation, uh the doctor's like, you know, there was a time where if patients were not compliant, you know, they weren't wearing their Invisalign trays, whatever it may be, you would tell them to get their you know what together, and and it would work fine. And and it was so easy. And those days are gone, and those days are gone, is what I told that doctor. And hey, do it, get your you know what together. I don't need to give you a reason why, is one of the parenting styles that we're gonna be talking about today that a lot of people still try and it doesn't work anymore. And as the consumers change, as parents continue to do what they do, that we're gonna be talking more about today, uh that style becomes less and less effective. And that's one of the reasons, you know, today you will find one of the reasons we created our existing patient experience where we flip the clinical assistance job description completely on its head. How after the patient signs the contract, that whole journey that you take with them, that's a sale in itself. And, you know, the days of just be compliant are are over, and and non-compliance and orthodontics is at an all-time high. And it's at an all-time high for several reasons. One of those reasons is the parenting styles. You, when you sign a patient, you are welcoming that culture into your office. And you've all had the situation. You'll all you've all had this situation where Joey is not compliant. You tell the parent, and the mom gets pissed at you because you're criticizing your kid who can do no wrong. Everything's fine, you know, everything's good. There's nothing Joey can do wrong. Stop criticizing them, you know, or this lack of accountability. And that that's the parent, by the way, where Joey gets a bad grade in school. And instead of the parent saying, get your you know what together, I'll be by your side, I'm gonna put my arm around you. We're gonna work harder, I'm gonna call the school, figure out what's going on. That way I can take what your weaknesses are, I can make them better, right? That's true leadership in the household and in your practice, in your business, whatever type of, whether you're in our niche being a doctor that owns their own practice or out of our niche, any business owner, you can all relate to all of this because it all screws us. And that's why the existing patient experience, among other reasons, was born because there is an art to getting people to one, be compliant, to if they're not compliant, getting them back to compliance. And there's an art on how you have to speak to these parents who think their kids can do no wrong, or these parents are like, oh, well, you know, I can't get Joey to wear the trays. Like, what am I supposed to do? Right, which is another parenting style that we're going to talk about today. And you can, as I talk today, you'll be able to see how this is just an ever going, on-involving domino effect that screws us all, because it's the same way if you hire somebody that has one of these parenting types and that's all they're used to, and then they get into the workforce and you're a different type of parenting type, a different type of leader inside the office. It's a total culture shock. They've never had anybody hold them accountable in their entire life, and they quit. And it's just this ever-going, revolving door. So, today what we're gonna do is we're gonna pull back the curtain on this, and we're gonna pull back the curtain on the four primary parenting styles. And these really just aren't personality types, they're really the psychological blueprints, the foundations, if you will, that that determine how children are gonna see the world and see themselves 20 years from now. But it's also how your employees are gonna see themselves 20 years from now. And it's how your business is gonna be. And are you a business that can find good talent and retain it or not? Are you a business, a practice that that can do Invisalign and have good compliance? Or are you gonna do Invisalign and not have good compliance? Are you gonna do braces and have good compliance and not and all the stuff? And psychologists, and I've been studying this so hard for so long. Psychologists have categorized these parenting styles into four buckets. And it's the authoritarian, the permissive, the uninvolved, and then what is called the gold standard of today. And understand, like I said the beginning, none of these are going to be criticizing your parenting style inside the house. Now, some of it may be criticizing how you lead inside your business and how you are the cause of a lot of the problems that you then complain about. So, this golden standard, statistically proven to work better than anything else, is the authoritative. Now, that is the parenting style that I strive to be every single day when I wake up. That is the parenting style that I strive to have inside my house. That is the parenting style that I strive to be inside all of my companies. I am the first to admit that I'm always I'm not always there, meaning that you know, most of us don't fit perfectly into just one of these. We're kind of a messy blend of all. But but understanding which one you are the majority, if you will, inside your house and business is really the first step in my mind of becoming the leader you must be in today's very, very complex workplace. And I think understanding all four of these, and then understanding the authoritative, which is what I want all of you to be inside your business, because that's gonna set you up to fully understanding and being prepared to become the transformational leader that I want all of you to be, rather than the transactional leader so many of you are. And I don't believe transactional leaders are leaders at all. And that's gonna be for future episodes. It may be the next one, it'll be this season for sure. And by the end of today, you're gonna be able to identify exactly where you sit overall on this spectrum, the psychological spectrum, if you will, and then where you need to improve to achieve the business you've always dreamed of. So let's dive in to these four parenting styles. Parenting type one, and I'm gonna call this the brick wall, but psychology is gonna call it the authoritarian, all right? So the authoritarian leader. Now, the vibe of this one is very high demand, but very low warmth. And I'll give you an example. These are common phrases that you would say to your kids inside your household or to your employees is because I said so. Right? I'm not asking, I'm telling. And don't cry. You have nothing to cry about. I'll give you something to cry about. It's a very old school way of leading. I I see a lot of office managers lead this way. I see a lot of our doctor business owners lead this way. And I'll give you a quick example. Oftentimes when when we're hired, when new patient group is hired, I'll ask the employees, you know, did the doctor sit down with the team? Did the office manager sit down with the doctor and have very clear communication on, you know, why we were hired, what we're gonna be doing, our our background, our credentials, the people that we work with in the industry. Like, did you explain the vision on why you hired us, what our vision is, what your expectations are. You're gonna be by by their side to make sure they do it. The answer is almost always no. And the feedback is not only always no, the feedback is yeah, they just told us to do it. Like this is just something we're gonna do, get on board, let's go. This is an example of an authoritarian leadership style. Now, if you look at the statistics and you look at what psychology says, is the trade-off of this type of parenting style are kids are usually very well behaved in the short term. But as time passes, they often struggle with self-esteem and they have internalized anger. And and I have seen that oftentimes, or sometimes with with Braden, our kid, where he is very well behaved, but sometimes he's angry. We can't explain it. But if you look back, oftentimes, you know, I said I strive my best to be the authoritative gold standard that we're gonna talk about here in just a little bit. I still fall into the trap sometimes of this, where I'm like, dude, just do it. Like you don't need a reason. And I think we all have this parenting ghost, if you will, this ghost exists with our leadership style inside the business as well, meaning that when we're pushed to our limits, when we're stressed out, oftentimes the worst comes out of us, right? The the the real, and I've had episodes, you've heard me talk about this, and I did an episode a long time ago about professional baseball umpires and when I is and when I was one, or flying planes, is that when things are going well, anybody can do it. It's when things are going bad and it's high stress, sales are down, the numbers suck, you struggle in personally, whatever it may be, that's when it becomes very, very difficult to be at your best inside the household as a leader and inside your business as a leader. It's very difficult. But that what that, if you can do it when you're stressed and you're pushed to your limits, that shows the ultimate test in leadership in and outside the house, in and outside the business. So oftentimes we find ourselves falling back into this trap of dude, just you don't need a reason, you don't need the why, just do it. And I don't like that part of me. I don't like when it comes out, I don't like when we do it because we know that's not the way to do it. But that is my default as a leader, if you will. It doesn't come out nearly as much inside the business, but we can all we can all relate to those situations too, where we're inside the business, the employees are like, why? And you're just like, you don't need a reason, just do it. And and I work so it's like I said, I think I said earlier, is I wake up every single day striving to become better at the the parenting style that's the gold standard, but also the leadership style that is the gold standard from a business perspective today. And and it's a gold standard uh for so many reasons, but one of them is it's a gold standard because so many people that you hire are coming into the workforce completely unprepared. And you say to yourself, Well, I'm not their parent. But the reality of the situation is you, if you want a lot of the problems to go away, you have to act like a parent inside your business, period. Whether you want to or not. Like with me, when I dive into more and more of this, I truly enjoy being the transformational leader that I am in the episode that's probably coming next month. But you cannot be a transformational leader until you identify the things that I'm gonna talk about today. It's not possible. This is where it starts.

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SPEAKER_01:

Trade-off of kids usually are well behaved. If you sign a patient and they're going to do Invisalign as an example, typically you're going to have a partner in treatment. Their parents are going to say, be compliant. You don't need a reason why. Just do it. And if they're not compliant and you tell dad, you tell mom, they're going to have the conversation and it's going to get fixed, at least in the short term. But there are so many parts of this type of leadership style inside your business that absolutely do not work. And the statistics say it. So as I'm talking about this, as I go through, and we're going to have a quiz at the end, I want you to say, okay, yeah, you know what? That is a common thing I do. I do tell my kids, I'm not asking, I'm telling. Just do it. You don't need a reason. Right? So, one, I want you thinking about does that resonate with you on how you parent at the house? And does that resonate with how you lead in the office? So many of you hire companies to come help you, and you don't set the companies up for success because you just tell the team, do it. We hired new patient group, we hired WriteChat. We're going to do more share to chair with Invisalign. We're bringing in OrthoFi. We're bringing in a remote monitoring company. Just do it. Whatever they say, just do it. Because that's not the way to motivate people. It's not the way to build relationships. It's not the way to bond together. It's not the way to get the most out of anything you're ever going to do in your business. And honestly, it's not the way to get the most out of your kids either.

SPEAKER_00:

MPG Iconic, guys, is probably the best meeting I've ever attended. And I've been to a lot of meetings. I highly encourage anybody looking for bringing their team, learning, getting involved, and developing a good culture. Please come to Iconic next year.

SPEAKER_01:

Thank you to the great Dr. Sadia Nayak, Brian Wright here, everybody. And thanks so much for that great testimonial. And they are coming in like crazy to the best event you will ever attend, designed by people that come from outside Orthodonics and that are experts in leadership, marketing, sales, hospitality, and know how to thrive when a business is slam dunked into a commoditized environment like Orthodonics has become. If you want to come to the most impactful event in the history of orthodontics, check out the description below. I'm going to put the link to early bird pricing. It's also going to be a page you can go to learn more. If you have any questions, schedule a little consultation with us. We'll put a link in there too. You can schedule on our Calendly. We're going to have, we'll be happy to answer any of those questions for you. Do not miss the opportunity to transform your team's lives and their careers. Do not miss the opportunity to transform your life and your business. MPG Iconic is unlike anything else in the history of this profession. We're proud of it. And the doctors are spreading the word like crazy. So if you want to change your life and business, come to MPG Iconic this year. And now let's get back to today's episode. Like I said in the beginning, I'm not here to criticize the parenting styles. And I'm happy, and I've already done it. I'm happy to bring up my faults, I think. And it goes back to is I sometimes, if I'm pushed to my limits, I default back to this authoritarian style. And I'm just like, shut up and do it. You know, I need the login. Why do you need it? Just give me the damn login, right? I I've had that situation with team members. I'm going to hire this company. Why are you going to hire them? Just worry about what you need to do. I'm going to do this. I'm going to handle it. And it's and it's relatively rare with me. But when I do default out of where I want to be, typically this brick wall, this authoritarian, approaches what I end up defaulting into. And I don't like it. And I don't want you all to be like this, especially in your business. Now, parenting type two, I want to call it the marshmallow. Now, psychology calls this the permissive parenting style. And I call this the marshmallow because it's squishy. It's very mushy, if you will. And there's a lot of flexibility, if you will. Now the vibe, according to psychology, of this type of parenting style is low demand, very high warmth. And it's you're the boss, honey. It's like happy, happy wife, happy life. You're the boss, you just tell me what to do. Right? So common phrases that are associated with this is whatever you want. And this parenting style avoids conflict. And it avoids conflict for many reasons. The top one, according to psychology, is I just want my child to like me. Right? I want to be buddies. Now, the trade-off is the kids feel incredibly loved, but they often lack self-regulation and struggle when they hit the real world. Where rules actually exist. Right? If if and a lot of times also that there's not a department inside businesses that says your opinion, please, or do whatever you want. Or, oh yeah, you can follow protocol. I mean, think about this, guys. I I hope this is why I wanted to put a unique spin on it. And and call my brain crazy, whatever it is, but I just see how this is just this circular pattern domino effect on how it screws everybody in the process. I mean, just think about it. Like, there's no real rules inside the house, there's no real accountability. And then they get into the workforce where there's rules that exist, there should be accountability, and the next thing you know, they don't know what to do. They don't know how to handle it. All of a sudden, their opinion doesn't matter. All of a sudden what they want to do doesn't matter, and then they're like, I quit. And then they go to the next job, and the same thing happens, and the next job, and the same thing happens. Or they get into the real world and they have a marshmallow leader, a permissive leader. And see, this is how it works. Can you imagine a team of five people that had permissive parents? Then they get in and they're all together and they have a permissive a permissive leadership team. Nobody's ever gonna get better. No one's gonna force them to do things they don't want to do. No one's gonna hold the people accountable. And guys, this is not a recipe of keeping great people. It doesn't mean that the human can't is a bad person. It doesn't mean that the employee is a bad employee, it doesn't mean that they can't get better. But if you put permissive people around permissive people, it's gonna be nothing but avoiding conflict, nothing but avoiding things that will get better. People showing up late. People not following the rules, people getting mad if their opinion, they feel their opinion doesn't matter. This is also, and I hear this often from doctors, you know, I'm so nice and my team still leaves. I'm so nice and I can't find the right people. I'm so nice and they still won't do what I want them to do. Guys, look, this is my point. Permissive leaders inside businesses don't keep great people. They have high turnover. They typically keep the people that don't want to get better. They're lazy. They don't want to be held accountable for showing up on time. They don't want to be held accountable for being involved in meetings. They don't want to be held accountable for self-improvement, things like that. And I mean, guess the some of the biggest that you take Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs is known as one of the greatest leaders in the history of all entrepreneurs, of just across the spectrum. And he's also known as being one of the biggest assholes there ever was. He was extremely unliked by people in the organization, people out of the organization, but he was a visionary, he made change happen, he was obsessed with the customer, he held people accountable, there were strict guidelines, right? And that's why great people worked for him. And they went above and beyond the paycheck. It is not about being nice. This is what you would hear if a patient was in treatment. And uh, for whatever reason I'm picking on Joey today, that's just my make-believe name for the day. Joey's not compliant, you tell mom, and mom's like, well, there's really nothing I can do about it. You guys have all heard that. Well, that's a permissive parent. Like they are not gonna be a partner in treatment that helps you hold Joey accountable. Now, is there a way to get them to be? Yes, but again, that goes back to remembering your assistants are in just as much of a hospitality, sales, verbiage, presentation, skill set role as your treatment coordinator, as your receptionist, as your waiter, as your concierge. Everybody is in a leadership sales hospitality role in some form or fashion. And kids oftentimes don't even realize as they're growing up and they're feeling love, because remember, the permissive parenting style, the kids will feel loved. They will feel like their opinion matters. But when they get into the real world, they realize that their opinion really doesn't matter. This is also the parenting style that if the school calls and says Joey's a problem, this is the parenting style that kind of says, Well, there's not really anything I can do about it, or this is the parenting style that gets upset because they feel like you're criticizing their perfect little Joey. This is typically also the parenting style that you see when you're inside the exam room, where now the kids are making the choice. And I understand some parents will say, right, is this the battle that is this really the battle that I want to choose? Right? Like there's bigger things to fry. If they want to do braces, even though I want them to do Invisalign, uh, you know, just let them do it. And this is why, you know, if you're a practice that wants to be higher shit, this is why everything ties together. Like you, the new patient phone call ties into so many other things in your practice. The digital workflow ties into so many other things in your practice. The waiter speaking to the table about your specials ties into so many other things in the restaurant. How you lead ties into everything there is to do with your business. And this too, right? Because if you're a practice that wants to do more in Visaline and you can't, or you have these situations where, you know, mom just like, hey, kiddo, whatever you want. Kid wants braces, boom, we're done. That's a permissive parenting style. And there is an art to overcoming that, not only in the exam room, but it starts before they ever even walk through the door. It's a big reason why the share to chair with the liners is struggling, why Invisalign numbers are struggling in practices, and why braces are cool again. Because if kids see braces on a celebrity as an example, that's usually as far as they think. They don't think anything else. The amount of appointments, the struggles, the pain, how it's how it's you're they're going to be in treatment longer than if a doctor is very proficient with invisible. All these things. They don't think about any of it. And practices are not good at edifying those things and selling against those things and selling off of those things. But this is the permissive parenting style. And and for those of you, many of you lead this way. And, you know, I'm going to say something that that is probably, it probably seems counterintuitive. I'm certainly going to talk about it when I talk about the transactional versus transformational leader. And how I want and want to coach all of you to become the transformational leader. And that's easy, easier for people who really want to have an impact on people's lives. If you don't really care, you just want your business to run in a smooth way, it you can still be it. You're not going to be as good, obviously. There's going to be more struggles, but you can still be it. Part of this seems counterintuitive because if you're a permissive leader, you're actually going to have higher turnover. But you're going to have higher turnover with the good people. Meaning that permissive leaders inside businesses, you are not going to keep good people, people that want to work beyond a paycheck, people that want your business to succeed, people that want their career to succeed. So they're will, they're willing and able to being coached, right? All the things. So while I am a massive believer in high warmth, I'm going to talk more about that here in just a little bit. I am a very high warrant leader inside and outside the house, inside and outside the business. The fact that the marshmallow, the permissive parenting style, leadership style has low demands. These kids are not being set up for success in the workplace. And then once they're in the workplace, great leaders push their people. They have people do things they don't want to do, just like a parent. If you're going to be a great parent, a great leader inside the house, you have to get your kids doing things they don't want to do. They may complain about it because they don't understand it's going to make them a better adult. They may not like you for it right now, whatever it may be, but you have to do the things that they don't want you to do. And it's the same way in your business. Great people are attracted and they will stay if you motivate them, challenge them, give them opportunity for growth, right? Always, always dangling something up here to make them better. This is how you create great people inside your organization. Either they're already good when they showed up and you made them great, or they're already great and you keep them, but you do not keep great people by being a permissive leader. Now, you can all relate to this. Meaning, here's how this goes. I already can't find people. So the last thing I want to do is hold my people accountable and push them and make them do the things they won't want to do because they're going to quit. Now I don't have anybody, right? I don't have anybody to meet and greet the patients, clinically assist me in the back. You know, I don't have anybody to wait the tables, whatever it may be. So therefore, you're scared, you run a permissive business, and your problems never cease to exist. They always are there because you're permissive. It's just kind of like whatever you want. You know, do you think, team, and and this is unfortunately how I talked a lot about the bell curve in episode one of season of this season? You know, the the majority that sits in the middle of this bell curve, the majority is the marshmallow, the permissive parenting style, and also the laggards that sit in. It's this style and the next style I'm going to talk about. And it's unfortunate because it does people such an injustice as they get into the workforce. And then you're doing your team an injustice by always wanting their opinion on everything. You know, Dr. Bob Skopak and I did a national webinar for Worthophiz a few weeks ago. I think it was sometime in December. And, you know, we get through it, and you know, you never get questions like, God, that was awesome. Like, what's the first step I need to take? What's the first action item to get this going? But you never get questions like that. You get questions like, and this is going to be a podcast, and I think it's going to be a good quick tips episode that kind of maybe even for later this month, it may be around this topic coming off these four parenting styles. This is a perfect example of permissive. The question was, how do I get my team on board? And what if they don't want to do it? You're looking at the bell curve. Do you think Elon Musk ever calls his friends and asks their opinion on whether or not he should do something? Do you ever think that he's worried about getting his employees' opinion on whether or not he should do something? Like, guys, there isn't a single great, famous entrepreneur in the history of mankind that would ever ask the question that that doctor asks on that orthophi webinar. So many of you fall into this marshmallow effect, this permissive parenting style inside your business. And again, it goes back to you're afraid to lose people. But the reality is, is if you want to find great talent, if you want to keep great talent, if you want that recipe, you cannot be a permissive leader. You cannot always worry about do they want to do it? If they don't want to do it, I mean, I've told you guys on podcasts several stories about people that didn't sign with new patient group, that doctors they wanted to. Like the team didn't, so therefore the doctor didn't. This is the opposite of being a great leader. Great leaders aren't, well, you're the boss, right? Whatever you want. Like I want to avoid conflict, I want to avoid the tough conversation because I want my child to like me. I want my employees to like me. Like that's the way we're gonna run a fun environment because everyone's gonna like each other. Everybody can do whatever they want. If they don't want to do something, I won't hire this company. But if they do want to do it, I will hire this company, or I don't know if I should do it because how is my team gonna react? Guys, that is not a leader. It's not even close to being a leader. That's the opposite of great leadership in every form or fashion. Now, you may say to yourself, again, I don't want to lose people, but here's the reality you don't get to complain about not being able to find people, not being able to find good people, not being all the stuff. If you yourself aren't committed to changing how you lead. Right. We live, I don't think I said this in the beginning, like the entitlement of so many people, right? It's like, I want to be paid more. Okay, well, what did you do to deserve it? Oh, nothing. You know, I've worked here a year now, I want to be paid more. Or, you know, these starting rules. You know, we tell a lot of parents will tell kids, follow your passion without telling them, look, your passion may not pay anything. And you may also have to take entry-level jobs that involve a lot of boring data entry. You may have to take it in the shorts for a while. You may have to hate the job, but work your butt off, learn every single thing you can while pursuing your passion on the side. And hopefully your passion ends up paying you a real paycheck. But if it doesn't, you better get your you know what together, find a job. That's not what we tell them. We say, hey, find your passion. Meanwhile, that's why your kid is lit 30 and living in your basement. The passion isn't paying anything. All the stuff. Non-compliance, non-compliant patients, they have one of two types of parents. Permissive is one of them. And you've heard it. Well, I can't get my kid on board. Like, if you told Kristen and I that that Madeline or Braden weren't being compliant, problem fixed. It's never gonna happen again. Or if it does, we'll revisit it, fix it again. But you're never gonna have a problem. But and we're never gonna, we're never gonna have to worry about, oh my God, are you criticizing my kid? I'm like, bring it on. If my kid's being a, you know, a dum-dum, I want to know about it because that's my job as a leader to get them to not be a dum-dum. You know, I was in a, I was, gosh, this was a practice a long time ago. I was chair side in the back. And I mean, this kid was clueless. Like the kid didn't know what liner she was on. You know, there was all kinds of things the kid was like, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. And the mom was right there and didn't say a word. And eventually the assistant was like, Well, what do you think we should do? Mom? Mom's like, I don't know, there's really nothing I can do. Like, what am I supposed to do? Like, well, you're supposed to be a freaking parent. You're supposed to be a leader. And and you're not. Many of you can relate to this marshmallow effect, this permissive parenting style, and you certainly can relate to it at your business. And it's just not the way to do it. Parenting style number three. I call this the ghost. Psychology calls it the uninvolved. So this is the worst of all worsts, right? This is low demand and low warmth. Right. The golden standard is high on both of those spectrums. We're going to talk about here in just a minute. You know, the what this one looks like is often caused by extreme stress, you know, overworking, workaholic, you know, the alcoholism for work, workaholism, mental health struggle. So a lot of these are, you know, the parent may be depressed. I mean, there may be a lot of mental things going on, but a lot of it, too, is just choice. A lot of it is, hey, work is more important than my kids, right? My own personal well-being and my own personal, you know, things that I want to do are going to supersede what the kids want to do. And the overall trade-off of this, according to psychology, is the children feel invisible. Like this is where a lot of children, you know, car crashes, jump doing stupid stuff because they feel invisible, they end up killing themselves. That kind of thing. And this is where psychology sees the most significant struggles with social connection and trust for obvious reasons. And and this is so, you know, it if if you're hiring for a$650,000 a year upper level executive position, the chances of them coming from now, there's exceptions to this. There's a lot of famous entrepreneurs, a lot of famous people that grew up in horrible households that become the most influential people in the world. And there's a lot of people that grew up in the most air quotes perfect household and they end up in a rehab center, right? So none of this is set in stone. None of this means if you know you're an uninvolved parent that your kid's going to blow themselves away or not be successful. But overwhelmingly, the statistics say that's the case. And like I said, if you're hiring for an executive position that pays a lot, this doesn't impact as much. But if you're hiring the way a lot of you are, like our niche, and you're hiring for a$36,000 a year clinical assistant position, a receptionist position, or$50,000 a year treatment coordinator position, the reality is they are coming, most likely, from permissive parents. An even greater spectrum, they're coming from uninvolved parents. Meaning that when they show up to your door, they have never had anybody in their life expect great things, right? High demand, held them accountable, had difficult conversations with them, coached them, let them, right? Was there every step of the way. If you have a permissive parenting style, permissive leadership style inside your office, and you hire the ghost, right, that was raised by uninvolved parents, you are screwed. That person is never going to turn out to be the human that you want and really need inside your business to make it fun, stress-free, consistent growth, all the stuff. Period. And while I'm not saying you only have yourself to blame, what I am saying is this is why I want to put a unique spin on all this for you to fully grasp how important it is to become a great leader, whether you want to or not. This is the solution. Period. There is no other solution. Society has brainwashed these kids. We live in a form of socialism now. It is what it is, right? Parents, like I said, are screwing their kids to get out in the workforce. They are not ready for the demands. They are not ready. And the reality is, is if you are an uninvolved leader inside your business, which a lot of you are too, this whole, and this will how you can tell. You hire a company. The company wants to meet with you. You're not on, but your team's on, right? Or you hire us to do phone training in your office. The team's watching the on-demand course, getting ready for the next uh the next role play session, and you aren't there. You're in your office doing clinchecks. You're uninvolved. There is not a famous entrepreneur that any of you know that is an uninvolved leader. If anything, we are all criticized for being too involved. And it's not about us wanting to control everything, it's about us loving our company, our employees, and our customers and wanting to see it thrive, wanting it to be represented at the highest levels of all time. And that's, you know, sometimes you're pulled in 18,000 different directions, so you can't, but you sure as hell strive to be as perfect as you possibly can. But a lot of you, you fall into this permissive trap or you fall into this uninvolved trap, or a combination of both. Oftentimes when people do digital marketing with us, our team is so awesome and our team cares. They actually want to meet with you, go through the data, analyze the data, coach you on content, how to make it better, how to get more engagement online, all the stuff. But the doctor won't be on the damn call. Right? So, how would you ever expect your team to value something that you don't see enough value in showing up? Well, I'm too busy. Give me a break. Give me a break. That's exactly what the uninvolved parent says, by the way. Too busy. I can't make it to my kid's soccer game. I'm too busy. I can't have the tough conversation with my kid. Right. And these are the parents that if your patient signs up with whatever treatment modality, they are going to be non-compliant, period. Unless you're purely lucky, or unless, like, you have our existing patient experience implemented at the highest levels to keep it from happening. And even then, it's probably going to happen, but then your team is trained on how to get them back. These are uninvolved parents. This is the parent that's not at the appointment. They sit in their car, right? You don't have a chance to talk to them. You don't have a chance to articulate the value, which is another reason why you should be texting out post-apointment videos. The assistant should be doing selfie videos and texting them to the parents. Obviously, ideas and podcasts and stuff for another time, the power of video. And then imagine a scenario where you're an authoritarian type one that I read, and you hired somebody that was raised by uninvolved parents. You can see the disconnect. You can see the disconnect if you're a permissive style leader inside the business. You hire an employee that had permissive parents. Now you're in this situation where nobody expects anybody to get better. No one's going to hold anybody accountable. No one's going to have a tough conversation because you're avoiding conflict. And your business is just it's just stagnant. There's no, I want to get better. There's no demands of getting better. There's no accountability. And you just fall flat year after year having the same struggles. You may get lucky and grow, but you're never going to maximize your success. And you have these same struggles over and over and over again because there's no leader in the office. It's just everybody, let's just be friends. I don't want to push anybody. Well, Janice doesn't want to role play because it makes her uncomfortable. So I'm not going to be able to, I don't want to make her uncomfortable. I'm not going to do it. Right. This is permissive leadership. As well as the uninvolved leader that I talked about. And like I said, I think at some point we all are a little messy and we all have a little of all of these. But overwhelming, you're going to fall into one of these traps. Parenting style number four. And this is the ultimate. And this is not according to me. This is according to psychology. This is the golden standard that I call the backbone. Psychology calls the authoritative parenting style. Now, this vibe is exactly who I am. It's high demand, but also high warmth. It's the sweet spot. For years, I have strived to be this parent, this leader inside the business, if you will. I expect great big things from my team and all my companies. I expect great big things from my kids. But I'm also extremely high warmth. And it comes from the heart. If you were at our iconic event this past year, I cried on stage. And I cried on stage because our VP of marketing, Haley Jeffrey, and David Martin, who runs social media and he does a lot of other things, and Haley does a lot of things, that they are amazing. Our clients love them. So when I saw them speak, I went next. And I was telling some people at the table in the back, I'm probably going to cry when I get up there because seeing their progression makes me so happy. And that's an example of a transformational leader, meaning you want to have an impact on them personally and professionally, and that far exceeds the numbers. And that's exactly how I am. Right? Psychology talks about this authoritative approach of having clear, non-negotiable rules, but explaining the why and validating the child's feelings or the employee's feelings. So if you're gonna hire a new patient group, right, you're gonna sit down and you're gonna have a State of the Union in front of the team, and you're gonna say, We're hiring this company. Here's why we're doing it. Here's their proven methods, here's the names that they work with that no other company has ever had this big of names. Here are the non-negotiables with them. Right? Here's exactly what I expect out of all of you. And I'm gonna hold you accountable to the fullest to make sure we get the best return on investment from this company. Right. And I want to hear everybody's concerns and I want to validate those concerns. We're gonna talk about those concerns now because after today, right, we're on board and we're gonna do this. I understand if you're scared. I understand if you know it's gonna make you frustrated to have to role play. I understand you're gonna have to put your face on video and do videos. I understand how that can be hard, but we have to do this to run a better business. We have to do this to build a better culture, we have to do this to be better at our roles, to be better with the patient experience. All the things that this commoditized competitive environment that we live in demands. See, that's the backbone. That's the authoritative approach. See, this is another tight family where you're not gonna have non-compliance problems. And if you do, you're not gonna have to worry about, you know, the parent going, how dare you criticize my kid. Right now, the ironic thing about this is you're gonna have high turnover doing it this way. And you say, Brian, that's the last thing I need. That's why I'm permissive. Right. But let's revisit the goal. Right? The the vision that we have for all of you is how to charge higher prices, convert at higher levels than all the people being cheaper than you, right? Have patients that are compliant, employees that are compliant, that refer to you, that talk great about you in the community, which by the way, probably, and I did a podcast, I don't know, like a couple seasons ago about, you know, talking about word of mouth. Yeah, it's having patient word of mouth, great. Yeah, but even better, you know what? Having your employees say great things about you in the community to other people that could be employees is a huge thing, meaning that employees are not gonna go to other great employees and say, this is an amazing place to work, come work here if you're uninvolved or permissive. Not gonna happen. So if you're wondering why you can't get good resumes, it could be because the word of mouth about your businesses is don't work there. It's bad leadership, the culture sucks, like the the crappy people get away with everything. Like people show up late and they're not, there's no accountability, they don't file protocol, there's no accountability. Guys, that is not a way to create a great business. And going back to this vision, another part of it is allowing you and teaching you how to run an efficient, profitable, low-stress business where you actually have fun. Imagine that. You actually have fun. Right? That doesn't work when you're permissive. It doesn't work when you're uninvolved. So, this authoritative, one of the things that you all need to learn is there's good turnover and bad turnover, right? And one of the things I pride my companies in over the history is our great people stay or bad people leave. Right. And when I say bad people, that doesn't mean they're bad human beings. They just don't fit the culture. And over the course of time, you create one good per employee after another good employee. And the next thing you know, a couple years down the road, you have a team of five or a team of eight or a team of 30 that are all great. And they're great because you have leadership that cares about them, that pushes them to get better, where there's high accountability. So the chumps that show up late and have excuses for it, they don't work there anymore. They don't show up to the meetings prepared, they don't work there anymore. That you can't let people get away with that and ever run a business that attracts great talent and keeps great talent, right? So if you have eight employees, right, and you're permissive and all the eight employees show up late to work every day, right? It's ever going to get better. But if you have eight employees and you're authoritative, it's going to get better because they either leave or they do it. And the authoritative style in the household and in the business absolutely sets you up for being the transformational leader that I teach. And I need our new patient group clientele, I need the listeners, I need all of you to want to be and strive to become. And that is why in March we're going to be talking about the transactional versus transformational leader, because step one started today, where you identify where you stand in this spectrum, whether it's messy or not, you still have one that you fall into overwhelmingly. And you have to understand being an authoritative leader, you're going to lose people. If you're an authoritative leader and eventually a transformational leader, and you are that way in front of somebody that was raised in a permissive style home or an uninvolved parenting home, a lot of them are going to go, screw you. What is this? Right? High demands, high accountability, high war. Like, what is this? They're out. But this is also how you get people to think you're their hero. Meaning, if they've never had that, what you are going to come across every once in a while is that person that says, I love you for this. Nobody has ever done this for me. You're the first person that held me accountable, told me that I can achieve great things, expected great things, set boundaries, held me to the standards, had tough conversations with me to get better, held me accountable, made me get better, and do the things that I didn't want to do. And this is how you have an impact in people's life personally and professionally, everybody. And the authoritative approach sets you up to learn how to become the transformational leader that we're going to be talking about in March. Part of high warmth, part of warmth overall is understanding that your people are real people. This is something we talked about at Iconic a lot. I talk a lot with our clients, is that your employees are real people with real problems. Whether they they couldn't make a car payment this month, they're struggling with their boyfriend, you know, they they make poor financial decisions. So a lot of that affects their their mood and their ability to become a great employee. This is why the transformational leader looks at all of this. They understand it all impacts the culture and and and ultimately the business that you want to become, the team you want to have become. And whether you like it or not, they're real, they're real things. And this high warmth, you know, being able to put your arm around somebody and asking them if they're okay. Hey, you seem down today, right? You seem like you're struggling. Talk to me. You know, my door's always open. You know, this this whole low warmth, you know, leave it at the door kind of thing, that that's the authoritarian that I talked about earlier. Uh, it doesn't work. The uninvolved, it doesn't work. The reality is, is you got to understand that if you're gonna have high demand, there's got to be high warmth that comes from that. Eventually I'm gonna be doing the five love languages of business, and high warmth is easier for people that are words of affirmation. It's easier for people typically that are quality time, like that's their love language, other examples that we'll dive into on that podcast. That's one I've had in the notes for my God, five years, six years of the of the eight previous seasons. Now we're in season nine, and hopefully I get to do it this year. And I think it's fitting because being high warmth, if you're not words of affirmation and telling your people positive things, positive reinforcements very difficult because that's not your love language. So you don't care if you receive it. But you have to understand how important it is to give it, whether or not you care to receive it or not. I mean, if you're not giving positive warm reinforcement and letting people know that that you love them and you're there for them, like they're gonna tune all your constructive criticism out because they never get anything positive from you. There's nothing. Warm. So there's an there's an art to all of this, everybody. And the golden standard is the backbone, is the authoritative approach, both in the household and in the business. And hopefully all of you can see, you can all see, oh my God, like this all intertwines. Like it all circles back from family culture in your office to how you run it, to if the family culture is different than your parenting style inside the business, how that creates conflict. But the way, the way to do it all no matter what, is always be the authoritative backbone approach. And you have to understand, just like a transformational leader, there's gonna people, there's gonna be people that don't like you for it. Like there's several times I go into practices and I'm always the same guy. But, you know, people that don't come from from parenting and they don't come from a background where people expected great things and held them accountable and wanted them to get better, they don't understand people that are there to get them better because I care about your career. I care about the profession that you're in, I care about your life outside of the business. And some people can't wrap their head around that. And those people will always view me and our program as a threat. And they'll always give bad feedback. But then you have the ones that are like, okay, this is my opportunity to achieve something great, something that, you know, skill sets that I haven't been taught, things that I haven't learned outside the business. And those people just look at this program as a savior personally and professionally. And they're gonna look at you as a savior personally and professionally if you run it that way, no matter how hard it is. Because, like I said, the people that can't wrap their head around it and the people that don't want to get better, they're going to leave. But that is the recipe of achieving a great culture. That's part of the pain that you have to go through to achieve it. And sometimes it's you got to get that has to get better, sometimes it's the team has to get better. Most of the time, it's a combination of both. Just like we did in episode one to kick off season nine, I want to go through some quiz questions to help you identify where you stand. As I go through a couple of these questions, it's gonna be more family-oriented. Like if your kid does this, I want you to be thinking about plugging in other scenarios. You know, instead of a kid, plug in an employee and change the scenario. All right. But I just want these to get your brain going. Mastermind group, these are something I want you to do. We're gonna talk more about this because I want to identify your parenting type and then also want you to understand your parenting type inside the business. And like I said in the front end, oftentimes that's the same, but oftentimes for whatever reason, it's very different, right? The way you run your business, you would never raise your kids that way. Right. And you may be very uninvolved in your business as an example, you know, parenting type three that I talked about, but you would never do that in the household because you know that's never going to raise great kids. That kind of thing. So, question one: your child is struggling with a difficult puzzle and starts to get frustrated. Eventually, throwing a piece across the room, what is your reaction? Is it A, you sit down, acknowledge that the puzzle is hard, and suggest taking a deep breath together before we try a new piece? Is it B, you tell them that the puzzles clearly aren't for them today and go back to your own tasks, letting them handle the mess they're in. C, you immediately take the puzzle away and put them in a timeout for throwing things without discussing the frustration. Or D, you finish the puzzle for them so they feel better and don't have to deal with the frustration anymore. All right, so which one of those and how would you handle it? Like I said, most likely, you know, you could put a an employee in there, right? An employee is feeling frustrated at work because of this, this, and that. They get really frustrated, maybe say something in inappropriate in front of a patient. How do you handle it? Right? Same type of thing. I want you to use your imagination. So, two, it's time for family chore day. Your child complains that they want to play the video game instead. How do you handle it? Now, before, and actually, what I'm not going to do on this one, I'm not going to give any A, B, C, and D. I want you to think inside your head and write down how do you handle that situation. And what I also want you to do is write down how an authoritarian approach would be. Write down how a permissive approach would be, write down an uninvolved approach, and then the gold standard of authoritative how that would be. Right. So a little twist on this quiz, right? There's no A, B, C, and D. I want you to put on paper the scenarios. Now, question three, and it's going to be the same way. This is going to help you identify, and this is more a work-related scenario. You have two employees that are very frustrated at each other. One is blaming another employee for something, another employee is not taking accountability for that and blaming it back. You've got this back and forth. What I want you to do is I want you to think about again the authoritarian approach, the authoritarian authoritarian leader inside your office. How would that be handled? Then I want you to think about and I want you to write down how a permissive parenting style inside the business would handle that. Now, C, I want you to write down, or third, I want you to write down how an uninvolved leader would handle that scenario. And then four, the gold standard, how an authoritarian, or excuse me, authoritative leader inside the business would handle that scenario. Mastermind group listeners, there's going to be a lot more questions coming your way. Everybody, put your answers, make some comments on this video down on YouTube. Identify yourself publicly on YouTube, what kind of parenting style you are, and get that chatter going as always. Mastermind members, make sure you do this. This is going to be an upcoming mastermind session that we have. We're going to go through everybody so we identify the leader you are inside the organization as we take this journey together. Remember, this is not stagnant. This is not a life sentence. We are all in an ongoing, infinite journey together of self-improvement. Let's have fun with this. And it starts with this leadership training, identifying where you at, the four parenting styles of business. I hope you enjoyed kind of how the crazy brain thinks here on this side of the microphone and how it spun it into the business. And hopefully it helped all of you identify where you're at. And it's going to be a good first step as we take this transformational leadership journey, which will come out in March, and then we'll keep on going to make everybody better and better. Until next time, everybody, we will see you soon. And thanks for everybody's support as we keep growing this underground mass cult following that we have with New Patient Group and the Brian Wright Show podcast. Until next time, we'll see everybody soon. Bye bye.