Leadership

As a student , I represent the future. For those of you that represent the chiropractic present I have a challenge. If chiropractic wants to progress into the greater consciousness of New Zealand and Australian cultures, we need leaders.
Leaders at every level. Doctors, CAs, students and patients can all take leadership roles. You don't have to be a BJ Palmer, a Gerry Clum or a Carl Cleveland III. Active leadership can be as small as telling the chiropractic truth to a potential patient.

No matter what type of leader you become all great, effective leaders share certain core characteristics. The first one is

COURAGE

• Courage to resist pressure to lower standards.
• Courage to accept responsibility for both success and failure.
• Courage to seek advice.
• Courage to display strong resolve in the face of adversity.

In 1994, a group of chiropractors had a vision of a NZ college. The NZ association membership at the time had approximately 148 members. Only 21 had courage to back the college. These people have not been repaid financially. Their courage has enabled graduates from the NZ College of chiropractic to practise subluxation focused chiropractic in 8 countries and next Friday the 100th graduate will be capped.

Courage. As a first generation chiropractic student relaying the benefits of being subluxation free to your cynical family takes courage. Put your hand up if you can relate to that. That takes a bit of courage.
The next core characteristic of a great leader is

RESPONSIBILITY

• The responsibility to provide the best health care and service to patients.
• To set an example and maintain high standards.
• Taking responsibility to say "I can't help you, but a chiropractic colleague of mine might, can I refer you to him/her?"
• The responsibility to pass of to the next generation of chiropractors a profession that you are proud of.
• The responsibility to tell you patients what it is that chiropractors do.

In the NZ College student clinic a few interns got together and have started using a short phrase. We tell our patients;
"You and your body have enormous potential, if free from interference. Subluxation is interference to the nervous system limiting your potential. Chiropractors remove subluxations to allow you to achieve your maximum potential."

LOYALTY

• Loyalty to yourself, to the profession, to your patients.
• An ability to hold sound principles. There is a little green book, written by a gentleman called Ralph Stevenson. In it there are 33 sound principles, have a read sometime.

INITIATIVE

• A leader seeks opportunity, innovates and promotes goal setting and achievement.
• A leader seeks advice and pursues continual self improvement

The final characteristic is RELIABILITIY. This is required to earn the trust of others and without trust we will struggle to grow and develop as a profession. Reliability means to walk the walk and talk the talk. If you say it, do it.

The future is bright for chiropractic. I see a day when newborns will be checked by chiropractors within hours of delivery and it will be part of routine hospital procedure.
I see a day where surgery and drug therapy will be an absolute last resort.
A day where having a doctor 'on the team' means a chiropractor to help athletes realise their potential. Not an allopath with sticky tape and injections of corticosteroids.
A day where maintaining health means regular maintenance visits to the chiropractor for specific adjustments rather than bombarding the body with drugs to mask the symptoms.

To get to that day, we need leaders. Leaders in our communities to educate and provide the highest levels of care. These leaders will need to display courage, responsibility, initiative, loyalty and reliability.

Who of you will take up the challenge???

Iain Gues is a student at the New Zealand College of Chiropractic