Team building: a leadership strategy.

This paper will present the importance of teamwork, as well as those behavioral science principles relative to team-building in an organization. Characteristics of an effective work team and some important dimensions of supervisory leadership including inputs on how members of a task group can contribute to team-building will be described. Some guidelines for supervisors and employees in connection with teamwork will be discussed. Human beings of every age are finding their time consumed by the demands of organizations to which they "belong" and still are badgered to join other groups during a lifetime. In the International College of Dentists, Philippine Section, where we pride ourselves to be a part of, membership is defined. We are supposed to be endowed with group consciousness, a sense of purpose, an interaction among ourselves, and interdependence in the satisfaction of our needs in a unitary manner. In essence, we are linked by some common, identifiable characteristics bound by the element of teamwork for the achievement of a common desirable goal. A leadership style that emphasizes team-building, therefore ensures not only that a job gets done, but it is done efficiently, effectively and harmoniously.

Community dentistry: rationale.

The present curricula in dentistry are biased in favor of cure and technical capability ... individualism rather than promotive, preventive and community orientation. The team "approach" and "total patient care" concepts must be given emphasis in these curricula. Dentistry, being a profession, should accentuate service, rather than materialism and profit. The Philippine situation demands than adoption of a "New Horizon in Health" which emphasized positive health as part of human development. The educational system, organized dentistry, the licensing board, the legislators, policy makers, oral health providers and research formulators will have important roles to perform in the successful implementation of this "new horizon in health" concept. "Primary Health Care" is another strategy adopted to realize the global goal of "Health for all by Year 2000". This is a positive approach for both individual and community oral health intervention programs.