Michael D. Jones, MBA

Q: What most notably stands out about your leadership style or what is an example of leadership success you can share with our readers?

My leadership style is marked by decision-making delegation and empowerment. I don’t believe in placing people in a box but in encouraging them to leverage all their talents and skills to accomplish goals. I provide stretch assignments to get people outside their comfort zone, which grows and develops them in different ways.

I also believe in the concept of servant leadership, which means I am constantly looking for ways to facilitate others’ success and I use empathy as a superpower. Moreover, I never ask anyone to do something that I am not willing to do as I try to actively model expected behaviors. Lastly, I am very open about sharing my experiences so that others may learn from my own development and successes.

Q: What impact has any disruptions of the past 18 months had on you as a leader?

I believe consistency is the key ingredient to help sustain company momentum through adversity. However, the COVID pandemic did sharpen my focus on nurturing and driving the right culture.

Hybrid work arrangements have made it difficult to maintain culture, so organizations must be extremely intentional about their methods and procedures to achieve the desired culture. As a part of our HR strategy at DDAZ, we delivered several initiatives that advanced the values of the “future state” organization we envisioned. We also took time to redefine our mission and vision. These activities reenergized our employees and increased engagement regardless of their work location. Lastly, we ensured that we could measure progress with all our programs.

Q: What do you feel we can be doing as a business community to empower economic growth here?

Businesses should invest more time developing strategic relationships where they partner on projects and initiatives. These types of collaborations will uncover new opportunities and lead to more aligned thinking on how we view our collective success in the Valley. We must also provide support for local entrepreneurs to advance their concepts, which could include mentoring, networking and even funding. There are organizations focused on this, but we need more to join the effort to promote greater entrepreneurial success.

Also, we must bolster current efforts to position Phoenix as a top-tier city with high-level talent to attract national and global businesses interested in relocation.

Q: What is new and notable for your company’s near future that will impact our economy?

For the past several years, Delta Dental of Arizona has been strategically, sustainably moving from a single-line insurance company to a multi-line health and wellness organization. We have been and will continue to expand and diversify our product and service offerings throughout Arizona. We are also very focused — and will continue to be — on investing in partnerships and opportunities to promote and facilitate medical/dental integration.

By way of example, we worked with Banner Health Foundation to expand our Hospital Oral Care and Periodontal Disease Education (HOPE) program protocol to 28 acute-care facilities across Western U.S. over the past 18 months and are currently working with the University of Arizona on an Oral Health Medical Initiative at the College of Medicine – Phoenix. We also invested in a state-of-the-art new headquarter office in Scottsdale to allow for enhanced synergies across our community and state.