Part 3 of 5 - LEADERSHIP: The REAL reasons we can’t keep veterinary professionals in the veterinary profession

This particular article pains me a little bit to write.

The previous two (linking veterinary attrition to boredom and loneliness), I knew would be contentious. I knew some people would really resonate, and some would be offended, or more generously assume I was just a bit of a hippie with my completely immeasurable suppositions about the reasons we can’t keep veterinary professionals in the veterinary profession.

I knew I’d cop some flack on social media, maybe lose a few followers, or largely be dismissed as a bit ‘fluffy’.

But this one hurts a bit because I actually worry about the people who might take it personally. Because I work with dozens of WONDERFUL people, doing amazing things, and working their butts off to make a difference, and what I’m about to say might feel like a bit of a kick in the teeth to those people.

So I’d like to preface this with apologies, love, compassion, and absolute clarity that there are SO MANY great, wonderful veterinary leaders out there. And I see you, and you are appreciated.

BUT yes, I’m going to go ahead and say it: the third reason we can’t keep our people is because of poor leadership.

Not usually for lack of trying, or lack of care. Most veterinary leaders I know really want to make a difference and to make things better for their teams or even the profession as a whole. Most take a leadership position, or buy a practice, genuinely excited about all the changes they’ll make and the fantastic support they’ll offer to their teams. They’ll be the leaders they wish they’d had.

But it’s simply not that simple.

The issue isn’t in the desire, but in the access and relevance of the training, support, mentoring and development opportunities available to help them actually be good at it.

And yes, conflict of interest alert, I provide leadership training so I’m not an unbiased spectator in this challenge (the same is true for my previous articles, given that my entire business model is around finding solutions to keeping veterinary professionals in the veterinary profession!).

And further, not that I want to go and ruin my anecdotal streak by making this statement then immediately going on the defensive, but this one does have a little more data backing me up. There’s plenty of evidence across most industries showing that leadership is a key contributing factor to workplace turnover, and even a few specific ones from the AVA and AVMA.

But there it is; I’ve said it all out loud.

I think we can’t keep our people well and engaged because our leaders don’t know how.

On stereotype, we are people who went into the profession because we DIDN’T want to work with people (yes, yes, we all now know how ironic this youthful ignorance was).

We are people who love correct answers, a right way to do things, and a black and white / right and wrong question. We thrive on knowing the answer, or being able to find it out, and we work on the assumption that with sufficient logic and problem solving, we can fix most things. Or put it out of its misery, if needed.

But leadership isn’t any of these things.

It’s messy. It’s the ‘right’ thing by one person is the ‘wrong’ thing by another. We have to work in the middle of all the ethical shades of grey. We have to make calls that prioritise the business, or the whole team, at the expense of an individual. We have to balance compassion with pragmatism, knowledge with feeling, listening with making decisions, friends with staff.

And it’s never finished, no matter how many ‘rights’ you get in a row, there’s always the ‘wrong’ waiting just around the corner. There’s always an anecdotal bus to hit the dog you just recovered from pancreatitis.

And for most veterinary leaders, they’re trying to walk in both worlds. They’re trying to be fantastic clinicians AND high-level leaders. They want to be a supportive peer AND a strong leader. A progressive manager AND a warm practitioner. Even if they had appropriate time to do each (which they don’t), the headspace shift and skillset honing required in each area constantly competes with the other.

So they’re constantly torn, trying to work in both zones, use both headspaces, switch between black and white thinking and the billion shades of grey.

The good ones, those with bosses that will invest or who have profitable clinics to support it, AND who find time alongside their managerial responsibilities, their veterinary role, and their clinical CPD priorities, seek training. The leadership training available to our profession is, if not prohibitively expensive for those who most need it (middle managers, Team Leaders, Supervisors, Senior Vets/Nurses etc), bound up in academic theories and impressively-worded principles that mean nothing in the real world when they go back to the clinic and try to apply it.

So it’s helpful to have fancy words to apply to common sense, or a piece of paper that confirms you know how to be a leader. They get the box ticked for an ‘employer of choice’ gold star and then they go back to focussing all their continuing development budget and mental energy on progressing their technical skills.

And their staff stay frustrated, and the leader starts to resent their frustration. Because of course you would. I certainly have! You work so hard to make people happy, and it’s never enough. People always want one more thing from you. Always notice that one error. Always poo-poo when you present them with the exact solution they asked for, because it isn’t as quick as they wanted, or you went with a comparable brand they hadn’t heard of because of a buying agreement. They give feedback that you don’t communicate enough, and then tell you there’s too many emails to read. They say that emails don’t work for everyone, then say that it’s too hard to check all the different platforms. They want new technology, but don’t want to have to learn how to use it. They want the culture to change, but not to have to change their role in the culture…

You see my point.

Anyone who has done leadership to any extent will smile (or cry) at the Sisyphean nature of it all.

It’s deflating, and upsetting, and frankly, it hurts.

And this is why I want to return to my original point, that this is not about crapping on veterinary leaders. Honestly, it’s a tough gig. Some might say impossible.

So the prevailing cultural gaps in our profession is not for lack of trying, or lack of passionate, dedicated people who are doing the best they can.

It’s for a lack of support and mentoring (which requires good leadership). A lack of clear development pathways, and skilled succession planning (which requires good leadership). A lack of cultural investment (which requires good leadership). And in many places, a lack of awareness (which of course, requires good leadership).

You see where I’m going with this, right?

We’re a self-fulfilling cycle of not being able to get out of the hole we’re sort of stuck in, which is opening the space for more corporates who come with experienced managers from non-veterinary industries who still fail us as leaders because they aren’t here to make the profession better, but to serve the needs of the business and shareholders. Again, usually nice people with passionate intentions, just only have so much scope to prioritise so many things, and an engaged, healthy profession simply cannot be the priority when the overarching goal is to make the organisation worth more to sell to someone else as quickly as possible.

I’ve literally been hired by a corporate group for the exact role of turning around a toxic culture, and been fired a few months later because I wouldn’t stop harping on about how much needed to be done to turnaround the culture. I was literally asked “but aren’t you already running your monthly culture workshops?” as if that was now a given that we should be on top of it now. I went so far as to spend days creating a scientifically backed, cost-neutral, step-by-step People Programme business case for how we could turn the tide of attrition, burnout, gossip, frustration and general toxicity in the practice. And the document was never opened.

Because everybody wants the culture to change, they just don’t want to have to change themselves. Everybody wants the quick fix, the staff workshops, the holding accountable (everyone else, that is) that look shiny on paper for a job advert or re-sale value, but not the real, gritty, uncomfortable, long-term, day-after-day investment of time and resource into creating the culture and leadership that our profession needs to thrive.

So what’s the solution? How do we close the gap on the fact the 78% of people that start training with me who ARE in leadership positions aren’t able to articulate the difference between a leader and a manager?

I don’t know, honestly. Like so much of the attrition challenge of our profession, it’s a pretty wicked problem.

But I know where I can make a difference, so that’s where I focus.

Accessible, affordable, real-world leadership development aimed at people who thought they would be spending their time and energy working with animals rather than people, who are good at solving problems that have answers rather than going around in circles with engagement, and culture, and generational shifts, and the balance between flexibility and fairness, and all the other ambiguous grey areas of leadership in the 2020s. Leadership development that is there for the troubleshooting, the attempts that went miserably wrong, the practicing conversations before they happen, the propping up the resilience of the people who prop up everyone else’s. And brings to that table the camaraderie of people who understand you, who sympathise, who know you aren’t the bad guy even when you had to make a call that people didn’t have all the details of.

If this sounds like what you / your clinic needs, you know where to find me. I promise that an entire article crapping on the leaders in our profession isn’t because I don’t think you’re great; it’s exactly BECAUSE I think you’re great, but that you just aren’t being offered what you need to thrive.

If this isn’t you and you’re just here for the backlash of comments, then stay tuned for Episode 4 in the Real Reasons We Can’t Keep Veterinary Professionals in the Veterinary Profession.