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This particular article pains me a little to write.
The previous two parts of this series (linking veterinary attrition to loneliness in Part 1 and boredom in Part 2), 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 flak 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 and 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.
Poor leadership is not usually due to a lack of trying or care. Most veterinary leaders I know genuinely want to make a difference and improve things for their teams, as well as for 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 excel at it.
And yes, a conflict of interest alert: I provide leadership training, so I’m not an unbiased spectator in this challenge (the same applies to my previous articles, given that my entire business model revolves around finding solutions to keep veterinary professionals in the veterinary profession!).
And further, not that I want to ruin my anecdotal streak by making this statement and 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 the 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, the 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.
Leadership is messy. 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 must balance compassion with pragmatism, knowledge with emotion, listening with decision-making, and being 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 the appropriate time to do each (which they don’t), the headspace shift and skillset honing required in each area constantly compete with one another.
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 who will invest or have profitable clinics to support it, and who find time alongside their managerial responsibilities, veterinary role, and 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 focusing 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 are 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 within it.
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 are 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 turn around 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 outlining how we could turn the tide on 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 that 78% of people who 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.
My focus is on providing 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. To provide leadership development programs for those who excel at solving problems with definitive answers, rather than going around in circles. Programs that encompass engagement, culture, generational shifts, the balance between flexibility and fairness, and all the other ambiguous grey areas of leadership in the 2020s.
I focus on leadership development that is there for the troubleshooting, the attempts that went miserably wrong, the practising of conversations before they happen, and the propping up of the resilience of the people who prop up everyone else. And brings to the 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 the type of program 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.
You can read the full series here:
The REAL reasons we can’t keep veterinary professionals in the veterinary profession: Part 1
The REAL reasons we can’t keep veterinary professionals in the veterinary profession: Part 2
The REAL reasons we can’t keep veterinary professionals in the veterinary profession: Part 4
The REAL reasons we can’t keep veterinary professionals in the veterinary profession: Part 5
Dr Jess Moore-Jones is an occasional vet, a challenge-the-status-quo type of business owner, a no BS-consultant, and an engaged mum (except at 5am when she's a very mediocre mum). Having led teams large and small, from animal shelters to zoo departments to specialist hospitals, Jess is slightly annoyingly obsessed with keeping vets engaged, fulfilled and resilient in our profession. After a leadership career of transforming toxic cultures, reducing staff burnout, and helping nurture the self-awareness of young leaders, Dr Jess decided that she could support more vets by bringing her skills to any organisation that had the courage to recognise that they needed some help. Now she runs Unleashed Coaching and Consulting, with the sole aim of Keeping Veterinary Professionals in the Veterinary Profession. Unleashed works with veterinary teams, individuals and leaders to build resilient teams, engaged cultures, and thriving businesses without any of the academic psychobabble or politically correct but unrealistic advice you could have googled.
Connect with Jessica:
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