Today\u2019s business landscape is enough to induce whiplash in veterinary practice leaders. The overwhelming speed of economic, societal and technological changes has created new opportunities and challenges. In the face of innovation, followers look to their leaders to provide stability, clarity and consistency. What do leaders need to do to create the type of practice that fosters teamwork, trust and resilience?<\/p>\n
Complexity has its origins in the pressures that create stress and operational challenges in businesses. Over the past two years, the complexities impacting veterinary hospitals include changing client expectations, labor shortages and new ways to deliver patient care. The rapidly escalating cost of running veterinary hospitals leads to higher client costs, especially when inflationary pressures result in fewer visits due to less discretionary income. Leaders must adapt to complexity by thinking differently about how they will respond to these adaptive challenges.<\/p>\n
Recent research defines adaptive challenges as problems for which no solution currently exists. Solving adaptive challenges requires team members to work together differently, forming new relationships that often have varying perspectives and may conflict. Team members must find ways to co-create outcomes. Failing to do so could mean the collapse of the business.<\/p>\n
Leaders enable adaptive responses to challenges by allowing creative ideas to emerge. Leaders empower their teams to manage new pressures by encouraging both pressures for change (learning, innovation and risk-taking) and pressures for stability (the status quo). When leaders embrace complexity, they can create the necessary space for individuals and teams to identify and embrace novel solutions.<\/p>\n
How can leaders help their teams manage complexity? The key lies in acknowledging and shaping both pressures for change and stability.<\/p>\n
Leaders\u2019 Behaviors and Followers\u2019 Stress<\/p>\n
Understanding leadership means recognizing two distinct entities in the process: the leader and the follower. A leader cannot lead without followers. A Harvard Business Review<\/em> article identified five ways that leaders accidentally stress and create anxiety in their followers.<\/p>\n 1. Negative Language<\/strong><\/p>\n A strong connection exists between leaders\u2019 moods and the words they choose to express themselves. For example, followers can become afraid or worried when they hear \u201cunforgivable,\u201d \u201cterrible\u201d or \u201cunacceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n Leaders should be aware of their moods and listen to their messages. Alternatives to the harsh words above could be \u201cneedless,\u201d \u201cconcerning\u201d or \u201cworrisome.\u201d These convey the seriousness of the situation yet sound less punitive.<\/p>\n 2. Irregular or Unpredictable Actions<\/strong><\/p>\n Unpredictability and uncertainty can trigger anxiety. The very nature of veterinary medicine is rooted in the unexpected: unforeseen emergencies, co-worker absences, volatile clients. A leader who is a dependable, consistent presence helps teams manage workplace anxiety.<\/p>\n What actions do leaders take to be a steady influence? They prevent confusion by being transparent in their communications, minimizing the opportunity for misinterpretations. They are open and authentic in sharing information, and they act predictably, which creates constancy. These are antidotes for workplace anxiety.<\/p>\n 3. Emotional Volatility<\/strong><\/p>\n Leaders who regulate their moods create stability in workplaces. How leaders\u2019 emotions impact people around them (\u201cmood contagion\u201d) is well-documented. When leaders are calm and composed, followers will imitate them, which helps further reduce stress in the hospital.<\/p>\n 4. Extreme Negativity<\/strong><\/p>\n At times, pessimism in the workplace is helpful. For example, the identification of threats allows leaders to act preemptively. On the other hand, when teams are anxious, pessimism has the harmful effects of demotivation and creating stress. Teams expect optimism from their leaders during times of uncertainty. When leaders project confidence and composure, followers are reassured and less uneasy, which lowers anxiety and stress levels.<\/p>\n 5. Ignoring Employee Emotions<\/strong><\/p>\n Leaders who focus on managing only their emotions miss the big picture, which is their team\u2019s emotional state. The current reality in many hospitals is understaffing, inefficiency and increasing performance demands on employees. Leaders can modulate workplace stress and anxiety by recognizing how deeply their actions impact their followers, both positively and negatively. When leaders are empathetic, they can use understanding to let followers know they are cared about and understood.<\/p>\n As stated earlier, leadership actions steer followership behaviors. Because the foundation for collaboration is built on trust, how do a leader\u2019s actions influence trust? It occurs when followers believe a leader\u2019s intentions are fair and truthful and that no hidden agenda exists. Those followers are willing to show vulnerability to their leaders. Vulnerability can be uncomfortable, and by exposing themselves, followers risk being emotionally hurt, judged or perceived as ineffective. However, when followers trust a leader, they believe the leader will make decisions that support their well-being and best interests.<\/p>\n Trust breaks down when:<\/p>\n How can leaders cultivate an environment of trust? Harvard Business Review<\/em> suggests three main drivers of trust: authenticity, logic and empathy.<\/p>\n Authenticity happens when people express their true selves at work and don\u2019t feel pressured to act differently. Being authentic means the traits and actions shared with the people closest to you (true self) are the same ones you share with those in work or social settings (public self). Some traits and actions are positive, while some can be hurtful. Authentic leaders understand that they must harness their good traits and use self-awareness to minimize those that could be demeaning to followers. An example is humor. We all appreciate a good laugh, but not when it comes at another person\u2019s expense.<\/p>\n An inauthentic leader sends a message to employees that the workplace is not a safe space to reveal who they really are. This leadership action results in followers being less willing to be vulnerable to the leader, which inhibits trust.<\/p>\n Authentic leaders enact and access their unique selves. They become strong role models for followers. Research has found that when people align their true selves with their actions, they experience a greater sense of meaning and purpose. This alignment positively impacts workplace satisfaction and engagement, reducing absenteeism and turnover.<\/p>\n Employees trust their leaders to make decisions that are in the team\u2019s best interests. When leaders are indecisive, lack follow-through or communicate poorly with followers, trust breaks down. To maintain trust, leaders must share the reasons for their decisions while using easily understood logic. Two ways that leaders can effectively communicate the why behind new ideas and changes are through storytelling and by starting with the main point.<\/p>\n Storytelling is a powerful tool to help team members understand why a change is needed, such as how pets or clients will benefit. Leaders should design their stories to be short, being careful that listeners don\u2019t get bogged down and miss the main point.<\/p>\n An alternative tactic is to start with the main point, or headline, and then explain the why. It could sound like this:<\/p>\n \u201cWe will be changing how we conduct team meetings. You have told us you find them too long and not a good use of your time. We will be using a new format, where an agenda will be posted with a variety of topics. The leadership team will choose two to cover in the meeting, and each of you will vote on other topics to decide what needs to be discussed. The top three ideas selected by the team will be added to the agenda. We will reevaluate how this is working after three months. Any questions?\u201d<\/p>\n Empathy is the ability to recognize and understand the emotional makeup of other people. A leader\u2019s expression of empathy conveys to team members that they are cared about and valued. Actively communicating empathy involves understanding and appreciating an employee\u2019s situation and then verbally reflecting it supportively. It might sound like, \u201cSue, I heard that you just had a scary experience and narrowly missed getting bitten. Thank goodness you weren\u2019t hurt. How do you feel?\u201d<\/p>\n What\u2019s a leader to do? To create a hospital workplace where employees want to stay, leaders must recognize the role of followers in the leadership process and acknowledge the symbiotic nature of the leader-follower dynamic. This strategy includes empowering employees to embrace and challenge both stability and change. In addition, leaders must be aware of their moods. They must understand how their words and actions can be positive influences, such as building trust, or have adverse outcomes, such as provoking anxiety and stress.<\/p>\n Now, more than ever, leaders should practice emotional intelligence and cultivate it in their followers through self-awareness and empathy.<\/p>\n To help manage stability, consider these two actions:<\/p>\n Change, which fosters adaptability, can be supported by the following leader actions:<\/p>\n For better or worse, the words and actions of those in charge directly influence the behavior of everyone else.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":78805,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"iawp_total_views":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[537],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-78803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-december-2025-january-2026","column-continuing-education","column-features","clinical_topics-practice-management"],"acf":{"hide_sidebar":false,"hide_sidebar_ad":false,"hide_all_ads":false},"yoast_head":"\nBuilding Trust as a Leader<\/h3>\n
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Authenticity<\/h3>\n
Logic<\/h3>\n
Empathy<\/h3>\n
\nOTHER PERSPECTIVES<\/span><\/h3>\n
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\nMORE ADVICE FOR LEADERS<\/span><\/h3>\n
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