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In this day and age, staffing in our veterinary profession can be a struggle at times. When clinics lack leadership personnel in their infrastructure, the result can be utter chaos. Deciding how to build up leaders in your practice when your practice is lacking in leaders, as well as structure, can be challenging. Letting people learn to lead and learning to accept their faults as a leader is a growth process.

Risks of a leaderless environment

If your clinic is lacking in leadership, developing a plan on how to build up the leaders in your clinic should be a number one priority in your life.  There are direct and indirect impacts to having less leadership in your clinic than what is ideal. Some direct impacts of not having structured leadership are gossip, turnover, stress on current team members, and a negative culture.

Gossip tends to run rampant when there are no cultural guidelines on how to treat your co-workers. Mutual respect is lacking and if anything, ignored. As we all know, gossip can be hurtful and just simply mean. With no one in charge of making sure the practice is running smoothly, things tend not to be as well organized, and the flow of the practice overall can be impacted. Staff, while they do want to have their freedom, realize that some structure and management interaction is crucial to helping them be successful. Current staffing may also experience an increase in overall stress as they could be shorthanded if staff leave due to unhappiness. Overall, a negative culture can be created due to lack of leadership. Things not running smoothly or short staffing due to a result of many different things just add to an overall unwelcoming environment.

Indirect impacts, those that occur later in time but are foreseeable in the future include a lack of knowledge of ideals that can lead to frustration, staff stress as a result of a lack of overall guidance, chaotic workflow and a unfortunate decrease in your clinic's profit. While there are several things that can be impacted by lack of leadership, those that have the greatest influence on us overall are those that tend to be the most worrisome.

Who is doing what? What needs to happen next? When does it need to be done? Why? A general lack of knowledge regarding the mission of the practice can lead to questions that go unanswered. When those questions are unanswered, unrest brews and will boil over. Staff get stressed when the chaos begins and do not tend to stop. Guidance of some sort is needed to have a workflow that is beneficial to your patients, your clients, and your employees. A lack of guidance goes hand in hand with unorganized workflow and can also lead to a decrease in the practice's overall profit.

Reducing chaos in a crisis-filled job

In our profession of veterinary medicine, we may be viewed as being in a crisis situation with a seemingly never-ending lack of veterinarians and credentialed veterinary technicians. When we sit back and think on it, one may agree that this has been going on for quite a while. We have those days in practice where we feel the lack of support staff. Is it just veterinarians and credentialed veterinary technicians? Is your practice missing a leader? Who is steering your ship? No one? Someone you think you can do a better job than? Do you have an idea of how to lead in your practice? Do you want to?

Many in the field are in the profession for the love of the animals. We want to care for them, heal them, and give them better lives. Right? Or does your why have a deeper meaning to you? What does the rest of our profession think? Are you alone in your thoughts? Most likely not. You, along with your support staff, are a crucial part of what impacts our ability to provide good patient outcomes.

Status for CVTs

Credentialed veterinary technicians have the world at their fingertips these days. There are several areas within the profession for us to work in. We can choose to work in general practice, emergency medicine, academia, or research. Do you want to go for the gold? You can consider getting your veterinary technician specialty degree. There are several areas that you may be interested in specializing. You can also move with the shift of your career as you mature professionally and become a consultant. A good mind is a valuable thing in our profession. Newly recognized positions involve working remotely for poison control, tele-triage and even working as a scribe to help a busy practice with their medical records.

Working on the floor as a CVT comes with its own pros and cons. As we age, our bodies do not tend to bounce back as well as they used to. The days are seemingly longer and longer. The physical demands of our jobs can take its toll. We are hearing more and more about compassion fatigue and burnout. Some of us have experienced this ourselves, while others know friends and coworkers who have struggled. Or have you hit your ceiling in your practice? Do you want more? Do you feel like you are missing something in your life?

CVTs who work in a lead or management position do not always have it easier. Shifting from a working on the floor position to a lead or hospital manager position can be just what you are looking for or one's own worse nightmare. As an employee, what changes for you as you move "up the ladder" in your practice? Is it really a promotion? Your world shifts and you lose friends but gain coworkers. Does it balance itself out in the end? Who loses? Or do you experience a change that improves your overall quality of life in addition to your pay structure?

In some states, it is legal for a CVT to own a veterinary clinic. This can change your prospective on your professional life, and improve your personal and financial life. It may be the best thing that has ever happened to you, or the worst. It could bring with it the headache of business ownership or could be a positive thing that causes to you to view your career as you are taking things to the next level. There may be financial benefits that are huge or just minimal ones that keep things afloat at home. Being a practice owner pulls you into more of the financial and actual business side of your practice. It allows you to see your role in the practice from a different view and may open your eyes to things that you were not aware of before.

As we all know, there are CVTs who were created to be leaders and those who have no business leading a team or a practice. Everyone in our profession has a skill set that makes them unique. While all amazing, not everyone is created equal. Being a leader is not all it is cracked up to be. But one cannot lead a ship alone. They need a crew to help them.

Create growth opportunities

We need to think how we can help our team members grow. What can we do to help them flourish? What was not afforded to us to help make us successful? What would you do differently to help them achieve their goals? Set up a time to chat with your team members. A one-on-one meeting goes a long way with someone to show your interest in them as a person, and it helps you get to know them professionally. How do they see themselves growing in the clinic? What do they want to do? What are their goals? Can you help facilitate this for them? Talk about how you can or cannot do this. What if you cannot help? Do you have a resource for them that can?

Can you create leadership positions for those that want to grow in your practice? Sometimes that requires thinking outside of the box. Not all leaders have skills that fit into perfect boxes. To make those positions for the people that want to grow you must be creative. Growth comes from thinking and working outside the box. To fit both your needs and those of your employee, you must think about what you need, the skills they have, and the skills they may be lacking. Where do you see them excelling in your practice? Where do they see themselves excelling? Are you on the same page, or are you in totally different parts of the book? You may need to think about opening doors with opportunities that may not be immediately present at the time.

When structuring your leadership team, whether it be yourself and one other person or a group, set up meetings to check in and see how things are going. Make sure your team has the support they need and be available to them if needed. Then, sit back and let the magic happen. Lead and mentor your team; do not micromanage. Give your team training resources. Things you think can help them will most likely benefit them in some way. Books, webinars, podcasts; the learning tools available are endless.

Give your group a time frame with expectations of when things need to be done. Be realistic about what is needed to complete the tasks at hand. Explain to them what you are looking for and what your desired outcome will be. Get the opinion of the group. Ask them what they want to see happen. Check-ins need to happen on a regular basis. Whether weekly or monthly, you decide what works best for your team. Are follow ups needed? Absolutely. Allow your leads to bring ideas to the table and talk about them together. Discuss solutions and possible roadblocks. Be prepared to discuss the reality of the ideas and what can happen in your practice.

How leaders help you

Use your leaders to help you keep a finger on the pulse of your practice on a day-to-day basis. They can help to clue you in to what is happening and what you need to know or do not need to know. Can your leadership also help you with staff issues? Do you want them to? Do they want to? Could a leader turn into an assistant manager? Or a manager?

Think about how your team can benefit from these new leaders who are being put in place. How will this help your team improve overall? It will bring new perspectives to the surface and allow fresh ideas to be entertained. This will help your team to see that you are open to new things. Look at how this will help your emerging leaders to grow personally and professionally. You growing them should be your goal in the end.

Helping spread the workload is an invaluable result. This will allow you to focus on what you need to get done yourself. Your work-life balance will improve and give you time to pursue new activities that may not have been able to have a place in your life before.

Should you compensate your leaders for taking on more responsibilities in your practice? Is this needed? Absolutely yes, 100 percent. Your team is valuable. Their time is priceless. Let them know you recognize that. How you compensate them is important. Know your team and find out their why. What is beneficial to them? Money is not everything. Look at other options. PTO, increasing CE allowances, bonuses, etc.

When the wrong decisions are made, how do you react? Do you let go? Do you step in and fix the mistake? Should you? What is best for everyone? Set up parameters to help with this. It is going to happen at some point. Let them learn and grow. Let them fail and be stronger for their mistakes. Go with the flow. It is difficult to do. Accepting that your team may not make the same decision as you would is very difficult to wrap your head around sometimes.

Let go. Accept the change. It will all work itself out in the end. Is it worth it to help develop new leaders? Yes!

Jamie Rauscher is a licensed veterinary technician at a 24/7 GP/ER practice in Atlanta. She has been at this practice for more than 20 years and is part owner of the practice, as well as the medical manager. She is the current president of NAVTA and the vice president of the Georgia Veterinary Technician and Assistant Association. Her interests in include anesthesia, pain management, emergency and critical care, as well as hospice and palliative care.