Tag: professional-development
-
Emotionally Intelligent Leadership Tool #7: The Containment Tool
How leaders hold emotion without fixing it One of the hardest things for leaders to learn is that support does not always mean solving. In caring professions like veterinary medicine, leaders are often drawn to the role because they want to help. They want to reduce suffering, make things better, and restore order when things…
-
Emotionally Intelligent Leadership Tool #5: The Boundary Tool
Why clear boundaries protect teams, not distance them Boundaries are often misunderstood in leadership. They get framed as cold, rigid, or unapproachable. Something that creates distance between leaders and teams. In caring professions like veterinary medicine, leaders may even avoid boundaries out of fear they’ll seem unsupportive or uncaring. In reality, boundaries are not about…
-
The Pillars of Leadership in Veterinary Medicine (and Why One Crack Affects Everything)
At its core, leadership has a simple purpose: To provide purpose, direction, and motivation. This definition is used across leadership disciplines, from organizational psychology to healthcare to military doctrine, because it captures what leadership is meant to do rather than what titles are meant to signal (Kotter, 1990; Northouse, 2022). In veterinary medicine, where work…
-
How Lean Six Sigma Can Be Applied to Veterinary Medicine (Without Losing the Human Side)
Lean Six Sigma is often misunderstood in veterinary medicine. It’s frequently associated with manufacturing, rigid productivity metrics, and pressure to do more with fewer people. In a profession built on care, ethics, and emotional labor, that association can feel deeply misaligned. But Lean Six Sigma, when applied correctly, is not about squeezing people. It is…
Heart and Mind VetMed 