• Recognize the difference between management and leadership.

• Discuss the various models used to conceptualize leadership.

• Understand what leaders do and how they think.

• Appreciate how leadership relates to working in veterinary practice.

The ‘Great Man’ approach

Up until the latter part of the twentieth century, leadership was thought of as a primarily male, military and Western concept. The Great Man approach is based on the belief that leaders are exceptional people, born with innate qualities, destined to lead. Their followers’ ‘undisputed’ deference to their superior status and innate brilliance entitles them to command members of the group to carry out their instructions without question in order to achieve their goals.

The trait approach

Traits are defined as habitual patterns of behaviour, thought and emotion (Kassin, 2003). This approach to understanding leadership evolved from the Great Man approach as a way of defining and identifying the personal characteristics which enable leaders to get people to work effectively together towards a common goal (Bass, 1990; Jago, 1982). Various researchers have identified a range of traits, and some of these are summarized in Table 4.1. Within the veterinary literature some authors have listed traits which they assert are critical to leadership and management within the veterinary context (Little, 2011; Sheridan and McCafferty, 1993); these are also included in Table 4.1.

The trait approach is intuitively appealing as it is tempting to conceptualize leaders as possessing specific talents that enable them to take charge and motivate themselves and others to do extraordinary things. This model is applied by identifying, recruiting and installing people with the ‘right’ traits into positions of command. This approach was common in the military. However, the weakness with the trait approach lies in the weakness of trait theories as a model for understanding and predicting how people behave in general (for a review see, for example, Dweck, 2000). Traditionally, trait models described people’s behaviour without explaining how those patterns of behaviour develop in the first place or how they might change (Costa and McCrae, 1994; Goldberg, 1990; McCrae and John, 1992). Many trait theorists assume our traits are rooted in our biology and, as such, they assert that we cannot change very much (Costa and McCrae, 1994; Eysenck, 1982; Loehlin, 1992). Trait theories of leadership therefore assume you either possess the right traits for the job or you do not. Traits are assessed using self-report psychometric questionnaires whereby participants ‘identify’ their own patterns of behaviour, thought and emotion by rating themselves against the questions asked. Self-report questionnaires have been criticized, however, as a very inaccurate method of identifying an individual’s actual talents. Similarly, trying to determine another person’s traits over a short period of time (such as during an interview) has also proven to be inaccurate. Furthermore, it has been known for some time that the presence or absence of many of the key traits listed in Table 4.1 does not predict how effective a person will be as a leader across a range of situations (Stogdill, 1948). Few veterinary organizations within the UK currently use formal psychometric profiling techniques to identify and recruit staff in general, and leaders in particular. This has led to a lack of empirical data with respect to determining the usefulness of traits as a model for leadership within the profession. However, in the author’s experience, most veterinary employers rely heavily on their own evaluation of a colleague’s ‘attitudes and traits’ when they are deciding whether someone is suitable for a leadership role such as partnership. This is understandable; it is difficult to ignore your gut instinct when evaluating other people. Recent advances in psychology, however, are shedding light on how traits evolve and even change. Over the past few decades more and more psychologists have challenged the assumption that we are born with a set of predetermined traits. For example, a branch of psychology called attribution theory has demonstrated that the ‘mindsets’ which determine our behaviour are much more learned (i.e. acquired) than had been originally assumed. It has been shown that people learn different reasons (or attributions) why certain events turned out as they did. Seligman and Maier (1967) have demonstrated how people ‘learn to become helpless’ when they assume, erroneously, that their circumstances are beyond their control. This is the basis of Seligman’s theory of learned helplessness. While this theory and others like it (Dweck, 2000) were originally focused on resilience and well-being, the view that many of our key ‘traits’ are learned, as opposed to genetic, is also being applied to leadership (see below). As a result, most researchers no longer ask ‘Can leadership be learned?’ Rather, they are asking ‘How is leadership learned?’

The skills approach

In contrast to the traits approach, the skills approach focuses on a leader’s areas of competence as opposed to their personality. Katz’s (1955) ‘three-skill’ model represents the classic approach to the skills-based theory of leadership and management. According to Katz, effective management and leadership depend on three essential areas of competence: technical, human and conceptual. Katz asserts that the relative importance of each varies between different management levels. For example, lower (or supervisory) managers require mainly technical and human skill; middle managers require a significant component of all three, whereas upper management levels require higher levels of conceptual and human skill. In other words, the higher the leadership position, the greater the challenge of getting members of the group to work effectively together towards a common goal. Leaders therefore need increasing levels of ‘human’ and ‘conceptual’ competences to address this challenge as their level of leadership increases. A key premise of Katz’s model is that since skills are ‘learned’ behaviours leadership is open to anyone motivated enough to develop the breadth of skills that enables them to get people to work together towards desirable future goals. This view is in contrast to the Great Man and earlier trait models, which assume leaders are a select group fortunate enough to be born with the right characteristics.

This model can be applied to both traditional veterinary practices and corporate groups. Assistant veterinary surgeons working in traditional independent practices often follow Katz’s model of leadership development as they progress towards partnership. For example, they may become the ‘core vet’ at a branch surgery when they take on sole-charge responsibilities. This could be likened to a lower-level management position whereby they are in charge of the day-to-day technical and service operations, without having a say in higher management decisions such as purchasing decisions, pricing or profit objectives. Leading a branch is a very useful training ground for partnership as it helps a vet ‘prove’ their technical competences as well as their ability to deal with common ‘people’ issues. ‘Common people issues’ in veterinary practice often means getting on with the range of personalities and skill sets that are commonly found within the practice as well as an ability to resolve common client complaints.

Middle managers are common in many corporate veterinary chains in the form of territory managers who oversee a group of practices. Middle managers represent a crucial link between the staff working at the customer interface and the ‘central’ corporate managers. They therefore require at least some understanding of clinical systems in order to understand the impact of changing operational protocols. They also require enough people skills to communicate effectively with the vets, nurses, receptionists and administrators. In order for corporate strategies to be understood, adopted and implemented successfully, middle managers also need a higher level of business management knowledge (conceptual skills) than lower-level managers. For example, they need to be able to read and produce budgets as well as have an understanding of how their behaviour affects other commercial objectives.

Top-level managers within corporate practices, however, require a much deeper understanding of the conceptual models, systems and strategies which are central to commercial enterprises, irrespective of the particular industry in which they happen to be working. Technical competences are therefore less important at this level because clinical matters will be managed by the veterinary surgeons in the practices. Instead, they need to be able to blend their conceptual knowledge with well-developed people skills in order to communicate, persuade and negotiate effectively with various stakeholders, especially financiers, key suppliers and the middle managers, with whom they work. Traditionally, an MBA (Masters in Business Administration) has been seen as the higher-level management qualification whereby aspiring upper-level managers learn these skills. It is, of course, possible to act as a senior executive in any organization without any formal business qualifications, as many self-made entrepreneurs have demonstrated.

While the skills model may help us understand which of the basic minimal competencies people in veterinary businesses need in order to be effective as managers within their organizations, it does not always follow that having these skills automatically results in effective team work in pursuit of a common goal. This is because the skills model does not address the impact of values and ethics within the organization. Indeed, it is entirely possible for two people with exactly the same skills and competencies to have entirely different opinions about a particular situation and the action that needs to be taken. For example, managers whose career progression depends on delivering good financial results may not always see eye to eye with veterinary clinical staff whose priority is to resolve clinical issues with less regard for profitability.