Report: significant work required to help veterinary leaders

A new report has concluded there are “significant opportunities for strengthening” the veterinary sector from doing more to enhance the knowledge and skills of its leaders.

Veterinary Management Group (VMG) officials hope the paper, which will be formally unveiled at its annual congress this week, will be the starting point for a greater focus on the issue across the professions.

Junior vice-president Liz Somerville said: “I think we have a responsibility to help them and have the right support and training in place to do it.”

The report is based on more than 400 submissions made via an online self-assessment tool that accompanies the VMG’s Veterinary Leadership Standards Framework.

Results

Overall, 46% of respondents rated their current level of leadership knowledge and skills as intermediate, with 34% saying basic, 19% advanced and 1% expert.

But the proportion putting themselves under the basic rating rose to 62% among early career leaders and 92% of respondents in the starting or aspiring leadership category.

The report said: “The data collected in this exercise suggests a professional leadership with pride in its professional values, displaying key strengths in interpersonal skills, regulatory compliance, mental health and well-being support, and advocacy in particular.

“However, it also suggests significant opportunities for strengthening the sector through the development of knowledge, skills and behaviours in a number of key areas – most notably around strategic development and planning, leading innovation, and the use of theoretical models and data.”

Worked needed

Mrs Somerville acknowledged the figures demonstrated more work was needed and described the analysis indicating gaps in participants’ knowledge of strategic and financial issues as “really quite concerning”.

The report found that a little more than half of respondents (50.25%) said they understood how to assess financial performance either “a little” or “not at all”, with the same responses accounting for 61.46% of responses relating to different strategic planning models.

Meanwhile, 37% of all respondents felt they regularly contributed to advancing the field of veterinary leadership and the report also highlighted gaps between roles on specific issues.

How to motivate

Although 50% of practice managers said they understood how to motivate others either completely or very well, that proportion dropped to 22% among head and senior nurses.

Mrs Somerville did not believe those figures justified the development of separate leadership training paths for entrants from clinical and non-clinical backgrounds respectively, arguing that such an approach risked the development of a “them and us” mentality.

But she does think a formal requirement is needed for staff in leadership positions to undertake at least some non-clinical CPD and suggested the recent Competition and Markets Authority review may also have highlighted a lack of understanding of business issues within the profession.

‘Bigger conversation’

However, while she acknowledged that some universities are now doing more to address the issue in their programmes, Mrs Somerville said “a bigger conversation” involving more stakeholders, including the RCVS, was now required, adding that a ”joined-up effort on everyone’s part” was needed.

The report will be discussed during the first day of VMG Congress, which is taking place at the Crowne Plaza Stratford-upon-Avon from Thursday (25 April).