Clive Elwood MA VetMB MSc MS (Ashridge) PhD FRCVS practised as a specialist in private practice for 20 years, including ten years as Managing Director of Davies Veterinary Specialists, before retraining as an executive coach. He holds a Masters in Executive Coaching from Ashridge Hult Business School and is a European Mentoring and Coaching Council Senior Practitioner. As the founder of Trellis Coaching and Consulting Ltd., Clive brings together understanding, empathy, warmth, curiosity, challenge, and support to his coaching – co-creating a safe space for his clients to think, feel and grow. In December 2021, his book, Leadership in Veterinary Medicine, was published through Wiley-Blackwell.
Please could you start by telling us what inspired you to write Leadership in Veterinary Medicine?
Leadership is such an important, but still relatively unexplored, consideration for the veterinary professions. It is fundamental to so many aspects of what we do, yet remains in our peripheral vision, often unrecognised or taken for granted. I had been interested in the concept of leadership as a personal and professional competence for some time and sought development and learning to support my own leadership growth and challenges. There was a space in the literature, and I felt that a book which combined my personal insights and experience, with what I had learned through my development as a coach, and modern concepts of leadership from other relevant arenas, such as human healthcare, could be helpful.
I enjoy researching and writing and was curious to delve deeper into the subject to make some sense of my own experiences and those of my coachees and colleagues. For me, serendipitously, it was a perfect lockdown project and an opportunity for me to give back to the profession which has given me so much.
The book starts off by stating that leadership as a discipline in the veterinary context has been relatively unexplored. Why do you think this may be?
Following the trajectory of Western thought, there has been a great emphasis on the science of veterinary medicine, on evidence, data, and testable concepts. As I explore in the book, however, leadership is socially constructed and context specific, making it difficult to assess objectively, for example by examination, where veterinary professionals are accustomed to performing. The veterinary professional identity can also emphasise problem solving through critical thinking and invests responsibility in the individual, de-emphasising connection from the relational, collective, and complex nature of leadership. In this sense I think we need to reclaim the art of veterinary medicine, not as something belittling or shameful, but complementary to the science, which provides context and nuance, and recognises ambiguity and complexity.
“Leadership is socially constructed and context specific, making it difficult to assess objectively”
The veterinary professions have been poorly resourced when it comes to engagement with humanities and social sciences. I am sure there are several reasons for this but the dominance of natural sciences and the demonstrable benefits to health care is an obvious one and links to the funding pathways for universities and colleges. I hope that this might change as larger veterinary concerns see the need for greater investment in research and training in veterinary social sciences, including leadership. There is certainly a need, with many compelling questions to explore.
You explain how leadership is a prerequisite of the job of a vet, or indeed any veterinary team member, but that waiting for leadership from designated authority can be disastrous. Please could you explain this concern further, and how teams may get around this issue?
Leadership is typically not a distant function; it is an interaction in the here-and-now. When we are actively engaged in an emergent situation, such as a tricky and complex clinical procedure on a living system, for example, there may be no time to wait for permission to act or even follow prescribed pathways not designed for the specific situation at hand. There are times when actions need to be taken swiftly and based on the best available assessment.
Teams that are practised, have good relationships, where members trust each other, where everyone has a voice, agency is shared, diversity celebrated and speaking up encouraged (i.e., are psychologically safe), can ensure the collective intelligence is brought to bear. Creating cultures which encourage these behaviours can be challenging, of course, but even simple measures, such as clinical teams introducing themselves by name and role before starting procedures, may be helpful. The wider leadership function should be looking to develop the culture, behaviours and expectations that support these principles.
It could be suggested that leadership qualities are stereotypically masculine, with the ‘softer’ skills, such as empathy, overlooked. What would you say to this, and do you think this stereotype may potentially make leadership off-putting to some?
Conceptions of leadership that are derived from military and early industrial contexts fit into hierarchical, mechanistic, command and control structures and typically promote behaviours such as unilateral decision making, projected confidence, unemotional reasoning, and a focus on productivity as desirable. These identify as more typically masculine.
This formulation of leadership risks selection for psychopathy and narcissism, of which many examples abound. A sense of invulnerability, enabled by many factors, is not good for leadership, shutting down feedback and productive debate, and inhibits psychological safety. Masculine stereotypes are, I believe, often unhelpful when faced with nuanced, complex, and ambiguous challenges where feminism, with core values of equality, agency, ‘power with’, whole humanness, inter-independence, and generativity is much more powerful and relevant. (I recommend Feminism: A Key Idea for Business and Society by Celia V. Harquail for a deeper discussion.)
Traits such as empathy, emotional intelligence and compassion do not fit with traditional leadership stereotypes. Complex situations are not amenable to dissection; and may only be understood intuitively, emotions provide insight and motivation and are part of our common humanity. Care work, emotional labour and relational activity are essential for functioning communities, and can readily be conceived as leadership, but are often under-recognised and under-rewarded. I include many aspects of veterinary care in this assessment. Those who perform this work are often under-valued and disadvantaged and it is often tacitly assumed that the work itself is its own reward.
Unfortunately, many reward and recognition systems remained based on competitive factors and hierarchy; in many scenarios the ‘masculine’ is individually beneficial and presenting one’s whole self to scrutiny and judgement can be risky and lead to deep harm in many contexts. There is a choice for those that do not fit the mould; either adopt behaviours and ways of being that fit the expected stereotype at whatever cost, fight hard (not always realistic) to change the system, or decline to engage.
It is critical we do face these challenges, in the veterinary professions and beyond. Look where competitive, exclusive, production and consumption focussed behaviours have led the world.
Statistics show that 61 per cent of those working within the veterinary profession are women, yet a far greater proportion of men work in practice director, principal, or partner roles. What do you think the profession could do to rectify this gender imbalance in leadership?
Firstly, let’s celebrate some of the progress that has been made in the veterinary professions with, for example, the first all-female RCVS Presidential team. Celebrating the growing number of female role models, both in our institutions and our direct experience, gives hope that the structures and systems which have been built by men can be negotiated by women, for the moment, and that this can lead to deeper systemic change and create new and equitable opportunities. Senior women leaders who mentor women to face these challenges whilst ‘keeping the ladder down’, and male allies who recognise the critical importance of female (and ‘feminine’) leadership for our future flourishing are vital.
Individuals and organisations must also recognise and respond to the potential for biases – unconscious and conscious – that may be individual or systemic. This will include appropriate training and adaptation of processes around recruitment, development and recognition.
The perceived workload, stress and responsibility of individual leadership roles can be off-putting, as can the distraction from areas of professional expertise where we feel comfortable and competent. We need to create new systems to share the burdens and challenges of leadership for all genders. We need to re-frame ‘success’ and not tie it so tightly to age-based way points, for example, or to hierarchical roles. We might accept that career breaks for whatever reason, but including parental and caring responsibilities, do not indicate a lack of ambition or capability and might, in fact, enhance someone’s perspective and leadership capacity. We should support those who wish to re-enter both the workplace and leadership later in their working life.
“I predict there will be a combination of revolution and evolution that brings about change.”
I am beginning to recognise the many privileges I enjoyed in my career which stemmed from my gender. Our design legacy (physical and systems/processes) fits male and ‘masculine’ archetypes much better than female and ‘feminine’. For these to change many things need to happen but include, for example, men stepping back e.g., refusing to participate in ‘Manels’ and actively addressing differing needs. Workplace reward systems that select for ‘masculine’ traits such as competitiveness, and measurable productivity/success, need to be re-assessed to include significant, but often unrewarded, activities such as relational, facilitative, and caring functions.
Meaningful changes may not come about through controlled and proactive design. I suspect that, as new models emerge and where there is a competition for talent and multi-level selection, the fittest organisations and their strategies will survive, disseminate and flourish. I predict there will be a combination of evolution and revolution that brings about change.
As an inherent optimist, however, I see the potential for the veterinary professions to exemplify different leadership models for broader arenas, e.g., human healthcare, and to develop new possibilities for the future. These things take time and mistakes will be made, but it is better to try, fail, learn, and improve incrementally than give up!
You are the founder of Trellis Coaching and Consulting, in your experience as a leadership coach, do you find that more women than men experience imposter syndrome? And what advice would you have for someone doubting their abilities?
I am not sure I have the experience to make a valid judgement, but it does seem that women may, at least, be more open to recognising and admitting experiences of imposter phenomenon. I am sure men experience it too, when contemplating writing a book, for example, I had to overcome feelings of ‘I am not good enough.’, ‘Why would anyone want to read a book written by me?’ and ‘What if it (and by implication, ‘I’) is criticised?’. Even Tony Blair admits, in his autobiography, to experiencing feelings of being an imposter!
I cannot speak for the lived experience of young girls but there remain visibly obvious differences in societal expectations of girls versus boys, and women versus men. Boys are encouraged, trained, and selected to show confidence, even bravado, to suppress feelings, to be selfish and competitive. Men, therefore, may be less in touch with, or expressive of, feelings in face of perceived inadequacy such as imposter phenomenon, as well as deeper anxieties. In organisations designed by men for men, however, which boys (but not girls) are developed to fit, it is much more likely that women might feel they do not belong. This is not a failing on their part!
For all of us experiencing feelings of being an imposter, in the face of doubt, it is important to accept that this is not just normal but a good thing which gives pause to reflect and sense-check our plans. Do reflect on your personal history and notice what you have managed to achieve so far. Try to overcome our natural negativity bias and recognise your positive contributions. Perhaps talk with a coach, mentor, or friend to see yourself in other people’s eyes. And do not look at someone else and assume it is as easy for them as it may appear. Most of us are swans paddling furiously beneath the surface.
Finally, recognise what matters to you. Leadership is needed everywhere.
You talk about ‘good enough’ leadership in Leadership in Veterinary Medicine. Please could you describe what you mean by this and why it is so important?
Good enough means not perfect.
Perfectionism and procrastination are natural bedfellows. The painful shame that can come from feeling inadequate when you have previously met all expectations to ‘be the best’ may only be avoided by expending excessive energy and attention on attempting to create perfection or, alternatively, avoiding the possibility of judgment altogether.
When a situation is complex and volatile, however, there is no perfect. What may seem ideal from one perspective may be unsatisfactory from another or may be rapidly changing. To understand the system, we need to dance with it; waiting for the ideal moment or the optimum conditions inhibits action, interaction and progress. Accepting that different views and experiences are valid, and that there is not one right way, helps to harness the power of the collective. It is better to be in there reacting, failing fast, and moving forwards.
Being good enough also allows room for you and those around you to grow. Perfectionism demands control, leading to lack of delegation, micro-management, blaming, shaming and a fear of failure. Accepting good enough recognises effort and intent whilst encouraging a growth mindset and continuous improvement.
To accept being good enough means developing the internal and external resources needed to support you through the discomfort of uncertainty and being out of control; these are functions of self-leadership.
Finally, what is the best piece of advice you have ever been given?
Basically, versions of ‘Don’t be so hard on yourself!’. My first coach, Jackie Staunton, was adept at making me step to one side and see my inner critic beating me up. Consequently, I have worked very hard to develop self-compassion (feeling I am good enough) and, through this, feel much better resourced to be compassionate with others.
Leadership in Veterinary Medicine, by Clive Elwood is available through Wiley-Blackwell.
For exclusive access to more stories like this, subscribe to our monthly newsletter
You may also like:
Learning from life with Clive Elwood