TOCPraxis Spring 2026

Praxis

Volume 2, Issue 1 Spring 2026

Magazine

OUR PROMISE Advancing leadership excellence across healthcare, veterinary medicine, and practice management

LEADERSHIP STRATEGY Inspiring Leaders Through Adaptive Thinking, Purposeful Integrity, and Lifelong Growth in High-Stakes Professional Environments

MURTAUGH

DVM, MS, DACVIM, DACVECC, FCCM, FNAP

WHERE LEADERSHIP LIVES

Praxis

F O R H E A LT H C A R E L E A D E R S W H O W R I T E

Magazine

YOUR EXPERTISE HAS A SHELF LIFE IF IT STAYS UNWRITTEN. Praxis Magazine is hunting for bold voices on leadership—and we think yours belongs in our Spring and Summer 2026 issues. We're not looking for fluff. We want the hard-won insights. The lessons that left a mark. The ideas keeping leaders up at night in 2026.

SUBMIT YOUR ARTICLE TODAY

editor@praxisleadership.org

WHERE LEADERSHIP LIVES For Human & Veterinary Healthcare Professionals www.praxisleadership.org

Letter from Letter From

the Publisher

The Publisher Bob Murtaugh, DVM, MS, DACVIM, DACVECC, FCCM, FNAP

Dear Distinguished Colleagues and Esteemed Readership, As the revitalizing spirit of spring unfolds, I write to you with immense gratitude and a renewed sense of collective purpose. The extraordinary trajectory of Praxis Magazine continues to affirm what we have believed from our inception: that healthcare leadership is not a solitary endeavor confined to corner offices and boardrooms, but a living, breathing discipline that flourishes when it is openly shared, intentionally learned, and deliberately cultivated across every tier of our organizations.

The remarkable engagement from our readership and the intellectual generosity of our contributing authors have transformed this publication into far more than a periodical. Praxis has become a dynamic forum - a convergence point where seasoned executives, emerging administrators, clinical innovators, and frontline practitioners come together to exchange the hard-won wisdom that only authentic leadership experience can produce. Your participation in this community validates a fundamental truth: exceptional leadership acumen is never inherited in isolation. It is transmitted through mentorship, sharpened through interdisciplinary collaboration, and refined through the courageous willingness to both teach and be taught.

Spring, by its very nature, invites us to embrace new beginnings - and in healthcare leadership, new beginnings carry profound consequences. Every strategic pivot, every reimagined care delivery model, every freshly empowered team represents a consequential inflection point for the patients and communities we serve. This season, we challenge our readers to approach leadership not as a fixed credential but as a perpetual apprenticeship, one in which the most effective leaders remain devoted students of their craft, drawing insight from disciplines as varied as behavioral science, operational engineering, health equity research, and humanistic philosophy.

The principle that successful leadership acumen is shared speaks to the indispensable architecture of collective intelligence. No single administrator, veterinarian and physician leader, or nursing executive possesses the complete constellation of competencies required to navigate the breathtaking complexity of modern healthcare. The leaders who achieve transformational, measurable outcomes are those who democratize strategic thinking - who create institutional cultures where insight flows freely across departmental boundaries, where data-driven decision-making is not hoarded but distributed, and where every voice that touches the patient experience is afforded genuine influence in shaping organizational direction.

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Praxis Magazine • Spring 2026

That leadership acumen is learned underscores an equally vital reality: the veterinary and human healthcare landscape of 2026 bears scant resemblance to the environment in which many of today’s senior leaders were originally trained. Regulatory frameworks evolve with increasing velocity, technological disruption introduces both extraordinary promise and unforeseen ethical complexities, and patient populations present ever more intricate clinical and social determinant challenges.

Continuous professional development - structured, rigorous, and reflective - is not an optional supplement to leadership; it is its very foundation. We must commit ourselves to learning with the same discipline and urgency we bring to patient care itself.

And that leadership acumen is cultivated reminds us that growth requires intentional stewardship.

Like the season that inspires this issue, genuine leadership development demands patience, nourishment, and an unwavering faith in what is yet to emerge. The organizations that will define healthcare excellence in the coming decade are those investing today in mentorship pipelines, succession planning frameworks, and psychologically safe environments where aspiring leaders are given permission to innovate, to fail constructively, and to rise with greater wisdom and resilience.

Yet perhaps the most instructive revelation of mature leadership is this: even the most accomplished, seasoned executive can only truly lead by empowering others. The experienced leader who has navigated decades of organizational complexity arrives, inevitably, at a profound recognition - that sustainable excellence is never the product of a single commanding presence, but of a carefully constructed ecosystem of capable, inspired individuals moving in concert toward a common mission.

This demands an intimate understanding of one’s own compassion, a disciplined cultivation of empathy, and an honest reckoning with one’s limitations. The leader who understands where their expertise ends and another’s begins does not diminish their authority; they multiply it exponentially.

Building a great team is not ancillary to leadership - it is the highest expression of it. When we assemble diverse talent, invest in their professional growth, entrust them with genuine responsibility, and create the conditions in which emerging leaders are identified, nurtured, and elevated, we ensure that the practice of cultivating leaders is embedded in the very DNA of our institutions. It is within the architecture of a well-built team that leadership is not merely exercised but perpetuated - passed forward as a living legacy from one generation of healthcare stewards to the next.

In this Spring issue, our distinguished contributors explore these themes with characteristic depth and intellectual rigor. You will encounter perspectives that challenge prevailing orthodoxies, frameworks designed for immediate implementation, and narratives that remind us why we chose this extraordinary vocation. From adaptive leadership in post-pandemic care models to the cultivation of health equity through inclusive governance, each article has been curated to equip you with actionable insight and renewed inspiration.

As we step into this season of renewal, I extend a heartfelt invitation: share what you are learning.

Mentor with intentionality. Seek out the perspectives that differ most from your own. Submit your leadership insights to our pages so that others may benefit from your experience. The promise of Praxis has always been that leadership lives not in abstraction but in practice - in the deliberate, daily decisions that accumulate into organizational transformation and, ultimately, into the exceptional patient-centered outcomes our communities deserve.

With profound respect and anticipation for all that lies ahead,

Praxis Magazine • Spring 2026

Bob

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Spring 2026 • Volume 2, Issue 1

Contents Praxis Magazine

04 PUBLISHER’S LETTER

10

08 Editor’s Note

Education 18 Interprofessional as a Leadership Strategy

10

Brian Sick, MD, MHA, FACP, FNAP

Every Leader Can Destroy Culture. Here’s a Simple Way to Prevent It

22

Simon Sinek

It Was Meant to Be Bob Lester, DVM

Rethinking Work-Life Balance: A Leadership Perspective Marie Holowaychuk, DVM, Dipl. ACVECC

14

27 SENTENTIAE 50

28

Orientation Over Acceleration: Leadership in an Age of Capability Mark de Wolde, DVM, MRCVS www.praxisleadership.org

Spring 2026

WHERE LEADERSHIP LIVES

32 How to Lead by Serving David Park, DO, FAAFP, FACOFP dist.

Learning From a Great Leader Marshall Goldsmith, PhD

36

36

Dr. Marshall Goldsmith the Thinkers50 #1 Executive Coach and New York Times bestselling author

54

40

The Leadership Future Has Four Paws Two Wings and a Pulse Steven L May, Certified Veterinary Journalist

The Intersection of Life and Work: How Much Can Your Cup Hold?

Stacy Anderson, DVM, PhD, DACVS-LA

62 Leadership Begins at the Dinner Table Steven L May, CVJ, VRCE

66

Communicating with Impact: Key Lessons for Leaders.

Elizabeth Riordan, MBA, ACC

The Leaders Bookshelf

42

“The Need to Read”

68 SENTENTIAE

46 Principals of Communication: A Guide for Change Management Harmony Butler, CVBL, CCFP

50

Leadership Trafficking

A Growing Crisis in Medicine and Veterinary Practice Bob Murtaugh, DVM, MS, DACVIM, DACVECC, FCCM, FNAP

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Praxis Magazine

Editor’s Note this issue is

Dedicated to family, dedicated to my dauther Steven L May, CVJ, VRCE, EMT(ret)

Dear Readers, Contributors, and Fellow Healthcare Leaders, Welcome to Spring 2026 — a season of renewal, purpose, and possibility for all of us devoted to the healing professions.

This issue is one I hold close to my heart. Within these pages you will find the collective wisdom of remarkable people who refused to keep their knowledge to themselves. To every contributor who brought their expertise and lived experience to these pages — thank you. What you gave will reach further than you know.

I am equally thrilled to welcome our newest writers to this publication. Your perspective is not a footnote to this conversation — it is the future of it. Fresh eyes on enduring challenges is exactly what this community needs. Welcome. You belong here.

This spring, we harness the genuine pleasure of Healthcare Leadership. Leadership in medicine is not reserved for those with titles. It is answered by every clinician who mentors a colleague, every practitioner who advocates for a patient, every veterinarian who says — we can do this better. There is real joy in leading with purpose, and we celebrate that unapologetically throughout every page ahead.

On a personal note, I bring up One Health — the truth that human, animal, and environmental health are not separate conversations, but one. Physicians and veterinarians who collaborate across disciplines, who see the patient as part of a larger living ecosystem system, are among the most important leaders of our time. One Health is not a trend. It is the most honest description of what healthcare has always been.

To every leader in human medicine and veterinary medicine represented here — you are not just improving systems. You are changing lives, careers, and the culture of how care is delivered. That is a legacy worth honoring.

Now I turn to you...the reader. Do not simply read these pages. Be the leader who shares.

Share your experience with the colleague finding their footing.

Share your strength with the student who doesn't yet see what they carry.

Share your hope with the next generation watching how we move through this work.

The greatest thing we can offer the future is not a perfect system — it is a generation of leaders supported by mentorship, that growth never stops and that service is its own reward.

Thank you for reading. Thank you for leading.

With gratitude, pride, and unshakable optimism, 8

Praxis Magazine • Spring 2026

Steven

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Simon Sinek Every Leader Can Destroy Culture. Here’s a Simple Way to Prevent It “As leaders, we have no right to take our leftovers to people,” said Garry Ridge.

Leftovers. It’s the perfect word for that negative energy we sometimes carry as leaders from one interaction to the next. The frustrating conversation that still echoes in our head when we show up to our next meeting. The disappointing news we haven’t quite processed. The rough morning we haven’t shaken off.

Garry Ridge knows a lot about the impact what’s going in an a leader’s mind can ripple throughout a culture. He was obsessed with culture for the 25 years he led WD-40. And whatever he figured out, worked.

Under his leadership, WD-40 grew from $300 million to $3.5 billion in market value while sustaining an extraordinary 93% employee engagement rate. That’s more than success. That’s creating a culture where people choose to bring their whole hearts to work.

simonsinek.com 10 Praxis Magazine • Spring 2026

Simon Sinek’s Optimism Company

Garry did a live Q&A with our Optimism Library subscribers where he shared perspective about what it takes to be the leader we wish we had.

“We are just these humble human beings bumbling our way down this pathway of life, and in the bushes are these thieves that come and grab us”—envy, anger, impatience, all those forces that pull us away from who we truly want to be. “For a minute we might feel okay in those bushes, but if we don’t remind ourselves to get out and get back on that bumbling path, we’ll never get to our destination.”

This is about more than being kind, though kindness matters deeply. This is also about performance, about building something that lasts. Scientists call it “emotional contagion,” the reality that a leader’s mood inexorably ripples outward, shaping individual performance, team dynamics, and ultimately, results.

(Recent research from MIT Sloan Management Review reveals that leaders everywhere often amplify workplace stress rather than absorb it. A recent analysis published in The Leadership Quarterly confirmed what all too many of us have felt before – leader stress creates an enormous drain on the cognitive and emotional resources of entire organizations, making it harder for everyone to do their best work.)

But here’s the beautiful part: we can choose a different path.

Garry’s Simple Practice That Changes Everything Garry carried something with him for all 25 years: a small card that he attached to the cover of his notebook with a single question: “Am I being the person I want to be right now?”

Below that question lived his list: “grateful, caring, empathetic, reasonable, listener, fact-based, balanced, curious, learner, throws sunshine not shadow.”

Before walking into meetings, during difficult moments, or when he felt himself getting pulled off course, he’d glance at it. If the answer was no, the list below reminded him of the path back. This was his simple way of catching himself before he carried frustration from one conversation into the next, before he let a bad morning become someone else’s bad day.

Your Turn Imagine what corporate cultures would be like if more of us created our own version of Garry’s practice.

What if, throughout our day, we ask ourselves: “Am I being the person I want to be right now?”

simonsinek.com Praxis Magazine • Spring 2026

Simon Sinek’s Optimism Company 11

Try it. Also write down the qualities that define the leader you aspire to be.

Keep it somewhere you’ll see it—on your notebook, your desk, your phone’s lock screen. Before walking into a meeting, glance at it. Before responding to a difficult email, take a look. When you feel a bad moment threatening to spill into someone else’s day, pause and read it.

No leader is perfect. We can’t get it right every time. This is about intention, about consciously choosing who we want to be, moment by moment.

The people we lead don’t expect us to be perfect. They expect us to want to be present. To care about what kind of leader we want to be. They want the best we have to offer…not our leftovers.

Bad leaders care about who’ right.

Good leaders care about what’s right.

Reprinted article from simonsinek.com

12 Praxis Magazine • Spring 2026

Simon is a spark that ignites passion and ideas. He envisions a world in which the vast majority of people wake up every single morning inspired, feel safe wherever they are, and end the day fulfilled by the work they do. As an unshakeable optimist, he believes in our ability to build this world together.

A trained ethnographer, Simon is fascinated by the people and organizations that make the greatest and longest lasting impact. Over the years, he has discovered some remarkable patterns about how they think, act, and communicate, and also the environments in which people operate at their natural best.

Simon may be best known for his TED Talk on the concept of WHY, which has been viewed over 60 million times, and his video on millennials in the workplace—which reached 80 million views in its first week and has gone on to be seen hundreds of millions of times.

He continues to share inspiration through his bestselling books, including global bestseller Start with WHY and New York Times bestsellers Leaders Eat Last and The Infinite Game, as well as his podcast, A Bit of Optimism. In addition, Simon is the founder of The Optimism Company, a leadership learning and development company, and he publishes other inspiring thinkers and doers through his publishing partnership with Penguin Random House called Optimism Press.

His unconventional and innovative views on business and leadership have attracted international attention, and he has met with a broad array of leaders and organizations in nearly every industry. He frequently works with different branches of the US Armed Forces and agencies of the US government, and is an adjunct staff member with the RAND Corporation—one of the most highly regarded think tanks in the world.

Simon is also active in the arts and with not-for-profit work, or what he likes to call the for-impact sector.

In 2021, he founded The Curve: a diverse group of forward-thinking chiefs and sheriffs committed to reform modern policing from the inside-out. Their purpose is to build a profession dedicated to protecting the vulnerable from harm while advancing a vision of a world in which all people feel justice is administered with dignity, equity, and fairness.

Reprinted article from simonsinek.com

To learn and find out more, visit simonsinek.com Praxis Magazine • Spring 2026

13

By Bob Lester, DVM

It Was Meant to Be

By Bob Lester, DVM

As I and millions of fellow baby boomers begin to see more of life in the rearview mirror than out the windshield, I often find myself reflecting: Have I served my family well, did I give back to the profession I dearly love, and where the hell are my glasses?

It’s become abundantly clear that the dominant force in our society is now millennials. I’m pretty happy about that. Millennials, and the Gen Z’ers right behind them, are incredibly smart, tech savvy, adaptable, open to change, idealistic, sincere in their desire to leave the planet better than they found it, collaborative, and perhaps best of all, crazy about their fur babies.

In my work and home environment, I am surrounded by brilliant millennials and Gen Z’ers. I’ve been blessed with two great daughters (a millennial and a Gen Z) and am blessed to work in a profession whose majority workforce, and now dominant consumer, is younger than me. They are a constant source of inspiration, energy and ideas.

However, in my leadership circles, boards and groups that largely steer our profession’s ship, I am surrounded largely by wonderful people, but people who look a lot like me, an old, fat white guy.

14 Praxis Magazine • Spring 2026

The Killer Whale rules the ocean not through solitary strength, but through the power of its pod, moving with precision and unity. A true leader understands that greatness is never achieved alone — it is forged through trust, communication, and an unwavering commitment to the success of the whole.

Anyone with a pulse in the profession is aware that for all that’s right with veterinary medicine, diversity is not among them. I’m not qualified to address many of the dimensions of diversity, but I will take a stab at generational diversity.

I love coaching and mentoring new and recent graduates. During my time as a professor, I took great joy in teaching and learning from the brilliant young minds that will soon lead our profession. As a clinician, I’m never happier than when I have a veterinary or nursing student shadow me. I’ve often said, and truly believe, that I learn a lot more from them than they learn from me. They are my fountain of youth.

Reverse Mentoring That said, I recently came across a concept called “mentern.” Have you heard of it? I hadn’t.

A mentern, or reverse mentor, goes something like this: Cross-generational relationships are established as an innovative way to facilitate learning. It involves pairing a mentor and mentee to share one another’s experiences and expertise. The mentee is generally focused on learning from the mentor’s vast experience and generational perspective, with an emphasis on leadership development and organizational knowledge. The mentor learns of technology, new operating systems and current thinking.

The classic mentern example comes from a Anne Hathaway and Robert De Niro film called “The Intern.” If you’ve not seen the movie, I’ll tell you it’s pretty cute. In short, a 70-year-old widower and retired executive (De Niro) is bored with retirement and takes a job as an intern at a startup online fashion retailer. His boss is the brilliant young founder and CEO (Hathaway). Long story short, both end up learning much from one another.

“Mentern” relationships between baby boomers and millennials allow for the exchange of knowledge and the smooth handoff of the veterinary profession from one generation to the next.

- Bob Lester, DVM

In a recent Forbes article, the example of the financial services company Pershing was given. Pershing implemented a reverse mentoring program companywide. The result: a 96 percent retention rate for the 77 millennials who took part. Inverting the hierarchy and allowing millennials to act as mentors benefited everyone. Millennials felt valued for their contributions and gained access to senior leaders. Senior leaders gained insights from the majority workforce and now dominant consumer. A whole lot of learning was going on!

It’s Good for Everybody In our veterinary world, the American Animal Hospital Association published mentoring guidelines some years ago.

(Learn more at http://bit.ly/2Nu46yJ.) Mentor-mentee relationships, AAHA noted, lead to improved hospital culture, productivity, efficiency, communication, retention and job satisfaction, ultimately resulting in improved patient care and hospital performance. AAHA goes on to state that both mentee and mentor can broaden the other’s understanding of complex issues. So true.

Praxis Magazine • Spring 2026

11 15

Old fogies come to realize that by the time we’re in our 40s and 50s we’re not in touch with the future the way 20-somethings are. Those of us fortunate to have reached positions of influence would be wise to turn to younger colleagues for a few lessons. Mentoring done well is a two-way street. In fact, today’s students are becoming the teachers as our profession begins the millennial workplace revolution. In less than one year, millennials will comprise over half of our workforce — and 75 percent by 2030.

How to Do It For reverse mentoring to work well, a few

The benefits include:

key elements must be in place: Closes the knowledge gap for both parties.

Each party must be clear about

Old folks learn about things like social

expectations.

media from the younger person, and the

Both must commit to the relationship.

younger person learns professional

Each person serves as both mentor and

practices and perhaps gains hard-won

mentee.

wisdom learned through the school of hard

Trust is essential, as in any successful

knocks.

relationship.

Empowers both parties with newfound

Both must be open about their feelings and

knowledge and perspective.

thoughts.

Brings the generations closer together. It’s

Always be learning. Ask the “why” and “what

not us vs. them.

if” questions, not “what” and “how.” Stay

Promotes bottom-up thinking instead of top

curious.

down.

Personalizes relationships between two people in different parts of their career.

We’ve Got A Lot To Learn Jack Welch, past CEO at General Electric, is credited with bringing reverse mentorship to all GE senior managers years ago. Those of us in veterinary senior management might be wise to follow in his footsteps. To remain relevant as seasoned contributors, we need to listen and learn from the new up-and-comers. Those who connect with the fur baby generation’s values and needs will prove to be the most successful.

Even if a formal reverse mentoring program doesn’t make sense for your practice, its underlying concepts should not be ignored. The cross-pollination of ideas across generations will encourage ideas, leading to new success possibilities.

16 Praxis Magazine • Spring 2026

In our WellHaven Pet Health practice, several senior leaders and I reach out routinely to 20-and 30-somethings so that we can listen to them and learn. In fact, I just learned that the Yellow Pages aren’t a thing anymore. Who knew? Maybe this interweb stuff isn’t just a fad. It might be time to update my AOL account after all.

The great basketball player Michael Jordan is quoted as saying, “I want to be the bridge to the next generation.”

I like that. For me, I aspire to be more like a fine bottle of wine that gets better over time rather than a bottle of milk with an expiration date.

Our profession needs to embrace the fur baby generation and the technology-enabled practice of today and tomorrow. Generational diversity, like all aspects of diversity, benefits us all. My generation must learn from younger colleagues, just as our younger colleagues might learn a few things from those of us closer to the end of the runway than the beginning.

Between us, we can accomplish great things for ourselves, our profession and society.

Bob Lester, DVM, is the chief medical officer at WellHaven Pet Health, a former practice owner and a founding member of Banfield Pet Hospital and the Lincoln Memorial University College of Veterinary Medicine. He serves on the boards of Pet Peace of Mind, WellHaven Pet Health and the Lincoln Memorial veterinary college. He is a former president of the North American Veterinary Community.

Article written by

Bob Lester, DVM

Praxis Magazine • Spring 2026

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By Brian Sick, MD, MHA, FACP, FNAP

Interprofessional Education as a Leadership Strategy

By Brian Sick, MD, MHA, FACP, FNAP

Leadership in healthcare is often framed as an individual capability. We seek to train leaders, identify leadership traits, and develop leadership competencies for the individual. Yet the reality of healthcare delivery is that outcomes are rarely the result of any single individual’s work. They are produced by interprofessional teams.

Most health professionals are still educated primarily within professional silos. Physicians train with physicians, nurses with nurses, pharmacists with pharmacists, and so on. Each profession develops strong expertise and identity, but learners often have a superficial understanding of the roles, perspectives, and capabilities of their colleagues in other disciplines. When these students graduate and enter clinical practice, they are suddenly expected to function within complex interprofessional teams.

Interprofessional education (IPE) has emerged as a response to this gap. Accreditation standards across most health professions require learners to engage in educational activities where they learn “about, from, and with” one another. Too often, however, these initiatives are treated as compliance exercises rather than strategic opportunities. When viewed through the lens of leadership development, interprofessional education becomes something much more significant - a strategy for preparing leaders capable of navigating complex healthcare systems.

18 Praxis Magazine • Spring 2026

Traditional professional education excels at developing discipline-specific expertise. What it often does less effectively is prepare learners to operate within collaborative environments where authority and expertise are distributed across multiple professions and where leadership is shared. In these settings, effective leadership will shift depending on the problem at hand. A pharmacist may lead medication optimization efforts. A nurse may coordinate care transitions. A social worker may guide the team through complex disposition or psychosocial challenges affecting a patient’s health.

Interprofessional education exposes learners to this dynamic early in their training. Most IPE programs start with an orientation or introduction to IPE and move onto skill building in areas such as communication and teamwork and culminate with experiential learning where students begin to see healthcare not as a set of parallel professional activities but as a coordinated system of expertise. This shift in perspective is essential for developing leadership capabilities suited to modern healthcare.

One of the most important competencies developed through interprofessional education is systems thinking. Learners begin to understand how the contributions of different professions intersect and reinforce one another. Rather than seeing care as a linear process controlled by a single profession as they may infer from their siloed education, they learn to recognize the interdependencies that shape patient outcomes. Leaders who think this way are better prepared to address the complexity inherent in healthcare organizations.

Interprofessional education also strengthens shared decision-making. In traditional hierarchies, decisions often flow from the top down. In high-functioning teams, however, leadership is shared and emerges from expertise. Effective leaders know when to guide the team and when to follow and create space for others to contribute their knowledge. Learning in interprofessional settings helps future clinicians become comfortable with this fluid model of leadership.

Communication is another critical leadership capability that develops through interprofessional learning. Different professions often use distinct language, frameworks, and priorities when discussing patient care. Leaders who can translate across these perspectives help teams reach more informed and cohesive decisions. These communication skills are difficult to develop without opportunities to engage meaningfully with colleagues from other disciplines.

Perhaps most importantly, interprofessional education fosters psychological safety within teams. When learners experience environments where different professional perspectives are respected, they are more likely to carry those expectations into their professional practice. Leaders who value psychological safety create teams in which members feel comfortable speaking up, raising concerns, and contributing ideas. In healthcare, where patient safety and quality often depend on open communication, this leadership trait is particularly important.

Praxis Magazine • Spring 2026

34 19 11

Experiential learning is the key to making these leadership lessons meaningful. Classroom discussions about teamwork are valuable, but the most powerful learning occurs when students work together in real settings with real patients. Community-based clinical experiences allow learners to experience collaboration rather than simply talk about it. In these environments, leadership often rotates depending on the needs of the situation, reinforcing the idea that authority can be shared while accountability remains collective.

For current healthcare leaders, the implications are significant. Prioritizing interprofessional education for future generations should not be viewed solely as an educational initiative within the domain of our academic settings but as part of a broader strategy for shaping organizational culture within the healthcare system. Leaders who invest in shared clinical learning environments, encourage collaborative practice models, and reward team-based problem solving are building systems that reflect the realities of modern healthcare.

The challenges facing healthcare today cannot be addressed by any single profession acting alone. They require coordinated expertise and collaborative leadership. Interprofessional education prepares the next generation of professionals to lead in this environment.

When approached thoughtfully, interprofessional education does more than improve teamwork. It cultivates leaders who understand how to mobilize the strengths of diverse professionals toward shared goals. In that sense, interprofessional education is not simply an educational method; it is a leadership strategy for the healthcare system we need.

References Interprofessional Education Collaborative. (2023). IPEC Core Competencies for Interprofessional Collaborative Practice: Version 3. Washington, DC: Interprofessional Education Collaborative.

The Corvus Corax is one of the most commanding and intellectually sovereign creatures to ever rule the natural world. Revered across cultures as a symbol of wisdom, strategy, and foresight, the raven does not simply survive its environment — it leads within it. They have been documented teaching juveniles, and adapting their communication with remarkable precision across different social contexts. Ravens demonstrate empathy, console one another after conflict, and make decisions based on fairness - qualities we once reserved exclusively for human leadership. In that, the Corvus Corax reminds us that true leadership is never loud - it is a self educator, observant, strategic, deeply aware, always ten steps ahead, and never afraid to share with others.

Article written by Brian Sick, MD, MHA, FACP, FNAP Professor, Internal Medicine and Pediatrics, University of Minnesota Vice Provost, Academic Health Sciences Vice Chair, Faculty Affairs and Development, Dept of Medicine Co-Director, Center for Interprofessional Health Medical Director, Phillips Neighborhood Clinic 20

EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD

STACY ANDERSON, DVM, PhD, DACVS-LA, Executive Dean, Lincoln Memorial University, Richard A. Gillespie College of Veterinary Medicine

Praxis Magazine Published by SLM Communications Palm Springs, CA 92262

Editor and Chief Steven L Maibaum, CVJ, VRVC, EMT(ret) DAVID PARK, DO, FAAFP, FACOFP, National Leader in Medical Education and Family Medicine.

BRIAN SICK, MD, MHA, FACP, FNAP, Professor of Internal Medicine and Pediatrics, University of Minnesota

ELEANOR MYERS GREEN, DVM, DAVCIM, DABVP, Founding Dean, Lyon College School of Veterinary Medicine Dean Emerita & Professor Emerita, Texas A&M University

Publisher Robert Murtaugh, DVM, MS, DACVIM, DACVECC, FCCM, FNAP Publication Development Steven May Mark Schwartz Creative Director Mark Schwartz Submissions: If you are interested in writing for Praxis magazine, please contact us at editor@praxisleadership.org. Include your idea, relevant experience and any other information that may help explain your story.

ROBERT MURTAUGH, DVM, MS, DAVCIM, DACVECC, FCCM, FNAP Veterinary Specialist, Educator, Leader, Consultant With Over 45 years Dedicated To The Profession

AMERICAN GRAPHIC DESIGN AWARDS

2025 WINNER

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Volume 2, Issue 1 Praxis accepts no responsibility for unsolicited materials. Praxis assumes no responsibility for content or advertisements. Submissions: unsolicited manuscripts will not be returned unless accompanied by a stamped return envelope.

By Marie Holowaychuk, DVM, Dipl. ACVECC

Rethinking Work-Life Balance: A Leadership Perspective

By Marie Holowaychuk, DVM, Dipl. ACVECC

“Work-life balance” is a phrase we hear often in veterinary medicine and perhaps one that many of us have quietly stopped believing in.

For leaders especially, the idea of achieving a perfect 50:50 balance between work and life can feel not only unrealistic, but also discouraging. When you are responsible not just for patients, but for people, culture, and business outcomes, work does not neatly end when the shift is over. Concerns about team members, difficult decisions, and operational challenges have a way of following you home.

So, if balance in the traditional sense does not exist, what should leaders be striving for instead?

The Myth of Equal Balance The concept of work-life balance often implies an even distribution of time, energy, and fulfillment between professional and personal life. But in reality, life is rarely divided so cleanly.

There are days or entire seasons when work demands more of us. A staffing shortage, a complex case, or a major organizational change can require significant time and emotional investment. At other times, our personal lives take precedence, whether due to family responsibilities, health challenges, or simply the need to rest and recover.

22 Praxis Magazine • Spring 2026

Rather than striving for an equal split, it can be more helpful to think about alignment and sustainability.

Are we able to meet the demands of our roles without consistently sacrificing our wellbeing? Are we creating space, over time, for both professional fulfillment and personal health?

For leaders, these questions are particularly important, not only for themselves, but for the teams who look to them as role models.

The Leadership Challenge: Always “On” Leadership comes with a unique layer of responsibility that makes traditional notions of balance even more difficult.

Unlike clinical tasks that can be completed and checked off, leadership responsibilities are ongoing. Supporting team members, managing conflict, making decisions, and shaping workplace culture are not confined to a set schedule.

Even outside of working hours, it is easy to find yourself thinking about a struggling employee, an unresolved issue, or the next step for your practice or business.

This “always on” mindset can blur the boundaries between work and home, making it difficult to truly rest and recharge.

Over time, this lack of separation is one of the most significant contributors to burnout in leadership roles.

From Balance to Separation If perfect balance is not attainable, a more practical and protective goal is work-life separation.

Work-life separation does not mean that work and life are equal. Instead, it means that when you are in one domain, you are as present as possible in that space.

For many leaders, this requires intentional boundaries. It might mean setting specific times to check and respond to emails, resisting the urge to quickly handle one more task in the evening, or creating end-ofday rituals that signal closure to the workday.

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Equally important is giving yourself permission to be fully present outside of work. Time at home is not simply a recovery period to prepare for the next workday. It is a meaningful and essential part of your life.

The Influence of Life Seasons One of the most overlooked aspects of work-life balance is that it is not static.

What feels manageable and sustainable at one point in your life may not feel that way at another.

Early in a career, it may be easier to devote long hours to professional growth. Later, personal responsibilities such as caregiving, parenting, or supporting loved ones may shift priorities. Similarly, different phases of leadership, such as starting a new role or navigating organizational change, can temporarily increase work demands.

Recognizing these “seasons” can help reduce the pressure to achieve a fixed version of balance. Instead of asking, “Am I doing this right?” a more helpful question may be, “What does balance, or separation, look like for me right now?”

For me, becoming a parent while continuing to run a business has reshaped my perspective entirely. My time is more limited, my priorities are clearer, and my tolerance for inefficiency is significantly lower.

What once felt like a manageable workload now requires a more thoughtful and intentional approach.

Time Management as a Tool for Balance In this current season of my life, time management has become one of the most important tools I use to create a sense of balance.

Not because it allows me to do more, but because it allows me to be more present.

By structuring my work time intentionally, I can focus fully on the tasks that matter most. This includes prioritizing high impact work, delegating where appropriate, and minimizing inefficiencies that can easily consume valuable time and energy.

Simple strategies such as blocking dedicated time for important projects, batching similar tasks, and using scheduling tools can make a meaningful difference. Just as importantly, learning to say no to commitments that no longer align with current priorities is essential.

These practices are not about maximizing productivity for its own sake. They are about protecting time and energy so that when work is complete, it can truly be set aside.

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Leading by Example Perhaps one of the most powerful aspects of work-life balance in leadership is the example it sets for others.

When leaders consistently work late, respond to messages at all hours, or appear unable to disconnect, it sends an implicit message that this is the expectation for the entire team.

Conversely, when leaders demonstrate healthy boundaries, prioritize their wellbeing, and acknowledge the realities of different life seasons, they create a culture where others feel permitted to do the same.

In a profession where burnout is prevalent, this cultural influence cannot be overstated.

A More Compassionate Approach to Balance Ultimately, rethinking work-life balance requires a shift in expectations.

Balance is not about perfection, and it is not about achieving an equal distribution of time or energy. It is about creating a sustainable way of working and living, one that allows for both professional contribution and personal wellbeing over the long term.

For leaders, this may mean accepting that some days will feel imbalanced. It may mean redefining success not by how much is accomplished, but by how sustainably it is achieved. And perhaps most importantly, it means extending the same compassion to ourselves that we so often offer to others.

For me, balance no longer means doing everything equally or perfectly. It means being intentional with my time, present in the moments that matter, and willing to adjust as life evolves.

That definition may look different for each of us, and it will likely change over time. But as leaders, giving ourselves permission to redefine balance may be one of the most important steps we can take, not only for our own wellbeing, but for the people who depend on us.

A Compassionate Calling: What It Really Means to Be a Veterinarian

by Marie Holowaychuk and Dreamscape Media On Amazon

Praxis Magazine • Spring 2026

Marie Holowaychuk, DVM, DACVECC, is CEO and Founder of Reviving Veterinary Medicine. Dr. Holowaychuk furthers her mission to improve the mental health and wellbeing of veterinary professionals through webinars, workshop facilitation, communication, wellness coaching, and consulting, 25

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Sententiae "Life affords no greater responsibility, no

greater privilege, than the raising of the next generation."

- C. Everett Koop

"The secret of the care of the patient is in caring for the patient."

- Francis Peabody

"You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you.

What you do makes a difference, and you

have to decide what kind of difference you

- Jane Goodall

want to make."

All quotations are attributed to their respective sources — C. Everett Koop, Francis Peabody, Jane Goodall, Albert Schweitzer, Hippocrates, and Abraham Lincoln — and are presented solely to inspire reflection on the shared values of leadership, compassion, and service that unite the human and veterinary healthcare professions. Quotations and portrait images on these pages are reproduced for non-commercial editorial and educational purposes with attribution. Any party with concerns regarding quotation or image rights is invited to contact us at hello@praxisleadership.org · 830.800.3210.

Praxis Magazine • Spring 2026

27

By Mark de Wolde, DVM, MRCVS

Orientation Over Acceleration: Leadership in an Age of Capability

By Mark de Wolde, DVM, MRCVS

Imagine, for a moment, that you are facing catastrophe.

Maybe a plane crash. Possibly a natural disaster. What if you were lost in the wilderness with a small group of survivors?

The challenges in these circumstances are immediate and unforgiving. The injured require triage. Clean water and food sources must be secured. Shelter must be constructed before nightfall, changes in the elements and in advance of falling temperatures. The terrain is unfamiliar, rough and unmapped. Supplies are contaminated and limited. Communication is gone.

Panic amongst the group threatens cohesion. Fatigue and anxiety cloud judgment. Fear and grief fracture morale. Conflict between survivors begins to simmer.

And yet, decisions cannot wait.

Challenges need to be strategically identified and prioritized. Do we stay put or attempt to navigate to safety?

Who receives care first? How do we ration food and water? What are the skill sets of the individuals, and how can they contribute to the success of the group?

Eventually, the defining question emerges: Who leads?

28 Praxis Magazine • Spring 2026

There is no checklist for this moment. There is no formal review process, no resume to scrutinize and no election. The group instinctively looks towards someone that subjectively embodies the ideal characteristics. And almost always, that person is not the most voiciferous, but in all likeliness, is the most anchored.

They bring calm without paralysis. They demonstrate strength and competence without arrogance. They communicate clearly and with clarity. They make difficult decisions when hesitation would cost time, a successful outcome, and possibly lives. They carry moral authority, which gathers trust around them quickly.

In crisis, leadership is revealed not by a title, but by orientation.

That doesn’t mean that credentials don’t play a role, of course they do.

Formal credentials matter because they establish a verified baseline of competence and

accountability, protecting the public and stabilizing trust in complex systems.

However, they don’t guarantee success of outcome.

The same dynamic plays out in business, and perhaps nowhere more acutely than in healthcare. Our organizations are not wilderness survival camps and sites of natural disasters, but under pressure they reveal similar dynamics: unequal skill sets, personality conflicts, resource constraints, moral disagreements, and hidden agendas.

When pressure rises, culture either fragments or coheres around a leader.

Stephen Covey, in The Speed of Trust, offers a simple but powerful equation: strategy multiplied by execution produces results, but only in the presence of trust. Without trust, friction increases, speed decreases and costs rise. Trust is not sentimental. It is structurally anchored and built on a foundation of moral authority and orientation.

We are living in an era of unprecedented capability in healthcare. Robotics assist in surgery. Artificial intelligence drafts medical records and interprets diagnostics. Corporate capital consolidates practices, and productivity metrics measure every movement within the business. Technology and capital are accelerating faster than reflection, and historical reflection is necessary for assessment.

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The danger is not innovation. The danger is misalignment.

C.S. Lewis warned in That Hideous Strength that danger emerges when capability begins to masquerade as permission. Just because something can be done does not mean it ought to be done. Freedom is not the permission to pursue impulse; it is the disciplined power to pursue what is right.

Vision without ethical calibration becomes speed without direction, and acceleration without orientation becomes hazardous and costly.

In healthcare, in particular, leadership must be framed as stewardship rather than control.

We do not own our patients, we serve them. We do not demand compliance from teams, we cultivate responsibility.

In interviews with prospective associates, I would often say, “I don’t want to be your boss.” These are educated professionals. If culture is healthy and expectations are clear, management becomes mentorship and guidance, rather than tyranny and domination. The problem with control, is that it seeks compliance, but stewardship seeks flourishing. And if stewardship is replaced by control, the costs are rarely immediate, they are cumulative and exponential.

You see, culture typically doesn’t disappear overnight, it erodes quietly. Mentorship diminishes insidiously. Referral thresholds lower out of professional insecurity, rather than patient necessity. Risk tolerance drops, and burnout hides behind the language of efficiency.

Financial statements rarely capture these losses; they do not show up on an excel document spontaneously in a cell. The Profit & Loss statement can’t provide real-time reflection on cultural decay.

But the human balance sheet does, if you are observing assiduously.

Poor leadership rarely causes dramatic collapse. More often, it catalyzes slow institutional decay over time.

I often use the analogy of the lead dog on a sled team.

The lead dog has the clearest vision and sees the horizon. The others in the pack only see the dog in front of them. There is a dependency. Vision matters. Direction matters.

But vision alone is insufficient, as a team can move quickly in the wrong direction.

What distinguishes the true lead dog is moral calibration, a steady alignment between action and principle, listening and being heard.

Trust is earned, not demanded. Respect is cultivated, not imposed.

"The problem with control is that it seeks compliance, but stewardship seeks flourishing. Poor leadership rarely causes dramatic collapse — more often, it catalyzes slow institutional decay over time."

30 Praxis Magazine • Spring 2026

Calm under pressure is an inherent character trait, reinforced and practiced long before crisis arrives.

Communication involves both understanding and being understood. Decisiveness has to be balanced by fairness. Leadership is not situational; it is continual and consistent. And, especially in times of uncertainty, resilience and endurance signal to followers that the leader can withstand pressure, stay the course and ultimately prevail.

Leaders can rise to the occasion, but success is grounded when defaulting to the right orientation.

Healthcare will continue to evolve, and technology will advance. Capital will flow, and new business models will emerge. Artificial intelligence will become more embedded in clinical workflow. Metrics will grow more granular and precise.

Acceleration is inevitable.

The defining question, however, is not: “What can we build?” It is: What governs the builders?

Orientation precedes execution. Ethics precede innovation. Trust precedes scale. In medicine, we honor the Hippocratic Oath, “first, do no harm”.

Without moral calibration, capability becomes destabilizing. However, with it, capability becomes transformative.

Now, let’s return to the wilderness.

Whom would you choose to follow?

It will likely be the individual who is calm but not passive. One who is decisive and fair, but not reckless.

Who shows competence but embodies humility. They are optimistic without denial, and anchored in principle rather than ego.

Leadership is not merely positional. It is orientational.

In catastrophe, orientation determines survival. In healthcare, it determines trust. And in an age defined by acceleration, orientation may be the most valuable asset we possess.

Grizzly bears are another remarkable example of apex animals whose power and intelligence are long respected.

Their leadership qualities are written into their very nature: highly adaptive, and decisive under pressure. The grizzly is a symbol of strength, wisdom, and courage — a commanding presence that mirrors the qualities we admire most in great leaders.

Praxis Magazine • Spring 2026

Mark de Wolde, DVM, MRCVS, is a veterinarian, serial entrepreneur, and advisor in the veterinary healthcare sector. He has founded and scaled multiple veterinary hospitals and serves as a strategic advisor in practice transition, leadership development, and healthcare technology innovation.

31

By David Park, DO, FAAFP, FACOFP

How to Lead by Serving

By David Park, DO, FAAFP, FACOFP

How many times have you heard someone describe themselves as a servant leader? I probably heard this a hundred times during interviews and in various leadership conversations. I’m sure we can all define servant leadership pretty well, but what does it really look like in action? I mean, what concrete actions do servant leaders do?

In this reflective article, I will share a few practical actions I have learned about how to lead by serving. I readily admit that I am no expert on servant leadership. However, I consider myself a diligent student of this topic with a sincere desire to grow to be an excellent servant leader one day. If I am grading myself honestly right now, I am probably a C+ student in this course so far.

That confession is not false humility. It’s an honest reflection and inventory because of my default tendencies shaped by my previous leadership roles, where my leadership style was mostly transformational and transactional. In medicine and medical education, we often operate under constant urgency, constant highstakes decisions, and constant pressure to look smart and competent. The temptation is to get the job done, meet goals, and impress your superiors. Unfortunately, this can sometimes lead to marginalizing or losing sight the people you lead.

Servant leadership focuses on serving people first and making mission accomplishment the shared result of that commitment.

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Here are three concrete actions of servant leadership that can translate to hospitals, clinics, residency programs, and professional schools.

Go to the front lines to listen Servant leaders do not lead from board rooms or their offices. Servant leaders do not lead through emails. They lead from proximity. They show up where the work is happening and they listen actively to learn about their people and their work. This develops empathy and trust. People feel appreciated and reassured when their leader “gets it” and this fuels hope and optimism.

In a clinic, the action is the leader sitting at the nursing station, not to supervise, but to truly understand the who, the what, the how, and then perhaps question the why and the where. The action is walking the hallway with the medical assistant to understand their daily interactions with patients and the many demands of their providers. The action is rounding with residents not as a surprise evaluator, but as a curious and invested partner. The action is asking simple questions with genuine care: What is slowing you down? What is making your day harder than it needs to be? What are you afraid to say out loud?

In medical education, this is delicate. Faculty are proud, students are anxious, residents are exhausted, and support staff are often caught in the middle, confused. A servant leader listens without rushing to fix, without trying to prove how knowledgeable they are, without turning every conversation into a solution or transaction. Then the next important step after actively listening is to reflect back what you heard and validate the reality of it. This makes the people feel seen, heard, and valued. Now you have a compass to help navigate some solutions to help and serve them. These are all actions to lead by serving.

Work to remove obstacles Servant leaders often work behind the scenes to clear paths and try to keep the team in the loop with updates, so they know they are not forgotten. This shows you care and it demonstrates respect.

In healthcare and medical education systems, there are numerous obstacles and hoops to jump through. These could be time-wasting meetings, unnecessary forms, broken workflows, unclear policies, lack of resources, and endless small frictions that slowly wear down good people. A servant leader is willing to take on some heat as they work to absorb or reduce those frictions, so their people don’t feel the pain of being burned. I acknowledge that this is easier said than done because leaders are human and pain, whether in the form of a bruised ego, interpersonal conflict, or a goal failure, is extremely difficult to bear. This suffering is even more difficult to bear for someone else with no guaranteed if it would even be appreciated.

An action of servant leadership can be just picking up an obstacle and remove it all by yourself. You don’t delegate it to others under your authority, you don’t refer it to another department, you don’t form a task force or committee, you just take care of the problem personally if you can. Recently in my case, the action was spending three hours performing data entry into a campus computer system to remove this obstacle for the department chairs because I knew they were all swamped with other administrative duties.

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Protect well-being Servant leaders do not glamorize working through exhaustion and place task completion over the wellness of their people. Servant leaders prioritize their people over “margin” unless there is absolute imminent risk to the organization.

Often in healthcare education or delivery settings, the norm is praising the person who never stops, never rests, never says no, and just gets things accomplished no matter what the cost is to personal wellness, whether to their own individual wellness and those of others who suffer from collateral damage.

Servant leaders protect their people from burnout, moral injuries, and sustained workplace stress. Wellness and development are not optional, but core principles of practice for servant leaders. If someone is too busy or overwhelmed, the action is to address it immediately. The action is to ensure psychological safety and allow meaningful recovery time when needed. The action is verbally acknowledging moral distress and speaking words of compassion to help with healing.

Leaders’ observable actions matter here a lot because people are more prone to follow what they see a leader do, better than what a leader just tells them to do. The action is canceling nonessential meetings when people are overloaded and replace them with protected time. The action is publicly ending work at a reasonable hour and encouraging others to do the same without guilt. The action is praising good work and not expecting perfection. The action is intentionally and actively taking care of yourself, so it shows. A leader who openly demonstrates such healthy behaviors quietly commands and gives permission for others to do the same.

34 Praxis Magazine • Spring 2026

Closing reflection There are obviously many more ways to lead by serving but the three I have described above may provide some insightful guidance or perhaps some validation in your leadership efforts to lead by serving. One legacy we can aspire to leave behind as leaders is for someone to say one day, “this leader cared about me, or listened to me when it mattered, or removed obstacles that made my work easier, or made hard decisions without treating people as expendable, or protected our well-being by the way they led.”

I believe when a leader serves with steady courage and a posture of humility, it encourages others to lead by serving too. In the end, the leaders we remember most are the ones who made people feel seen, protected, and valuable. I accept that I may never achieve an A in this life course of leadership development, but I will be joyful in the truth that I am trying my best.

Dolphins are another remarkable example of apex animals in service to humans. The U.S. Navy has famously trained bottlenose dolphins - apex marine predators - to detect underwater mines and assist in military operations. Their extraordinary sonar abilities, intelligence, and trainability make them uniquely suited for tasks no technology can fully replicate. Beyond military service, dolphins have also been used in therapeutic programs, helping people with disabilities and mental health challenges through dolphin-assisted therapy, offering connection, joy, and healing in ways that continue to astonish researchers and caregivers alike.

Praxis Magazine • Spring 2026

David Park, DO, FAAFP, FACOFP dist. is a dual board-certified family physician, medical educator, and executive coach. He is a nationally recognized leader in osteopathic medicine and leadership development. Dr. Park served as the 2023-2024 national president of the American College of Osteopathic Family Physicians and the former founding dean of Rocky Vista University – Montana College of Osteopathic Medicine. His mission is to cultivate leaders by inspiring purpose, building confidence, developing action-oriented leadership skills, and leaving behind a legacy of leadership.

35

Marshall

Goldsmith

Learning From a Great Leader Dr. Marshall Goldsmith is the Thinkers50 #1 Executive Coach and New York Times bestselling author of The Earned Life, Triggers, and What Got You Here Won’t Get You There.

In my role as an executive coach, over the years I've had a very unique billing philosophy. I didn’t get paid if my clients didn’t get better. "Better" was not judged by me or them. It was judged by everyone around them.

That’s a great way to test if someone really believes what they’re saying—ask them one question: “Do you want to bet on it?” If they say, “I believe it, but I don’t want to bet on it,” they don’t believe it that much. I bet on this every time.

When you get paid for results, you learn humility.

The client I coached that I spent the most time with didn’t improve at all, and I didn’t get paid.

The client I coached that I spent the least amount of time with improved more than anyone I’ve ever coached—200 people got better—and I did get paid.

This was a humbling lesson.

For those of you with a background in mathematics, I made a chart. One dimension was called time spent with executive coach Marshall Goldsmith. The other dimension was called improvement.

36 Praxis Magazine • Spring 2026

www.marshallgoldsmith.com

There seemed to be a clear, negative correlation between spending time with me and getting better.

I thought, this is a very troubling chart. I have to talk to my client who improved the most, who I spent the least amount of time with—who, by the way, was ranked: CEO of the Year in the United States #3 Greatest Leader in the World by Fortune magazine His name? Alan Mulally.

Alan went to the Ford Motor Company.

The stock was at $1.01 When he left, it was $18.40 Even more impressive, he had a 97% approval rating from every employee in a union company A great leader. A great human being. We’re working on a project together, a new book. I love him.

So I go talk to my friend Alan. I said, “Alan, of all the people I coached, I spent the least amount of time with you. You were great to start with, and you improved more than anyone I ever coached.”

I showed Alan my chart: “The way this chart looks, there’s a negative correlation between spending time with me and getting better. The way this chart looks… had you never met me, you’d really be good.”

I asked, “Alan, what should I learn about coaching?”

He taught me a lesson that changed my life.

“Marshall, your biggest challenge as a coach is one thing—it’s called customer selection. If you pick the right customer, your coaching process will always work. If you pick the wrong customer, your coaching process will never work.

And don’t make the coaching process about yourself and your own ego and how smart you think you are. Make it about the wonderful, wonderful people you work with and how proud you are of them—not about you.

He continued: “You know, when I was CEO of Ford, my job wasn’t that different. I don’t build the cars. I don’t develop the cars. I don’t sell the cars. They have to have great people. And every day I would drive to work and tell myself one thing: Leadership’s not about me. It’s about them.”

Praxis Magazine • Spring 2026

www.marshallgoldsmith.com

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That’s the lesson that changed my life as a coach.

I’ve been ranked the #1 executive coach forever. Why? Nobody knows if I’m a good coach or not. There are thousands and thousands of coaches. I couldn’t be so arrogant as to claim I’m the best coach.

But I can claim one thing: I get the best clients in the world.

And why do I get ranked as the best coach? Because these people publicly talk about having a coach, they talk about getting better, and they make my life so much better. I think almost any coach would look pretty good if you coached the people I’ve been coaching.

Key Lesson: Coaching Is About the Client The key to successful coaching is having great clients.

If they don’t care, don’t waste your time.

They’re not going to get better at anything they don’t care about changing. You’re just wasting your time.

The time we waste with people who don’t care is time that’s stolen from people who do care. As a coach, put your time and energy into the people who care. They’re the ones who are going to get better.

Your Homework Assignment Have you ever tried to change the behavior of a husband, wife, friend, or partner who had no interest in changing?

How did that work out for you?

Write that down. Think of examples.

Even worse—have you ever tried to change Mommy or Daddy when they had no interest in changing?

How’d that go?

One of my clients at the Dartmouth Tuck School raised her hand. I asked, “Are you trying to change Mommy or Daddy?”

She said, “I’m trying to change Daddy.” I asked, “What’s his problem?” She replied, “He does not have a healthy lifestyle.” I asked, “How old is Daddy?” She said, “94 years old.”

I said, “Leave the old boy alone. You want to smoke a cigarette, old man? Smoke two. Who cares?”

Have a happier life and be a better coach.

Don’t make it all about you.

Make it about them.

Work with great people who are motivated and care.

They’re the ones who are going to get better.

Make that list of all the people you’ve tried to change who didn’t care. Write down the outcomes.

Let me give you a guess: It’s going to be a very, very, very instructive story.

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www.marshallgoldsmith.com

About the Book In The Earned Life, Marshall Goldsmith challenges your unproductive attachment to outcomes and reveals the key to living unbound by regret: by helping you connect to something greater than the isolated and fleeting achievements of careerism.

“We are living an earned life when the choices, risks, and effort we make in each moment align with an overarching purpose in our lives, regardless of the eventual outcome.ˮ Thatʼs the definition of an earned life. But for many of us, that pesky final phrase is a stumbling block: “regardless of the eventual outcome.ˮ Not being attached to the outcome goes against everything weʼre taught about achievement and fulfillment in modern society.

About the Book Mojo is the moment when we do something that's purposeful, powerful, and positive and the rest of the world recognizes it. This book is about that moment — and how we can create it in our lives, maintain it, and recapture it when we need it.

Our professional and personal Mojo is impacted by four key factors: identity (who do you think you are), achievement (what have you done lately), reputation (who do other people think you are), and acceptance (what can you change — and when do you need to just "let it go").

Goldsmith outlines the positive actions leaders must take, with their teams or themselves, to initiate winning streaks and keep them coming.

Mojo is: that positive spirit — towards what we are doing — now — that starts from the inside — and radiates to the outside. Mojo is at its peak when we are experiencing both happiness and meaning in what we are doing and communicating this experience to the world around us. The Mojo Toolkit provides fourteen practical tools to help you achieve both happiness and meaning — not only in business, but in life.

Praxis Magazine • Spring 2026

www.marshallgoldsmith.com

39

By Stacy Anderson, DVM, PhD, DACVS-LA

The Intersection of Life and Work: How Much Can Your Cup Hold?

By Stacy Anderson, DVM, PhD, DACVS-LA

Recently, one of my coworkers and I led an exercise with our team of around 100 people to illustrate the intersection of stress caused from work and life. The exercise can be completed in thirty minutes and provides a graphic representation on how the stress in our life ebbs and flows and that the causes of stress can be related to work or life outside of work. Our goal with this exercise was two-fold. First, we wanted the team to recognize that stress and the removal of stress comes from all facets of our lives.

Second, we wanted the team to realize that their co-workers level of stress does not only come from the workplace and use this to increase empathy in the workplace. I would encourage the reader to play along as I describe the exercise.

Each person is provided with a cup--we used a variety of sizes and allowed people to choose their own size—and a bottle of water. We also provided plates for the cups to sit on so that we did not have water everywhere. Then scenarios were presented and participants were asked to add water to the cup if that scenario would create stress or remove water if the scenario would reduce stress. The water added or subtracted should match the amount of stress added or removed from the system.

How would you fill or empty your cup in the following scenarios?

Getting a new puppy Going on a vacation Taking care of a sick loved one Taking your very sick animal to the veterinarian Being given a project with a very short deadline Receiving a compliment from a co-worker Disagree with your coworker 40 Praxis Magazine • Spring 2026

Having multiple projects due at the same time Receiving feedback Having an event you planned go well The weekend Your best friend gets married The holidays The end of the semester

All of these scenarios theoretically cause or remove stress, but the amount is going to vary among each individual because we all react to stress differently, perceive the level of stress differently, and have different life priorities. For example, some would say the holidays would reduce stress and are a time of joy. Someone else might view holidays as a time of stress and chaos, or even a time to experience grief if they have recently lost a loved one. That recognition that we all perceive the events of life differently is critical for individuals and a team to understand.

This exercise also allows an individual to evaluate their tolerance for stress. How much did they pour in or remove from the cup? If it was a small amount in (i.e., stress) then perhaps they are more tolerant of stress. The choice of cup size was random in this scenario, but we did ask participants if the size of the cup was reflective of their tolerance to stress. Can you tolerate a lot of stress with a big cup or are you intolerant of stress with a little cup?

Finally, we asked participants to reflect on what caused their cup to “runneth” over. The point made here is that stress (and stress relief) comes from all aspects of our lives and when we are meeting our threshold for stress, the tipping point in an overload could come from work or personal life because both of those things contribute to the stress accumulating in our cups. We encouraged the team to recognize this phenomenon not only in themselves, but also their coworkers. With that recognition, the goal was that team members could then extend grace both to themselves and others if their cups of stress became too full or even ran over.

In order to be an effective leader and team member, we must “know thyself.” Our individual ability to tolerate stress – and find ways to remove or reduce stress – are a foundation of emotional intelligence that is often taken for granted. Aren’t we all stressed? I would say that we are not all stressed and to have a happy life, one needs to recognize the causes of stress and find ways to mitigate those causes or learn to adapt to the stress with the goal of keeping that stress level from spilling over the cup.

“We all carry a cup. Know its size, mind what fills it, and extend grace to those

whose cups are running over — for their

burdens stretch far beyond what you can see."

Emmet Roche for Lisa Michelle Photography

Article written by

Stacy Anderson, DVM, PhD, DACVS-LA Executive Dean, Lincoln Memorial University, Richard A. Gillespie College of Veterinary Medicine

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By Elizabeth Riordan, MBA, ACC

Communicating with Impact: Key Lessons for Leaders.

By Elizabeth Riordan, MBA, ACC

Nowhere is communication more challenging than in healthcare. Just consider the myriad stakeholders and their primary needs—clinical team members need clear, precise communication; patients and families need compassionate explanations; Board members want financial metrics and administrative staff look to you for operational communication. Leadership roles require you to constantly navigate these differing training, priorities and perspectives with patience and grace. Here are a few core practices to help you pause and reflect, to show up in the way that you want to make an impact on those you reach.

Remember that YOU are the message My favorite testimonial that I've ever received came from a colleague several years ago: 'Clients trust her calm, well-reasoned approach.' If there's one sentence I hope to live up to in my work, that's it. So when I conduct individual client engagements, participate in live events, or publish, these words are a touchstone for how I want others to experience me. But when I get excited about a topic or nervous about a situation, I tend to speak quickly, and that doesn't convey 'calm' or 'well-reasoned'. To neutralize this tendency, I build practice time at half-speed into my speaking preparation and edit my script to the fewest words possible. I also avoid caffeine and do a little breathwork before I begin. The specific steps will be particular to you, but knowing what message you want to deliver and how to manage yourself to get that outcome is a critical self-awareness skill to refine.

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By virtue of your leadership role, those around you watch and observe what you do, value, honor, and what you don't. From how you show up physically and emotionally to how you interact when you're tired, rushed, distracted, or hungry, those in your halo of influence take note of what is expected, tolerated and rewarded. What does this mean on a daily basis? Your actions and words need to align with the message you most want those around you to receive. How can you know if you're on target? First, you need to know how you want others to experience you. What are three words you want people to say when they are asked 'What's it like to work with x?' Next, conduct an audit. Ask 5 trusted colleagues what they might say about you when asked that question. Do their responses align? What's different among them? Do the responses reflect the message you intended? If not, what one action or behavior might you change over the next 30 days to get closer to the message you want to deliver?

Focus up and out, not down and in A client stepped into a C-suite role and was eager to have an early win. A new software system would provide reporting that would help him communicate with data and facts to facilitate significant financial reform.Despite having a team that would be responsible for delivering this reporting, my client shared that he was waiting to select a system until he could see them all. As we progressed in our discussion of his first ninety day priorities, the lightbulb went on. He realized that, though an early potential win, this ‘down and in’ area was not where he should be spending his time. He had to be willing to delegate this task to focus on building credibility and relationships that were ‘up and outside’ of his department, so that when the data was ready, he would have the foundation of trust and respect to begin to invite organizational change.

This is often the hardest shift for my clients to make when they step into a role with expanded scope or managerial level. As a high achiever, you’ve been promoted for your competence and execution. As a front line leader, you likely know everything your direct reports are working on, have already done the job yourself, and are a hands-on coach with much to offer as a teacher. As you move forward in your career to become a 'managers of managers', however, this focus on 'down and in' can be experienced micro-management. Are you a high performer holding onto the belief that 'if I can just know what everyone should be doing, I can step in at any time that things seem to be going off the tracks'? The reality is, that once you progress to a certain level, you will not necessarily have experience with the day-to-day tasks of your teams. And that's ok! Your role as leader is to represent the work 'up and out' to ensure you're providing the right guidance to align your teams with overall organizational objectives and to advocate for the output and resources for them.

As your role expands, you must shift your focus 'up and out' of your own department to external partners, another service line, or a companion business in your investor's portfolio. Recognize what you are uniquely able to do, focus there and delegate the rest. How can you test this in practice? Look at your calendar over the past thirty days. What percentage of your meeting time was with stakeholders across or outside of your organization?

How does that balance align with your role? How might you begin to delegate or consolidate those ‘down and in’ times and find ways to prioritize the ‘up and out’?

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Take the leadership point of view In my graduate teaching, I use case studies with a protagonist as an on-ramp for students to think like the leaders they will become. The discovery of penicillin, a perennial favorite, showcases the meandering timeline from scientific discovery to large scale production in modern drug development, and highlights the impacts of leadership differences over the 30-year period from discovery to scaled production. What if Alexander Fleming had been a compelling public speaker? Might the drug have made it to market more quickly? What were the roles of Howard Florey and Ernest Chain? What was the impact of World War II? Taking the leadership point of view is about taking a step back and understanding the context in which you operate. Seek to understand what’s important to those to whom you report and with whom you partner.

Wherever you are in an organization, there is always a layer higher. If you are a Department Chair, there's likely an Executive Committee to whom you report. If you’re the CEO, you have a Board of Directors. Understanding the broader context of your community, industry and public policy are all critical components of the leadership point of view that will allow you to ground your communications in the broader operational realities of your audience.

What does this mean in practice? Consider an organizational or systems change you’re keen to make but on which you’ve received resistance. How might you see things through the lens of your stakeholders? Imagine you sit in their seat. What does this request look and sound like to you? What else is competing against it for resources and attention? What would make it easy for them to say yes to you? How could taking this ‘leadership point of view’ change how you communicate, while still achieving the same outcome? Could you move from an ‘I need’ to ‘the organization will benefit’ story? Do you need a partner with complementary skills?

Conclusion Communication is a critical leadership competency that you will continue to hone and refine over your career.

Consistent attention and awareness of how you are received, focusing up and out and taking the leadership point of view when communicating are a great start to building your presence and have the impact that you seek.

About the Author: Elizabeth Riordan is a leadership advisor and executive coach whom leaders trust to help them navigate large scale change and accelerate transformation. As a former healthcare executive with experience in two of the nation’s largest integrated delivery and financing systems, Elizabeth’s clients appreciate her ability to understand their business context and industry challenges. In addition to change and transformation, she specializes in senior executives who are looking to accelerate their time-to-impact in a new leadership role or preparing for advancement to the VP+ level.

Article written by

Elizabeth Riordan, MBA, ACC Certified Executive Coach ICF Level 2

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By Harmony Butler, CVBL, CCFP

Principals of Communication: A Guide for Change Management

By Harmony Butler, CVBL, CCFP

Navigating Change in Veterinary Practice: Communication, Attitudes, and the 8-Step Process Change is inevitable in any workplace, but in veterinary practice, it can feel especially daunting. Whether it’s rolling out a new appointment flow system or updating protocols, resistance and conflict often follow. Why? Because change impacts people on multiple levels or dimensions.These are environment, time, and person.

Understanding these dimensions is the first step to leading successful change.

Why Change Feels So Hard Every team member brings a unique set of influences to work each day. Their behavior is shaped by their environment, which includes social movements, communities, formal organizations, small groups, families, physical surroundings, social structures, and culture. Add to that the dimension of time which includes past experiences, generational differences, and historical context. Finally, there’s the personal dimension; psychological responses, biological reactions, and spiritual connections. Spiritual connections are not always religious. It’s your search for meaning, your morality, and your creativity. It is your purpose. It’s your why. All these factors combine to create multidetermined behavior, which means resistance to change is rarely about the change itself.

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Let’s create an example named Sam, a technician at Never Change Animal Clinic. His clinic values stability and routine, so when management announces a switch from paper-based scheduling to a cloud-based platform, Sam’s first reaction is, “We’ve always done it this way. Why fix what isn’t broken?” His resistance is shaped by environmental factors such as clinic culture and peer influence. He also has economic stresses that tech changes could lead to job loss. He is also impacted by time (past failed tech rollouts, generational concerns), and the dimension of person (fear of losing competence, stress, questioning alignment with the clinic’s mission).

The Roots of Negative Attitudes Negative attitudes toward change often stem from biases and stereotypes. Biases are preferences or inclinations that inhibit impartial judgment, while stereotypes are traits ascribed to groups. Both can sabotage accurate perceptions and lead to conflict. For example, assuming older staff will struggle with new technology or believing “veterinary teams are adaptable, they’ll figure it out no matter what” can create tension and overlook individual needs.

Communication Myths That Sabotage Change Effective change management starts with communication, but several myths can make it harder: Natural Human Ability: Communication is learned, not innate.

Will Solve All Problems: It has the potential to solve all our problems but can create problems if delivered poorly.

Can Break Down: Communication cannot break down. It never stops. Avoidance is still communicating something.

Competence Equals Effectiveness: Knowledge isn’t enough. Practicing and understanding individual learning styles matter.

Should Be Encouraged: Communication is a tool. Tools can be used for bad and good. Intent is key.

The Eurasian Lynx is a true leader, commanding vast territories with quiet confidence and precision. Eurasian Lynx are patient, powerful, and perceptive — qualities we can all admire.

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The 8-Step Process for Leading Change Dr. John Kotter’s 8-step process offers a roadmap for navigating change in veterinary practice. Here’s how it looks in action at Never Change Animal Clinic: 1. Create a Sense of Urgency Instead of announcing, “We’re switching systems tomorrow,” management explains why change is needed: “Delays in notetaking and lab work are impacting patient care and client satisfaction. The urgency is clear. If not addressed, missed charges and longer wait times will persist”.

2. Build a Guiding Coalition Key influencers are recruited: a tech-savvy receptionist, a veterinarian critical of inefficiency, and a lead technician. This coalition meets regularly to share feedback and troubleshoot concerns, including skeptics to neutralize resistance.

3. Form a Clear Vision A specific, inspiring vision is shared: “By March, our clinic will have a streamlined appointment system that reduces scheduling errors by 50%, ensures same-day completion of notes, and improves client communication.”

Clear goals are set for training, phased implementation, and tracking KPIs. 4. Enlist a Volunteer Army Participation is voluntary. A meeting is held to explain the benefits, and 15% of the team is engaged as “change champions.” Early adopters build momentum and inspire others.

5. Enable Action by Removing Barriers Communication is transparent, and obstacles are addressed. Extra training is provided for those struggling with technology, and workflows are adjusted. Feedback is gathered, and resistors are engaged, not ignored.

6. Generate Short-Term Wins Progress is celebrated: 100% of wellness appointments scheduled in the new system, client wait times drop by 10%. Individual contributions are highlighted, and celebrations are tailored to staff preferences using a rewards and recognition assessment.

7. Sustain Acceleration The new system is expanded to all appointment types. Data is shared, and additional team members are recruited. Continuous feedback keeps the process adaptable.

8. Institute Change The new appointment flow is integrated into standard operating procedures and onboarding. The team is reminded of how the change aligns with the clinic’s mission, and leaders consistently reinforce accountability and positive culture.

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Making Change Stick Change doesn’t happen by chance. It’s intentional and requires a clear plan. By understanding the dimensions that shape behavior, addressing biases and stereotypes, and following a structured process, veterinary practices can transform resistance into engagement. The key is communication: supply both information and motivation and remember that every team member has a role in making change successful.

If you’re ready to break the cycle and ignite change in your clinic, start with understanding your team, communicating clearly, and following the steps that make change stick. And if you need support, resources like EdQuest and VGP Practice Coaches are there to help you every step of the way.

About the Author: Harmony is a dedicated professional with a strong foundation in behavioral science, human services, and veterinary practice management. Along with a background in military logistics, she specializes in leadership development, coaching, and human resource administration, bringing a passion for growth and connection. She is committed to lifelong learning and service with a focus on fostering resilience and developing continuing education opportunities.

Praxis Magazine • Spring 2026

Article written by

Harmony Butler, CVBL, CCFP Veterinary Growth Partners

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By Bob Murtaugh, DVM, MS, DACVIM, DACVECC, FCCM, FNAP

Leadership Trafficking A Growing Crisis in Medicine and Veterinary Practice Bob Murtaugh, DVM, MS, DACVIM, DACVECC, FCCM, FNAP

Across hospitals, health systems, and veterinary organizations, a troubling pattern has taken hold. Leadership trafficking - the aggressive poaching, trading, and churning of clinical leaders between institutions - is destabilizing the very organizations that patients and animal patients depend on for consistent, high-quality care.

The Escalating War for Clinical Leaders Healthcare and veterinary medicine are facing a perfect storm: workforce shortages, rising burnout, expanding regulatory demands, and the growing complexity of running modern clinical operations. In this environment, physicians, veterinarians, and clinical scientists who demonstrate leadership ability have become extraordinarily valuable - and extraordinarily vulnerable to recruitment.

Executive search firms specializing in healthcare now aggressively target department chairs, chief medical officers, hospital administrators with clinical backgrounds, practice owners, and veterinary group leaders.

Compensation packages have ballooned, with sign-on bonuses, relocation incentives, and equity stakes designed not to reward excellence but simply to extract talent from one institution and transplant it into another. In veterinary medicine, the rapid expansion of corporate consolidation has intensified this dynamic, as private equity-backed groups compete fiercely for experienced clinical leaders to oversee newly acquired practices.

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The result is a marketplace where clinical leaders are treated as interchangeable assets rather than as the deeply embedded professionals whose value is inseparable from the teams and cultures they have built.

The Patient Care Consequences When a respected physician leader or veterinary director departs, the consequences extend far beyond an empty office. Clinical teams lose the continuity that underpins safe, coordinated care. Protocols built around a leader’s expertise and judgment fall into uncertainty. Referring relationships - the informal networks of trust that drive referral patterns in both human and veterinary medicine - fracture overnight.

Research in healthcare administration has consistently demonstrated that leadership turnover correlates with declines in patient satisfaction scores, increases in medical errors during transition periods, and drops in staff retention. In veterinary settings, the departure of a practice leader often triggers a cascade of associate departures, as clinicians who stayed out of loyalty to a particular mentor or culture find little reason to remain.

Externally recruited replacements, however credentialed, face a steep integration curve. They must learn new electronic health record systems, adapt to unfamiliar institutional cultures, build trust with established clinical teams, and navigate community relationships that took their predecessors years to cultivate. Many never fully settle in before being recruited away again.

The Human Toll on Clinicians For the leaders caught in the trafficking cycle, the personal costs are significant. Physicians and veterinarians already contend with some of the highest rates of burnout and mental health challenges of any professional group. Adding the stress of relocation, the pressure to deliver immediate results in an unfamiliar environment, and the erosion of long-standing collegial relationships only compounds these vulnerabilities.

Meanwhile, the clinicians left behind - the associate veterinarians, the mid-career physicians, the residents who looked up to a departing mentor - internalize a dispiriting message: loyalty and institutional commitment are not valued. This breeds cynicism, disengagement, and a transactional approach to career decisions that further accelerates the cycle.

Building a Sustainable Leadership Pipeline Breaking the pattern of leadership trafficking demands intentional investment in growing leaders from within.

Medical institutions and veterinary organizations must identify clinicians with leadership potential early in their careers and provide structured pathways - mentorship, management training, financial literacy education, and progressive administrative responsibilities - that prepare them to step into senior roles. Governing boards and practice ownership groups share the responsibility. Succession planning should be a standing strategic priority, not a crisis response. When a leadership vacancy is filled from within, the transition is smoother, the cultural continuity is preserved, and the new leader arrives with an existing reservoir of trust and institutional knowledge.

Professional associations in both medicine and veterinary science can also play a role by expanding leadership development programming, creating peer networks for emerging clinical leaders, and advocating for ethical recruitment standards that discourage predatory poaching.

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Five Proactive Steps to Protect and Strengthen Your Leadership in a Clinical Leadership Academy 1 Invest Create a formal, in-house leadership development program tailored to the realities of clinical practice. Offer emerging physician and veterinary leaders structured training in team management, financial stewardship, conflict resolution, and strategic planning. When clinicians see a clear growth pathway within their own organization, the appeal of external offers diminishes significantly. a Culture of Recognition and Purpose 2 Cultivate Clinical leaders stay where they feel valued - not just financially, but professionally and personally. Establish regular recognition initiatives that celebrate leadership contributions, create forums where leaders can share innovations with peers, and consistently connect their work back to the organization’s patient care mission. A strong sense of purpose is one of the most powerful retention tools available.

Transparent Succession Planning 3 Implement Make succession planning a visible, ongoing process rather than a behind-closed-doors emergency measure. Identify two or three potential successors for every key leadership role and communicate openly about development timelines. When clinicians know they are being prepared for advancement, they develop deeper institutional commitment and the organization gains resilience against unexpected departures.

Mentorship Networks Across Disciplines 4 Build Pair experienced physician and veterinary leaders with rising clinicians in structured mentorship relationships that cross departmental and specialty lines. These networks not only accelerate leadership readiness but also weave a connective tissue of loyalty and shared knowledge throughout the organization. Mentored clinicians are far more likely to stay, lead, and eventually mentor others in turn.

Regular Leadership Well-Being Check-Ins 5 Conduct Proactively monitor the satisfaction, workload, and professional fulfillment of your clinical leaders before problems escalate. Quarterly one-on-one conversations - focused not on performance metrics but on personal well-being, career aspirations, and unmet needs allow organizations to address concerns early. Leaders who feel heard and supported are far less susceptible to the lure of external recruitment.

"A strong sense of purpose is one of the most powerful retention tools available."

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A Prescription for Stability In professions built on the principle of long-term care relationships, leadership trafficking is fundamentally at odds with the mission. The clinics, hospitals, and practices that will thrive in the decades ahead are those that cultivate their own leaders - investing in the people who already understand their patients, their teams, and their communities. That commitment to growing leadership from within is not just good management.

It is good medicine.

Water buffalo make powerful symbols of leadership because their immovable, communal dedication to the herd drives them to carry what others cannot, guiding those around them with grounded strength and unshakable endurance.

Article written by

By Robert Murtaugh, DVM, MS, DACVIM, DACVECC, FCCM, Publisher, Praxis Magazine DEDICATED TO THE VETERINARY PROFESSION FOR OVER 46 YEARS

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The Leadership Future Has Four Paws Two Wings and a Pulse Steven L May, Certified Veterinary Journalist

The Seismic Shift in Pet Healthcare Has Arrived In a global pet care market that reached an estimated 380 billion U.S. dollars in 2025 and is projected to climb to 650 billion dollars by 2030 (Mordor Intelligence, 2025), a quiet revolution is underway — one that promises to fundamentally transform the way pet owners access information, the way veterinarians deliver care, and the way veterinary hospitals operate as businesses. That revolution has a name: PetsOpiaAI.

In this article, I examine in depth the key reasons PetsOpiaAI’s AI model delivers transformative benefits to pet owners, veterinarians, veterinary hospitals, sponsors, and the broader healthcare community.

For readers of Praxis Magazine - whether you lead a veterinary practice, manage a human medical office, serve patients and clients, or shape healthcare strategy - the PetsOpiaAI story carries implications that extend well beyond animal care into the future of how all healthcare is delivered, communicated, and experienced.

A Purpose-Built Pet Health Informational Platform At the core of PetsOpiaAI’s value proposition is an AI Developed by Vertex AI Systems, PetsOpiaAI represents chat model that functions as one of the most comprehensive pet health informational tools ever one of the world’s most comprehensive AI-powered assembled. The platform consolidates an pet health informational tool for pet owners, unprecedented breadth of veterinary medical a platform so uniquely designed that it has already knowledge - spanning species-specific health generated 15 patent-pending applications (15 U.S. conditions, breed-related predispositions, nutritional and/or international patent applications have been filed science, behavioral health, preventive care protocols, covering aspects of the platform’s architecture; patents emergency guidance, and medication information have not yet been granted, and outcomes are not into a single, accessible, conversational AI interface. guaranteed). Unlike any tool currently available in the veterinary or human healthcare technology landscape, What distinguishes PetsOpiaAI from existing pet health PetsOpiaAI operates at the intersection of artificial chatbots and general-purpose AI tools is the depth, intelligence, pet owner education, veterinary clinical accuracy, and specificity of its knowledge architecture. support, and stakeholder engagement creating an The platform was not built by repurposing a generic ecosystem in which every participant benefits. large language model and adding a pet care layer on top. It was engineered from the ground up as a purpose-built system, designed to understand the unique complexity of veterinary medicine and the nuanced concerns of pet owners. This is precisely why the technology has generated 15 patent-pending applications: its architecture, data integration methodology, consultation workflow, and multistakeholder delivery system are fundamentally novel.

A Note From the Author...

Your pet is family. That’s why PetsOpiaAI exists - to give you the information and confidence you need to be the best advocate for their health. But I, and PetsOpiaAI want to be clear about something important: PetsOpiaAI is designed to inform and support, never to replace your veterinarian. PetsOpiaAI does not provide diagnoses, prognoses, or treatment plans. The AI does its best, but it can be incomplete or inaccurate - and no technology will ever replace a veterinarian’s trained hands and clinical judgment. All decisions about your pet’s care should be made with a licensed veterinarian who has examined your animal. Using the PetsOpiaAI platform does not establish a veterinarian-client-patient relationship. And if you ever suspect your pet is in an emergency - trust yourself and act. Call your 54 veterinarian or rush to the nearest emergency clinic right away. That instinct you feel? It matters more than anything on a screen.

The AI in pet care market, valued at 4.2 billion dollars in 2024, is projected to reach 15.34 billion dollars by 2035, growing at a compound annual growth rate of 12.5 percent (MetaTech Insights, 2025). Within this rapidly expanding landscape, PetsOpiaAI’s positioning as one of the most comprehensive informational tools gives it a decisive first-mover advantage. While competitors offer narrow tools — a symptom checker here, a breed identifier there — PetsOpiaAI delivers an integrated, holistic experience that mirrors the breadth of a veterinary education compressed into a platform any pet owner can access.

Transformative Benefits for Pet Owners For the estimated one billion pet owners worldwide (Global Pet Parent Study, 2024), the anxiety of not knowing what is wrong with their animal companion is a universal experience. Traditionally, pet owners have faced a fragmented landscape: internet search results of questionable reliability, costly and sometimes inaccessible veterinary consultations, and well-meaning but unscientific advice from social media forums. PetsOpiaAI replaces this fragmentation with a single, comprehensive source of AI-powered consultation.

The platform’s conversational AI engages pet owners in a structured dialogue, gathering relevant information about their pet’s species, breed, age, symptoms, history, and behavior before generating a comprehensive consultation summary. This summary does not replace veterinary care — it prepares pet owners for it. By the time an owner walks through their veternarian’s door, they arrive informed, organized, and ready to have a productive clinical conversation.

"PetsOpiaAI does not replace the veterinarian. It empowers the pet owner to become the veterinarian’s most prepared and most engaged client."

- Richard Gebhart, DVM, Founder - PetsOpiaAI

PetsOpiaAI does not provide medical diagnosis, prognosis, or treatment recommendations. AI-generated outputs may be inaccurate or incomplete and should always be reviewed by a licensed veterinarian. Use of the platform does not create a veterinarian-client-patient relationship.

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One of PetsOpiaAI’s most innovative features is its pet owner consultation summary. Once generated, this summary is automatically and securely transferred to the pet owner’s designated veterinary hospital, with the pet owner’s informed authorization. This seamless notification ensures that the veterinarian receives a comprehensive overview of the concerns raised during the AI consultation, allowing them to review the details before the owner arrives. The veterinary care team is then equipped to reach out to the pet owner directly, follow up on both the owner’s concerns and the pet’s condition, and provide timely, informed veterinary care.

All consultation summary transfers occur only with the informed authorization of the pet owner. Data are encrypted in transit and at rest. PetsOpiaAI complies with applicable state veterinary-confidentiality and dataprotection laws. All personal information shown in dashboard and consultation summary illustrations in this article (including names, addresses, phone numbers, insurance numbers, and microchip numbers) is fictional and used for illustrative purposes only.

It is also recommended that pet owners bring a copy of their PetsOpiaAI consultation summary with them when visiting their veterinarian in person. Having the summary readily available during the appointment serves as a helpful reference point, ensuring that all concerns are thoroughly discussed and nothing is overlooked. This simple step facilitates a more productive and collaborative visit.

Multilingual Global Accessibility PetsOpiaAI’s platform is built with multilingual capability, supporting English, Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Chinese, and Japanese. In a global pet care market where the Asia-Pacific region alone is expanding at a 12 percent annual growth rate (Mordor Intelligence, 2025), and where pet ownership is surging across Latin America, Europe, and East Asia, language accessibility is not a feature - it is a necessity. PetsOpiaAI meets pet owners in their own language, in their own cultural context, eliminating one of the most persistent barriers to pet health literacy worldwide.

A Rewards Ecosystem That Incentivizes Responsible Pet Ownership PetsOpiaAI goes beyond information delivery by embedding a rewards program directly into the pet owner experience. Pet parents earn rewards on veterinary visits — including check-ups, treatments, and procedures — as well as on pet prescriptions and premium pet food purchases. This rewards ecosystem accomplishes something no other pet health platform has achieved: it is designed to create a financial incentive for pet owners to engage in preventive care, maintain regular veterinary appointments, and invest in quality nutrition. The intended result is healthier pets, more loyal clients, and a stronger veterinary practice.

Better-Prepared Clients, Better Clinical Outcomes Every veterinarian knows the challenge: a client arrives anxious, uncertain, and often armed with conflicting information from unreliable internet searches. The consultation becomes as much about correcting misinformation as it is about examining the patient. PetsOpiaAI fundamentally changes this dynamic. Because pet owners have already engaged with a comprehensive, medically informed AI consultation before their visit, they arrive with organized concerns, relevant history, and realistic expectations. This allows the veterinarian to focus on what they do best: clinical assessment, diagnosis, and treatment.

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Operational Efficiency and Workflow Integration When a veterinary hospital receives a PetsOpiaAI consultation summary before the client arrives, the clinical team can prepare in advance. Front desk staff can anticipate the nature of the visit.

Veterinary technicians can ready appropriate diagnostic equipment. The attending veterinarian can review the summary and formulate preliminary questions. This advance preparation may help reduce appointment time waste, may increase clinical throughput, and may enhance the quality of each interaction - a trifecta of operational improvements that is designed to directly impact the hospital’s bottom line.

Transformative Benefits for Sponsors and Industry Partners - A Targeted, Engaged, and Data-Rich Audience For veterinary hospital administrators and practice owners, PetsOpiaAI is a business transformation tool. By delivering pre-visit consultation summaries, the platform is designed to drive appointment generation: pet owners who engage with PetsOpiaAI are prompted to schedule veterinary visits, creating a natural funnel from AI consultation to clinical appointment.

The integrated rewards program further is intended to incentivize repeat visits, prescription compliance, and new clients — three of the highest-margin revenue categories in veterinary practice management.

The pet tech market, valued at 7.63 billion dollars in 2024 and projected to reach 17.25 billion dollars by 2030 at a compound annual growth rate of 14.56 percent (Arizton, 2025), is increasingly driven by platforms that integrate multiple touchpoints into a single ecosystem. PetsOpiaAI’s architecture which connects pet owner education, veterinary communication, rewards, prescriptions, and nutrition in one platform - positions veterinary hospitals at the center of this ecosystem rather than on the periphery.

White Label and Partnership Opportunities PetsOpiaAI’s architecture supports white label deployment, enabling veterinary hospital networks, pet insurance providers, pharmaceutical companies, and pet care brands to offer the platform under their own brand identity. This flexibility transforms PetsOpiaAI from a standalone product into a foundational infrastructure layer upon which an entire ecosystem of branded healthcare experiences can be built.

All emergency examples, urgency levels, and triage references shown in this article and on the PetsOpiaAI platform are for educational and illustrative purposes only. Urgency levels are approximations generated by an AI model and may be incorrect. If you are concerned that your pet may be in distress, contact a veterinarian or emergency veterinary clinic immediately regardless of any AI output. AI-generated assessments are not a substitute for emergent veterinary examination.

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The pet tech market is growing at 14.56 percent annually and is expected to reach 17.25 billion dollars by 2030 (Arizton, 2025). The AI in pet care segment specifically is growing at 12.5 percent annually toward a projected 15.34 billion dollar valuation by 2035 (MetaTech Insights, 2025).

PetsOpiaAI is currently intended for animal use only. The platform is not cleared, approved, or regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) or any human-health regulatory agency. The discussion of human healthcare parallels in this article is conceptual and aspirational; it does not describe an existing human-patient product or a product subject to human clinical decision-support regulations.

The One Health Connection The One Health framework - which recognizes the interconnectedness of human, animal, and environmental health - is gaining increasing traction among global health organizations. PetsOpiaAI contributes to this framework by improving the health literacy of pet owners, strengthening the veterinary care infrastructure, and generating data insights that can inform both veterinary and comparative medical research. When pets receive better preventive care because their owners are better informed, the benefits cascade across the entire health ecosystem.

Fifteen Patent-Pending Applications The Technology Behind the Transformation PetsOpiaAI’s 15 patent-pending applications reflect the depth and originality of its technological architecture.

While the specific claims of each application are proprietary, the breadth of the patent portfolio signals innovation across multiple dimensions: the AI consultation workflow and summary generation system; the automated transfer of consultation summaries to veterinary hospitals; the multilingual natural language processing engine; the integrated rewards and incentive architecture; the white label deployment framework; and the multi-stakeholder access and registration system that connects pet owners, veterinarians, and care teams within a unified platform.

In an industry where many competitors rely on off-the-shelf AI models with minimal customization, PetsOpiaAI’s patent-pending portfolio represents a meaningful element of the company’s innovation strategy. These applications, if granted, are intended to help ensure that the platform’s unique design cannot be easily replicated, providing long-term value for investors, partners, and the veterinary community that depends on it.

15 U.S. and/or international patent applications have been filed covering various aspects of the PetsOpiaAI platform’s architecture, consultation workflow, reward systems, and multi-stakeholder delivery framework. “Patent-pending” status does not guarantee that patents will be granted, nor does it determine the scope or enforceability of any patent that may issue. The patent applications are part of Vertex AI Systems’ broader intellectual property and innovation strategy

The Market Opportunity: Timing, Scale, and Momentum The convergence of several macro trends positions PetsOpiaAI at the center of an enormous market opportunity. Global pet ownership now exceeds one billion animals, with over half the world’s households estimated to have at least one pet (Global Pet Parent Study, 2024). The pet tech market is growing at 14.56 percent annually and is expected to reach 17.25 billion dollars by 2030 (Arizton, 2025).

The AI in pet care segment specifically is growing at 12.5 percent annually toward a projected 15.34 billion dollar valuation by 2035 (MetaTech Insights, 2025).

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For healthcare leaders reading this in Praxis Magazine, I believe the lesson is clear: the organizations that embrace AI-enhanced client engagement platforms now will be the organizations that lead their markets in the decade ahead. PetsOpiaAI is not waiting for the future. It is building it.

Here We Are...

The Future of Veterinary Care Is Now Complete PetsOpiaAI, a Vertex AI Systems company, has created something that the veterinary and healthcare industries have long needed but never had: a single, comprehensive, patent-protected AI platform that simultaneously educates pet owners, empowers veterinarians, strengthens veterinary hospitals, rewards responsible pet parenting, and creates meaningful opportunities for sponsors and industry partners.

The platform’s AI chat model - the most comprehensive pet health informational database in the world - is the engine that drives every benefit I have described in this article. Its consultation summaries bridge the gap between the pet owner’s home and the veterinarian’s exam room. Its rewards ecosystem aligns financial incentives with health outcomes. Its multilingual global architecture ensures that geography and language are no longer barriers to quality pet care information. And its 15 patent-pending applications ensure that this innovation is protected, defensible, and positioned for long-term growth.

For veterinarians, physicians, healthcare leaders, and every professional who believes that technology should serve the relationship between caregiver and patient rather than replace it, PetsOpiaAI offers a model worth studying, a platform worth adopting, and a vision worth sharing.

"PetsOpiaAI is not just a technology platform. It is the new standard for how pet healthcare is communicated, coordinated, and delivered around the world."

Article written by

PetsOpiaAI is not waiting for the future.

It is building it.

Praxis Magazine • Spring 2026

Steven L Maibaum, CVJ, VRCE, EMT(rt) SLM Communications s.may@stevenlmaycvj.com stevenlmaycvj.com

59 12

COMPANY OVERVIEW Company Name

PetsOpiaAI, LLC

Parent Company

Vertex AI Systems, Inc.

Industry

Artificial Intelligence / Pet Consumer, Veterinary Med

Year Established

2025

Headquarters

United States

Company Type

Private / Subsidiary

LEADERSHIP & MANAGEMENT Founder, Chief Visionary Officer

Richard Gebhart, DVM

Chief Executive Officer

John Corsale, DVM, MBA

Chief Financial Officer

Marie Potterton, CFA

Chief Medical Officer

Todd Tams, DVM, DACVIM

Chief Technology Officer

Gordon Haas

Chief Information Officer

Gordon Kline

Chief Legal & Corporate Development Officer

Bao Tran, JD, MBA

Chief Operating Officer and CMO

Steven Maibaum

Executive VP, Global Relationships

Mark DeWolde, DVM, MRCVS

CONTACT INFORMATION Office Telephone

830.800.3210

Main Email Address

support@petsopia.ai

Website

www.petsopia.ai

COMPANY SIZE & CLASSIFICATION Number of Employees

10–20

Company Size

Small Business / Startup

SBA Classification

Small Business

Small Business

Growth Stage

Growth Stage

Early Stage

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References Arizton Advisory & Intelligence. (2025). Pet tech market – global outlook & forecast 2025–2030. Arizton Advisory & Intelligence. https://www.arizton.com/market-reports/pet-tech-market Digitail & American Animal Hospital Association. (2024). Survey on AI in veterinary medicine. Cited in Markovate, AI in veterinary medicine: Innovation in animal care.

Elhaddad, M., & Hamam, S. (2024). AI-driven clinical decision support systems: An ongoing pursuit of potential. Cureus, 16(4), e57728. https://doi.org/10.7759/cureus.57728 PMC11073764.

Global Market Insights. (2025). Pet tech market size, trends & forecast 2026–2035. Global Market Insights. https://www.gminsights.com/industry-analysis/pet-tech-market Global Pet Parent Study. (2024). Mars Inc. Cited in Arizton Advisory & Intelligence (2025).

Burti, S., Banzato, T., Coghlan, S., Wodzinski, M., Bendazzoli, M., & Zotti, A. (2024). Artificial intelligence in veterinary diagnostic imaging: Perspectives and limitations. Research in Veterinary Science, 175, 105317. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rvsc.2024.105317 MetaTech Insights. (2025). AI in pet care market share 2025–2035. MetaTech Insights. https://www.metatechinsights.com/industry-insights/ai-in-pet-care-market-2139 Mordor Intelligence. (2025). Pet care market size, share, growth & trends analysis, 2030. Mordor Intelligence. https://www.mordorintelligence.com/industry-reports/pet-care-market Mordor Intelligence. (2025). Pet care e-commerce market size, share & 2030 trends report. Mordor Intelligence. https://www.mordorintelligence.com/industry-reports/pet-care-ecommerce-market Philips. (2024). Future Health Index 2024 global report: Healthcare leaders turn to AI to address critical gaps in patient care. Philips International. https://www.philips.com Jokar, M., Abdous, A., & Rahmanian, V. (2024). AI chatbots in pet health care: Opportunities and challenges for owners.

Veterinary Medicine and Science, 10(3), e1464. https://doi.org/10.1002/vms3.1464 PMC11056198.

Akinsulie, O. C., Idris, I., Aliyu, V. A., Shahzad, S., Banwo, O. G., Ogunleye, S. C., Olorunshola, M., Okedoyin, D. O., Ugwu, C., Oladapo, I. P., Gbadegoye, J. O., Akande, Q. A., Babawale, P., Rostami, S., & Soetan, K. O. (2024). The potential application of artificial intelligence in veterinary clinical practice and biomedical research. Frontiers in Veterinary Science, 11, 1347550. https://doi.org/10.3389/fvets.2024.1347550 PMC10864457.

Akbarein, H., Taaghi, M. H., Mohebbi, M., & Soufizadeh, P. (2025). Applications and considerations of artificial intelligence in veterinary sciences: A narrative review. Veterinary Medicine and Science, 11(3), e70315. https://doi.org/10.1002/vms3.70315 PMC11964155.

ResearchAndMarkets.com. (2025, May 6). Pet tech market – global forecast report 2025–2030: A $17.25 billion market by 2030 [Press release]. GlobeNewswire. https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2025/05/06/3074740 Sriharan, A., Sekercioglu, N., Mitchell, C., Senkaiahliyan, S., Hertelendy, A., Porter, T., & Banaszak-Holl, J. (2024). Leadership for AI transformation in health care organization: Scoping review. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 26, e54556. https://doi.org/10.2196/54556 PMC11358667.

Technavio. (2025, February 12). Pet care market set to grow by USD 101.2 billion from 2025–2029 [Press release]. PRNewswire.

Praxis Magazine • Spring 2026

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Leadership Begins at the Dinner Table Steven L May, Certified Veterinary Journalist

You have mastered morning rounds, multidisciplinary case conferences, and the art of delivering difficult news with steady composure. You have led teams through crises, navigated complex healthcare systems, and championed evidence-based change. But when was the last time you truly listened — not to a patient or a colleague — but to your twelve-year-old explain what matters to them right now? When did you last sit still long enough to let your partner finish a sentence without mentally triaging the rest of the conversation?

For healthcare professionals, the personal ecosystem of family and friends is not a retreat from leadership. It is, in fact, where leadership is most honestly tested — and most powerfully refined.

The Most Honest Feedback Room You Will Ever Enter In clinical and organizational settings, feedback travels through layers of hierarchy, professional courtesy, and institutional culture. At home, there are no such filters. A teenager who tells you “You never actually listen, you just wait for your turn to talk” is offering a clinical observation more precise than most 360-degree reviews. A spouse who quietly stops sharing their day because you seem distracted is giving you real-time data on your presence and attentiveness.

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Research confirms that physician effectiveness is inseparably tied to emotional intelligence — specifically self-awareness, relationship management, and the capacity for genuine empathy. [1] These are not attributes that emerge from clinical training alone; they are practiced daily in the close quarters of home life. Your family is not asking you to be less of a leader. They are asking you to lead them, too.

Show Up for the Small Events — They Are Never Small Healthcare careers are built on the understanding that presence matters. You would not send a colleague to conduct an important consultation on your behalf. Yet many dedicated clinicians and administrators routinely miss a child’s school performance, a parent’s milestone birthday, or a friend’s difficult season — not from indifference, but from the relentless pull of professional obligation.

Our dinner table sharing my daughter’s First day at preschool First theater play First mani and pedi First family barbque First school dance First US and European Band Tour pean band tour The data is sobering. Research published in the Mayo Clinic Proceedings found that physicians were significantly less satisfied with work-life integration than the general population — even after adjusting for hours worked per week. [2] A separate landmark study found that nearly one in three physicians reported burnout at any given time, a rate substantially higher than other professions requiring advanced graduate education. [3] The implication is clear: the professional cost of personal disconnection is not abstract. It is measured in emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and eroded clinical performance.

Praxis Magazine • Spring 2026

Veterinarians and their professional teams carry these burdens with equal weight — and in some respects, greater urgency. The fourth Merck Animal Health Veterinary Wellbeing Study, conducted in collaboration with the AVMA across a nationally representative sample of 4,636 veterinarians and 2,271 veterinary support staff, found that work-life balance was among the strongest predictors of reduced burnout and improved mental health across all veterinary roles. [7] Critically, veterinary technicians, assistants, and practice managers reported even lower wellbeing scores than veterinarians themselves, with exhaustion disproportionately affecting the entire team. [8] A separate study of 868 veterinary staff — spanning veterinarians, nurses, assistants, and administrative professionals — found that life satisfaction directly and measurably reduced psychological distress, with perceived social support from family and close relationships acting as a key mediating factor. [9] The personal ecosystem is not a luxury for those in veterinary medicine. It is a clinical resource.

Crucially, physician resilience research identifies supportive personal relationships — at home and among close friends — as one of the four core protective factors against burnout and career attrition. [4] Attending the dance recital, the graduation, the Sunday dinner that has been on the calendar for two months: these acts of presence compound over time into trust, and trust is the currency of every effective leader. Make these calendar entries as non-negotiable as a surgical booking.

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The Dinner Table: A Daily Leadership Laboratory There is something deceptively ordinary about a shared meal. Phones down, food on the table, a loose agenda of whatever the day brought. But consider what is actually happening: you are practicing active listening without a clinical objective, navigating differing perspectives without institutional authority, and building psychological safety in the people who depend on you most.

A systematic review of over two decades of family meal research found that regular shared meals are associated with stronger family connectedness, improved communication, and reduced rates of depression and anxiety in family members of all ages. [5] Separately, a landmark 15-year longitudinal study by researchers at Harvard Graduate School of Education found that mealtime conversation supported language development and literacy in children more effectively than dedicated reading time — a finding that underscores the cognitive richness of genuine, unhurried conversation. [6] What is generative for children is equally generative for leaders.

When a healthcare leader asks their child “What was hard for you today?” instead of “How did you do on the test?”, they are practicing the diagnostic curiosity that makes them exceptional clinicians.

When they let a family member disagree and respond with genuine interest rather than authority, they are rehearsing the collaborative leadership that high-performing teams require.

Good leadership is not something you switch on at work. It is a practice, and the dinner table is where that practice lives.

Sharing Your Expertise Beyond the Clinic Your years of training and clinical insight are a remarkable resource — one that need not remain behind the clinic door. Talking about health with your family in honest, accessible terms is an act of leadership and love simultaneously. Explaining the neuroscience of stress to a teenager preparing for exams, helping an aging parent navigate a diagnosis with calm clarity, or simply normalizing conversations about mental health at the table: these are the moments where expertise becomes legacy.

The Emperor Penguin is a true leader, enduring the harshest conditions on Earth with unwavering resolve and quiet dignity. Emperor Penguins are resilient, devoted, and remarkably disciplined qualities we can all admire. Their leadership doesn't stop there; it extends deeply into family life, where both parents share the responsibility of raising their young, taking turns shielding their chick from brutal Antarctic winds and ensuring the next generation is strong, nurtured, and ready to lead in their own right.

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And in return, your family will teach you things no residency or continuing education module can. They will show you what health actually looks like in everyday life, outside the context of illness. They will remind you of the human being behind every case, because they are the human beings who will always see you most clearly.

The most complete healthcare leaders are not the ones who left everything at the hospital door in pursuit of clinical excellence. They are the ones who understood that the care they offered a waiting room full of strangers was made richer — deeper, more human, more wise — by the love and attention they gave at home. Leadership does not begin at the boardroom or the bedside.

It begins, reliably and humbly, at the dinner table.

“The habits we plant in quiet meals become the roots of who they'll lead. When they grow on, they carry the table with them — its lessons, its voice, its grace.”

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Article written by

Steven L May, CVJ Founder, Editor in Chief Praxis Magazine

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References 1. Mintz LJ, Stoller JK. A systematic review of physician leadership and emotional intelligence. J Grad Med Educ. 2014;6(3 Suppl 1):21–31. doi:10.4300/JGME-D-13-00012.1 2. Shanafelt TD, West CP, Sinsky C, et al. Changes in burnout and satisfaction with work-life integration in physicians and the general US working population between 2011 and 2020. Mayo Clin Proc. 2022;97(3):491–506. doi:10.1016/j.mayocp.2021.11.021 3. Shanafelt TD, Boone S, Tan L, et al. Burnout and satisfaction with work-life balance among US physicians relative to the general US population. Arch Intern Med. 2012;172(18):1377–1385. doi:10.1001/archinternmed.2012.3199 4. Jensen PM, Trollope-Kumar K, Waters H, Everson J. Building physician resilience. Can Fam Physician. 2008;54(5):722– 729. PMC2377221 5. Harrison ME, Norris ML, Obeid N, Fu M, Weinstangel H, Sampson M. Systematic review of the effects of family meal frequency on psychosocial outcomes in youth. Can Fam Physician. 2015;61(2):e96–e106. PMC4325878 6. Snow CE, Beals DE. Mealtime talk that supports literacy development. New Dir Child Adolesc Dev. 2006;111:51–66. doi:10.1002/cd.155; see also: Fishel AH. The Benefit of Family Mealtime. Harvard Graduate School of Education EdCast.

April 2020. https://www.gse.harvard.edu/ideas/edcast/20/04/benefit-family-mealtime 7. Volk JO, Schimmack U, Strand EB, et al. Work-life balance is essential to reducing burnout, improving well-being. J Am Vet Med Assoc. 2024;262(7):950–957. doi:10.2460/javma.24.02.0135. [Merck Animal Health Veterinarian Wellbeing Study IV] 8. Volk JO, Schimmack U, Strand EB, et al. Merck Animal Health Veterinary Team study reveals factors associated with well-being, burnout, and mental health among nonveterinarian practice team members. J Am Vet Med Assoc.

2024;262(10):1330–1337. doi:10.2460/javma.24.03.0225 9. Pais-Ribeiro JL, et al. Life satisfaction, psychological distress, compassion satisfaction and resilience: when the pleasure of helping others protects veterinary staff from emotional suffering. Vet Res Commun. 2024. doi:10.1007/s11259-02410510-0

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Review

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The Leaders Bookshelf

Praxis Magazine • Spring 2026

Suit Up for Success

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Sententiae

"I am in favor of animal rights as well as human rights. That is the way of a whole human being."

- Abraham Lincoln

"Until he extends the circle of his compassion to all living things, man will not himself find peace."

- Albert Schweitzer

"Wherever the art of medicine is loved, there is also a love of humanity."

- Hippocrates

All quotations are attributed to their respective sources — C. Everett Koop, Francis Peabody, Jane Goodall, Albert Schweitzer, Hippocrates, and Abraham Lincoln — and are presented solely to inspire reflection on the shared values of leadership, compassion, and service that unite the human and veterinary healthcare professions. Quotations and portrait images on these pages are reproduced for non-commercial editorial and educational purposes with attribution. Any party with concerns regarding quotation or image rights is invited to contact us at hello@praxisleadership.org · 830.800.3210.

68 Praxis Magazine • Spring 2026

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