When Anita Patel, DVM, senior director of clinical excellence at IndeVets, led a leadership lab at the 2026 AVMA Convention last week, her message was direct: change is constant in vet med, but most organizations underestimate what it actually takes to bring a team through it. The same week, AAHA Trends published a piece from board director Gregory Carastro, LVT, laying out a detailed framework for what makes veterinary workplaces sustainable. Read together, they paint a clear picture of what great veterinary leadership looks like in 2026, and what most practices are still missing.

Veterinary medicine has always been emotionally demanding work. But demand alone doesn't cause teams to fall apart. Poor leadership does.

When the Leader Moves Faster Than the Team

One of the most useful frameworks Patel shared: leaders navigate change on a different timeline than their teams. A practice owner who has spent months thinking through a shift in scheduling, services, or ownership will land in a place of acceptance or even excitement well before the team hears about it. The team starts that journey the moment they learn something is changing.

That gap is where most of the damage happens. Leaders who don't account for it tend to interpret resistance as opposition rather than as the normal human response to uncertainty. The result is a team that feels unseen, and a leader who feels unsupported.

The fix isn't complicated, but it requires intention: know where the organization is, know where it's going, and communicate both clearly and repeatedly. Invite the team into the process rather than presenting change as finished decisions.

What Actually Keeps Veterinary Professionals in Their Jobs

Carastro's piece went deeper on the structural side. Psychological safety, he wrote, is the foundation of every high-performing veterinary team: an environment where staff can speak up, ask questions, admit mistakes, and share concerns without fear of embarrassment or retaliation. When technicians hesitate to question a medication dosage, or interns fear asking for clarification, patient care suffers. Culture problems are, at their core, patient care problems.

Beyond safety, Carastro outlined what benefits packages should actually look like for a profession that demands this much. Comprehensive mental health coverage, bereavement leave that recognizes the loss of companion animals, student loan assistance, and flexible scheduling where possible aren't nice-to-haves in 2026. They're signals that an organization understands the job.

He also pushed back on the idea that wellness programs are enough. A lunch-and-learn on mindfulness doesn't offset a chronic understaffing problem. Sustainable workloads, realistic scheduling, and adequate support staff are, as Carastro put it, among the most effective wellbeing interventions available.

Recognition matters more than most leaders realize, too. Not awards programs or formal ceremonies, but the small, specific moments: a handwritten note, acknowledging a hard shift, sharing positive feedback from a client. Veterinary professionals are motivated by purpose, but purpose doesn't pay the emotional bill when a leader consistently fails to notice.

Measuring What Matters

Carastro made one argument that deserves particular attention. Practices routinely measure revenue, productivity, and client satisfaction. How often do they track voluntary turnover rates, internal promotion rates, exit interview themes, or sick leave utilization? These numbers tell you what's happening inside the culture long before a resignation hits.

The practices that win the next decade of vet med won't just be the ones with the best equipment or the highest wages. They'll be the ones that figured out how to take care of the people doing the work.

What this means for you:

  • Talk to your team about change before it's final, not after. Give them time to process.
  • Audit your benefits package against the specific pressures of the profession: mental health access, debt, unpredictable schedules, and grief.
  • Make psychological safety explicit. It starts with how leaders respond when someone admits a mistake.
  • Start measuring culture, not just performance. Turnover, referrals, and engagement surveys tell you where you actually stand.
  • Don't let sustainability compete with productivity. They reinforce each other.

Build the Culture That Keeps People Here

Building a workplace people want to stay in takes more than good intentions. It takes the right systems. Rally by Hound is built for veterinary teams, helping practices run the culture work that actually drives retention.

Sources: "The Biggest Leadership Challenges Facing Veterinary Organizations and Clinics Today", Abi Bautista-Alejandre, dvm360, July 12, 2026. "View from the Board: Building a Veterinary Workplace Where People Can Thrive", Gregory Carastro, LVT, AAHA Trends, July 10, 2026.