View from the Board: The secret to great leadership

As AAHA transitions to the next chapter of its story, I have spent a lot of time pondering leadership.

Throughout my career, I have been extraordinarily blessed to learn from some incredible leaders. I observed these individuals with admiration, unique in many of their attributes but alike in the ability to seemingly generate success wherever they tried.

Early in my career as I studied and tried to emulate them, I fell victim to a common misconception—that great leaders are the ones with the best ideas. I equated great leaders to virtuosos, geniuses. As you might expect, turning this belief into action wasn’t a recipe for the success I imagined it was.

Thankfully, my hard-headedness was not so extreme as to keep me fixed in this misinterpretation. What makes a great leader is decidedly not having all the answers. Great leaders instead recognize that true genius comes from the amalgamation of the collective genius found within the teams they assemble.

At AAHA CON 2025 in Chicago last month, speaker and author Ryan Leak delivered an exceptional closing keynote during which he poignantly reminded us that we’re all alike in a key way: we’re all complicated. These complications are so often the focus of human attention. Great leaders are those rare individuals that can recognize the complicated, but choose to look past it and focus instead on the strength in individuality that each person possesses. Leaders practice this choice through the key attributes of patience and the empowerment of others.

Patience

Several years ago I read that Abraham Lincoln was steadfast in the practice of drafting letters and then letting them sit for days before re-reading them and either starting over or finally sending them. Given the exceptional challenge of a severed country at war that he presided in, I am certain that many of these communications were incredibly urgent, and yet he displayed the patience necessary to delay. This is remarkable to me.

Much admiration is given towards those who know exactly what to do in a moment of action. However, I believe that recognizing the emotionally clouded judgement of the initial, visceral human reaction and instead choosing patient restraint displays a true strength in leadership. The result is the triumph of logic and reason over reflex. This clarity of thought is irreplaceable in leadership.

Empowerment of others

Leaders are entitled to make decisions; their position grants that authority more often than not. In a world that focuses so often on the shortcomings of self and others and trying to remedy them, there is exceptional tolerance and expectation of this practice of leadership.

It works, so long as the leader makes all the best choices, has the best understanding, has all the answers. What’s more rare is a leader that can look past the shortcomings of the individual, and focus instead on their strengths. Recognizing those strengths is just the first step, however, in driving a successful team.

Individuals must also be empowered by their leaders to allow those strengths the space necessary to flourish. Around the turn of the century, leaders were not known for investment in or the empowerment of employees. Yet, the genius of Henry Ford moved beyond the re-imagining of the factory assembly process. The world saw the implementation of the 40-hour work week and doubling of the average wage to $5 per day as wasteful.

Ford, however, recognized that ensuring his employees’ needs were met and their lives comfortable enough to allow weekend time with family, built the foundation for them to give their best on the floor. The investment Ford made in his workers is exactly what’s required for human ingenuity and strength to prevail.

Leaders take many forms in the world. Their backgrounds and their origin stories are not the most crucial factor to their eventual success or struggle. Rather, their trajectory is determined by how well they can recognize the strengths within the people around them and cultivate it through patience and invest in the teams they assemble.

As AAHA moves into the next chapter of our story, know that your Board of Directors is committed to bringing this kind of leader to continue this incredible organization in another 93 years of defining excellence in veterinary practice.

Bryan T. Clarke, DVM, DABVP, is AAHA’s president-elect and co-owner of All Creatures Animal Hospital in Lutz, Florida. 

AAHA’s Board of Directors weighs in each month in View from the Board to let members know what they are working on, what is important to them, and what is coming from AAHA.

Photo credit: © AAHA

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