The Subtle Shift in Success as a Leader
The Leader I'm Becoming
For most of my career, I had a very clear picture of what success looked like.
It looked like strong revenue growth. Clean financials. Efficient systems. A full schedule.
A team that moved quickly, hit targets, and didn't call out every other day.
In veterinary leadership, especially in hospital management, those benchmarks are easy to measure. They’re tangible. They’re objective. And for years, I chased them relentlessly. I believed that once I achieved them, I would feel like I had “made it.”
And eventually, I did.
The hospital was performing well. Profit margins were healthy. Operational systems were structured and predictable. We had improved workflows, tightened inventory control, refined scheduling, and strengthened accountability. On paper, it was everything I had worked toward.
But what surprised me most was that I didn’t feel the way I expected to feel. There was no dramatic sense of arrival. No emotional exhale. No moment where I thought, This is it. I’ve reached success.
Instead, there was a quiet realization. Success, at least the way I had defined it, was incomplete.
Then, there was a shift. It didn't happen during a Teams Call or a monthly review meeting; it happened in the smallest moments. It happened when a team member asked for guidance not just on a task, but on her career path. It happened when conflict surfaced between departments, and I realized operational efficiency didn’t automatically create cultural alignment. It happened when I saw how much weight leadership decisions carry, not just financially, but emotionally.
I had helped build a productive hospital, but productivity and purpose are not the same thing. That was the moment my definition of success began to change.
Early in leadership, success feels like a climb. Every milestone reached proves you are capable. Every improved metric reinforces that you are effective. Revenue increases validate strategy. Profit margins validate discipline. Efficiency validates the structure. Don't get me wrong; those things matter. They are the backbone of sustainability. But once those numbers stabilize, something else becomes more visible.
You begin to see that the true measure of leadership isn’t just in growth charts; it’s in your people. Is my team developing? No, wait, is each team member developing? Are they confident in decision-making? Is my hospital culture strong, even if I am not in the room?
I started noticing that the most meaningful wins weren’t always financial. They were the moments when a team lead handled a difficult client without escalation. When two departments resolved tension without defensiveness. When someone stepped into a higher level of accountability without being pushed.
Those weren’t line items on a P&L, but they were indicators of something deeper. Achieving success doesn’t reduce responsibility; it increases it. When you are building toward success, your focus is upward. You are proving yourself. You are establishing credibility. You are driving results. Once you achieve this, your success takes a shift. Success becomes something you strive for, for your team. You want to build other leaders, not just great employees. You want to hold standards without losing your empathy or compassion, and you want to sustain a positive culture, not just productivity. It’s about integrity between values and action. It’s about building something sustainable, not just impressive.
It’s about who I am becoming while leading, not just what I am building.
