State of Veterinary Leadership 2026: Audit Data From 115 Leaders

The four findings

• Execution under pressure was the top-rated domain for 74 of 115 leaders (64%), counting ties. Role clarity was lowest on average.
• 97 of 115 leaders (84%) rated execution above role clarity, by 3.3 points of 12 on average.
• Practice managers and hospital directors, the largest group (37 of 115), had the widest gap of the larger groups: 4.2 points.
• 109 of 115 leaders (95%) reported no substantial leadership program. 59 said they learned on the job.

Every figure here is a self-rating: how leaders see their own leadership, not how their teams experience it.

Domain averages

Each domain is scored out of 12. The average total was 44.2 out of 72.

Each bar is one domain. A longer bar means leaders rated themselves higher there. Teal marks the highest, amber the lowest.

A high self-rating on execution under pressure can be accurate about intent and still miss how it lands: tone, how fast a question gets cut off, whether people still bring bad news when the board is full. It is the score that most needs a second view.

Where leaders sit

Totals are out of 72. Stable is 54 or more, Functional is 40 to 53, Fragile is 25 to 39, and High Risk is below 25.

Each leader's total score (out of 72) places them in one of four bands. The bar shows how many leaders fall in each.

By role

Groups under five leaders are merged: corporate and multi-site leaders (2) are included under Other. Owners (6) are a small group, so read that row with caution.

Execution was the highest domain in every group. Role clarity was lowest for practice managers, nurse and technician leads, and owners, and tied with influence in Other. Medical directors scored 7.1 on four domains. Veterinarians scored lowest on growth systems and influence (6.3 each), and nurses and technicians on influence (6.3). The headline holds overall and for the groups that carry a management load, but not for everyone.

Each row is one role. The amber dot is that role's average role clarity score and the teal dot is its average execution score, both out of 12. The number on the right is the gap between them in points; a longer line means a wider gap.

Training history

Each leader reported their training history. The score column is those leaders' average total on the audit, out of 72, not a training score.

Leaders who reported more training rated themselves higher. Both measures are self-reported and only six leaders are in the top group, so this does not show that training caused the difference. Whether training changes how a leader works on a shift is a separate question, covered in why leadership training doesn't stick in veterinary hospitals.

Methodology

The PIVOT Leadership Audit has 24 questions scoring six domains: team standards, role clarity, influence, accountability, growth systems, and execution under pressure. Each domain is out of 12 and the total is out of 72. Leaders answer about themselves, so every number is a self-rating, not observed behavior.

The sample is each person's first submission between July 17 and October 19, 2026: 122 submissions from 115 people. Role and training history are self-reported. Most respondents (87 of 115) came from Meta ads aimed mainly at US and Canadian veterinary leaders. Eight came from the TRIAGE course baseline, four from the Module 1 preview, and 16 have no recorded source.

Limits: the sample is self-selected, since leaders who click an ad about leadership may differ from those who do not. Group sizes are small outside the first few roles. The audit is a PIVOT-built tool and has not been independently validated against team ratings. Scores describe these 115 leaders, not the profession.

What the research says about self-ratings

A 2009 meta-analysis by Heidemeier and Moser in the Journal of Applied Psychology analyzed 128 samples of employees, comparing their own job performance ratings with their supervisors'. The overall correlation comes from 115 of those samples, more than 37,000 people. The two views lined up only loosely, and people rated themselves more generously on average. The study covers employees in general, not veterinary leaders, so it supports a narrow point: a self-rating and someone else's rating of the same work are different measurements. Our article on what a leadership self-rating can't show covers three places that gap hides.

Grossman and Salas (2011), in the International Journal of Training and Development, reviewed what is most consistently linked to training changing work behavior. Several factors sit in the workplace: whether the learner finds the training useful, gets the chance to use it, has support, and has follow-up. This is general workplace research, not veterinary.

What to forward to your owner

Practice managers and hospital directors: these are the points to send up.

• 36 of 115 veterinary leaders (31%) landed in the Fragile or High Risk bands, and 109 of 115 had no substantial leadership program. Leading on instinct and effort is the common situation.
• Leaders rated themselves highest on execution under pressure and lowest on role clarity: knowing who owns what.
• These are self-ratings. If your leads take the audit too, you get the same numbers for your own hospital.

For scale, Neill, Hansen and Salois (2022) estimated median turnover costs of about $104,000 per veterinarian and $59,000 per technician in Frontiers in Veterinary Science. These are model estimates in 2020 US dollars, may not reflect an individual hospital, and are likely a lower bound. TRIAGE seats run $900 to $1,200 each, so one veterinarian departure costs roughly 87 to 116 seats and one technician departure roughly 49 to 66. This compares scale only. It does not claim that any program prevents a departure.

See where you land

The audit takes about eight minutes and shows your six domain scores next to this benchmark. If your leads take it too, the combined results show where the hospital is weakest.

Take the free PIVOT Leadership Audit

Frequently asked questions

How do I cite this data?

Cite it as PIVOT Vet Strategies, State of Veterinary Leadership 2026, 115 veterinary leaders who took the PIVOT Leadership Audit between July 17 and October 19, 2026. Link to this page and use the "last updated" date, because the numbers change as more leaders take the audit.

Does a high score mean a leader is strong?

No. The audit measures how a leader rates their own leadership. A high score shows confidence in that area, and self-ratings tend to run kinder than other people's ratings. The useful step is comparing a self-rating with the view of the people who work with you.