A leadership lesson from the trenches of academic medicine
The Accidental Prison We Build for Our Best People
Ten months into my role as hospital director at a veterinary teaching hospital, I discovered something that kept me awake at night: we had accidentally created a leadership system that trapped our most capable people in roles they never intended to hold forever.
Picture this scenario: You have 25 specialized services, each requiring leadership. Some faculty members volunteer enthusiastically. Others get “voluntold”—that familiar academic tradition where someone needs to step up, and you happen to be competent and present. The role gets filled, the service functions, and everyone moves on.
Except they don’t move on. They stay. For years. Sometimes decades.
This isn’t unique to veterinary medicine or even to academia. Organizations across industries face the same challenge: how do we balance continuity with opportunity? How do we honor dedication without creating accidental imprisonment?
The Hidden Cost of Leadership Stability
When I examined our service leader structure, I found leaders who had been in their roles for 15+ years. Many were doing exceptional work. They had mastered the impossible art of managing highly specialized professionals who chose academia specifically to avoid the “see more cases” mentality of private practice. They balanced research obligations with clinical responsibilities, mediated conflicts between brilliant minds with strong opinions, and somehow kept complex services running smoothly.
But mastery had become a trap.
These veteran leaders weren’t failing—they were succeeding so well that we had no systems for transition, no pipelines for development, and no graceful exit strategies. Meanwhile, capable associate professors with 5–7 years of experience, natural leadership instincts, and fresh perspectives sat on the sidelines, wondering if they would ever get their opportunity to contribute at a higher level.
We had created what I call the “leadership bottleneck”—a system where excellence prevents opportunity.
The Real Responsibilities Behind the Title
Before diving into solutions, it’s worth understanding what service leaders in academic medicine actually do. These roles represent one of the most challenging management positions in any organization because they require leading people who fundamentally cannot be managed in traditional ways.
Service leaders:
- Organize faculty schedules months in advance, knowing that academics view calendar coordination as an existential threat to their autonomy.
- Facilitate monthly service meetings where equipment purchases become philosophical debates about the future of veterinary medicine.
- Represent their service in quarterly hospital-wide meetings, advocating for resources while maintaining collaborative relationships with 24 other equally passionate advocates.
- Review service finances, attempting to balance budgets while supporting teams whose primary motivations aren’t financial.
- Handle conflict resolution between specialists who have dedicated their careers to being right about things.
- Serve as translators between administrative needs and academic values, bridging worlds that often speak different languages.
All while maintaining their own clinical practices, research projects, and teaching responsibilities.
The compensation for this herculean effort? Sometimes a few thousand extra dollars annually. Sometimes less. Sometimes just the satisfaction of preventing their service from imploding on a Tuesday.
The Leadership Development Paradox
Here’s the paradox: the most challenging leadership roles often go to people who never wanted to manage anyone in the first place. Veterinarians become professors to advance animal health, conduct research, and train the next generation. Managing budgets, mediating personality conflicts, and attending administrative meetings wasn’t part of their career vision.
Yet these roles are essential. Services need advocates, coordinators, and decision-makers. Someone has to bridge the gap between individual excellence and organizational success.
Traditional succession planning waits for retirement, resignation, or burnout. But what if we approached leadership development proactively? What if we created systems that developed multiple capable leaders instead of depending on individual heroism?
The Term Limit Solution: Structure vs. Flexibility
After months of observation and consultation with department heads, clinical managers, and faculty, I implemented structured three-year terms for all service leader positions. This wasn’t about removing effective leaders—it was about creating systematic opportunities for leadership development while honoring the contributions of veteran leaders.
The process includes transparent selection criteria, feedback from multiple stakeholders, and clear renewal options. Veterans who thrive in leadership can continue with renewed mandate and support. Those who have been quietly hoping for an exit get a graceful transition path. Rising faculty get predictable opportunities to develop leadership skills.
The resistance was immediate and understandable. When you’ve been the person holding everything together for over a decade, stepping back feels like abandoning your service. Leadership roles become part of professional identity, especially when you’ve been successful.
But something remarkable happened during implementation: veteran leaders who had been carrying heavy loads alone became mentors and advisors. New leaders brought innovative approaches to persistent challenges. Knowledge transfer happened systematically instead of accidentally. We built leadership depth instead of depending on whoever happened to be in the chair.
Lessons for Leaders in Any Field
The service leader challenge illustrates broader principles that apply across industries:
- Excellence can become imprisonment. When someone does a difficult job well, organizations tend to leave them there indefinitely. This seems logical but creates several problems: it prevents talent development, increases burnout risk, and makes the organization vulnerable to knowledge loss.
- Leadership development requires intentional systems. Waiting for natural transitions means missing opportunities to build organizational capacity. Proactive development creates multiple capable leaders instead of irreplaceable individuals.
- Transition isn’t about performance. The goal isn’t to replace failing leaders but to create sustainable systems where leadership is renewable, energizing, and shared.
- Transparency builds trust. Clear processes for selection, evaluation, and transition reduce anxiety and increase buy-in from all stakeholders.
- Options benefit everyone. Structured transitions give effective leaders choice about their future involvement while creating opportunities for emerging talent.
Implementation Strategies
For leaders considering similar changes, several strategies proved essential:
- Start with communication. Explain the rationale clearly, emphasizing opportunity creation rather than performance issues. Address concerns directly and provide forums for feedback.
- Include stakeholders in design. Involve current leaders, potential leaders, and support staff in creating transition processes. Their insights improve the system and increase acceptance.
- Create graceful exits and entrances. Make it easy for veteran leaders to step back with dignity and for new leaders to step up with support.
- Maintain flexibility within structure. Standard terms provide predictability, but renewal options allow for continuity when appropriate.
- Plan knowledge transfer. Don’t leave institutional knowledge to chance. Create systematic handoff processes that capture both explicit procedures and tacit wisdom.
The Broader Organizational Impact
Six months after implementation, the effects extended beyond individual services. The hospital developed stronger communication between services, more innovative approaches to persistent challenges, and greater faculty engagement in organizational improvement.
Veteran leaders who initially resisted the changes began appreciating the reduced administrative burden and increased mentoring opportunities. New leaders brought energy and fresh perspectives that benefited entire services. Most importantly, we created predictable pathways for faculty development that didn’t depend on waiting for someone to retire or burn out.
Conclusion: Building Systems That Serve People
The service leader transition taught me that organizational systems should serve people, not trap them. When we create roles so demanding that only our most capable people can handle them, we have an obligation to ensure those people aren’t stuck in them forever.
This isn’t about removing excellent leaders—it’s about creating systems where excellence can flourish at scale. Where veteran wisdom guides emerging talent. Where leadership is a developmental opportunity, not a life sentence.
The goal isn’t to replace anyone. It’s to give everyone options.
Whether you’re managing faculty in academic medicine, specialists in corporate settings, or any group of highly skilled professionals, consider this question: Are you developing leaders, or are you accidentally creating leadership bottlenecks?
Sometimes the most radical thing you can do is give your best people permission to step back so others can step up. The organization benefits, the veterans benefit, and the rising stars finally get their chance to shine.
That’s not just good leadership—it’s sustainable leadership.
And sustainability might be the most important leadership quality of all.