Is AI Your Leadership Superpower?
- Oliver Loveday
- 3 days ago
- 4 min read
Have you ever had one of those days where it feels like your brain is a corkboard covered in post-it notes?
You haven’t even made it to work yet, but you’re already battling dashboard chaos (because yes, your actual car dashboard is covered in post-its too), you’ve had a mini-road rage meltdown, and before the kettle's even boiled at the clinic, three people have ambushed you with problems only you can solve. And then you open your inbox… 6,000 unread messages.
Welcome to leadership, veterinary style.
If that sounds like your Tuesday, I’ve got some good news. There is a way out of the madness. You don’t need more hours in the day. You need a sidekick. A supercharged one. And it's already here.
It’s called AI.
"We don't do tech" is a story that's expired
Vet med has a history of lagging when it comes to adopting tech. We dragged our heels with the internet. Took our sweet time abandoning the Yellow Pages. Even during Covid, which fast-tracked a lot of digital change, AI still felt like something from a Marvel script. A bit weird. A bit scary. Possibly unethical. Mostly misunderstood.
But here's the deal: the leaders who learn to ride this rocket now will put serious distance between themselves and those who stick to old ways. There’s a chasm forming - not a crack, not a wrinkle. A chasm. One side is bogged down in overwhelm. The other will be breezing past on a 70mph travelator.
Which side would you prefer to be on?
AI is not the Terminator. It's more like J.A.R.V.I.S.
Let’s bust a few myths right away. Generative AI isn't coming for your job as the practice manager. It's not coming for your soul. And it’s definitely not about to scrub in for a spay.
What it is, though, is a toolkit. A seriously potent one. One that doesn’t sleep, doesn’t need a pay cheque, and can think faster than you after three espressos.
It won’t replace your wisdom, but it can augment your brain. Like switching your old clunky bike for a supercharged e-bike. You're still steering. You’re still pedalling. But you go further, faster, and with a hell of a lot less effort.
So what can it actually do?
Oh, just a few things... like:
Creating policies and SOPs: Ask it to draft a standard of care for dentistry in your clinic. Or create a parasite prevention protocol tailored to your geography. It'll write it in seconds. You finesse it. Done.
Training and onboarding: Build out structured plans. Create materials. Map learning journeys. This is the ultimate plug-in educator.
Marketing and communication: Blogs, emails, social posts, video scripts. Write like a pro, even if you don't.
Inbox triage: Sort the noise. Prioritise what matters. Kill the passive-aggressive email before it leaves your keyboard.
Strategic planning: Spot trends. Brainstorm. Model scenarios. Bring clarity to complexity.
Financial review: It can read your P&L, highlight inefficiencies, and help you make strategic decisions. It’s basically your on-call CFO.
Coach you off the ledge when you need to have emotionally difficult conversations. Need a way into a conversation, role play it, or get into a better emotional space before you take on a tough HR moment, just ask. The advice is incredibly thoughtful.
Oh, and you can use it to summarise meetings, write follow-up to-do lists, and even simulate performance reviews. And that's before you use it clinically. If your mind isn’t boggling, you’re not paying attention.
"But I don't understand how it works..."
Doesn't matter. Neither do I. Neither does 99% of the population. You don’t need to be an engineer to use WhatsApp. You don’t need to be a physicist to trust a plane will get you across the Atlantic. We trust tech when it works. And AI? It works.
The real skill now isn’t coding. It’s prompting. Knowing how to talk to the robot. You throw in a question. It gives you an answer. You go deeper. You refine. It improves. You get better results.
What you’re doing is learning how to have a conversation with a machine that helps you solve problems. It’s like brainstorming with a magic friend who’s read every book, every article, and every policy ever written.
But there’s a catch, to get really good results, you need to know how to train your AI army right. And that’s what most people are not doing.
AI won't lead for you. But it will give you time to lead.
So what happens? Culture breaks. People quit. You get buried in busywork. And the stuff that matters - coaching, mentoring, building a sustainable practice - falls off the to-do list again.
AI is the assist. It clears your plate so you can actually do the job you were meant to do.
Let me say this plainly: AI is the most powerful leadership tool I've seen in my lifetime.
It can transform the way you:
Work
Communicate
Think
Plan
Hire
Grow
The question isn’t whether you should use it. It’s whether you can afford not to.
Want to see what this looks like in practice?
I’m running a webinar that breaks down exactly how veterinary leaders are already using AI to lighten their load, make better decisions, and do more of what matters.
If you want to:
Stop drowning in admin
Spend more time on leadership
Get ahead of the curve (instead of being steamrolled by it)
Then join me. Click here to register for my free webinar - The AI Advantage. Let’s get you off your leadership hamster wheel and onto the 70mph travelator.
