Leaders must care about people. Dr. Dani McVety, founder of Lap of Love animal hospice, shares how she learned how to refine her duties and lead better with EOS. Dr. Dani illustrates the importance of gaining respect through actions, servant leadership and investing in employees.
Early in her career Dr. Dani discovered that putting people first will reveal opportunities in the market. That’s how she got the idea for Lap of Love, the first pet hospice and at-home pet euthanasia provider in the U.S.
As the oldest child in her family, Dr. Dani says she has always felt comfortable being a leader and becoming an entrepreneur was a natural development of her talents.
[3:07] “An entrepreneur is not a job title. An entrepreneur is a set of personality traits.”
Dr. Dani highlights that those traits include a good work ethic, a skill, follow-through and a desire to build something new and good for society.
Honing Leadership
Before EOS, Dr. Dani recalls that she would have days filled with meetings. As a true visionary who thrives on strategic thinking and creative problem-solving, she hated that.
So, she learned to shift her duties and get updates from her department heads each week instead of attending all the meetings. She says this was the best way to stay current on the company developments while focusing on the visionary work she loves.
Invest In Employees
Dr. Dani shares a lesson her father taught her: If you want to gain people’s respect, do so through your actions. Demonstrate that you care about others by being a servant leader.
She exemplifies this in her work by investing in her employees, offering them competitive wages and benefits and ensuring that they feel valued as people.
Good leaders make employees feel good about going to work and give them skills they can take into the future, no matter where they end up.
Balancing Leadership And Home Life
Balancing entrepreneurial leadership and home duties as a woman is a constant challenge that Dr. Dani speaks to with refreshing honesty. It’s easy to feel stretched thin when society expects her to be a perfect leader, mother, and wife.
[27:49] “You have to align priorities and make sure that you’re doing the best you can . . . and then stop apologizing for it.”
Start Leading Now
Dr. Dani signs off with a word of wisdom to aspiring leaders: Just get out and lead.
Reading books and observing leaders you admire is useful, but you will never learn how to lead unless you start doing it. Don’t regret mistakes — learn from them and pay attention to how they make you a better person.