On this ride-along episode of Bits By Leather, Leather Brice, CVBL, shares a barn-side epiphany: even the most reliable horse needs boundaries—and so do your most reliable team members. Using her 20-year-old, rock-steady gelding as a metaphor, Leather explores how leaders often let top performers slide on standards out of fear of “breaking what works.” She unpacks why that mindset backfires and offers a simple reset: clear expectations, consistent follow-through, and courageous conversations. If you’ve got long-time staff who always come through but sometimes skip the process, this is your cue to hold them, lovingly, accountable. Walk away with practical steps for check-ins, coaching, and reinforcing culture without losing the heart of your team.

🐴 Key Takeaways

1. Reliability doesn’t replace accountability: Even “rock-steady” top performers need clear standards and consequences.
2. Tenure bias is real: Longtime team members often get unintentional passes that erode culture and fairness.
3. Fear fuels avoidance: Leaders sometimes skip hard feedback to avoid “breaking what works,” which enables bad habits.
4. Consistency is kindness: Apply the same rules to everyone—best performers included—so expectations stay clear.
5. Address behavior, not person: Praise reliability and contributions while correcting specific process breaks.
6. Coach for growth: Pair accountability with support—training, resources, and recognition when behavior improves.

In this heartfelt episode of Keys to Harmony, Harmony Butler invites you to pause and answer a powerful question: How are you really doing?

With Valentine’s Day around the corner, Harmony explores love — not in the romantic sense, but the kind of love we have (or want to have) for our work, our teams, and the impact we make every day in veterinary medicine.

Too often, we tie our happiness to someone else’s actions. If they would just change… then I’d love my job. But what if we’ve been setting the wrong goals all along?

Through a simple but transformative mindset shift, Harmony challenges you to identify your true goal — the feeling you’re actually chasing — and shows how you can start experiencing it today, without waiting on anyone else.

If your goal is to love your work, feel free, or create a better culture, this episode will help you take ownership of that experience now.

Because the key to harmony? It starts with you.

1. The real goal isn’t the outcome — it’s the feeling you believe the outcome will give you.
2. Waiting on others to change delays your own fulfillment.
3. You can experience love for your work now — without external validation.
4. Small, intentional actions can shift workplace culture.
5. Personal responsibility is the first step toward creating harmony.

In this quick-hit episode of Bits By Leather, Leather Brice bundles up against the Texas cold and drops a simple but powerful truth: culture change starts with the words you repeat every day. From her lifelong love of the word “rad” to the team-favorite “jazzed,” Leather shows how specific language catches on—and how the same approach cements your practice’s core values. Learn how to turn values like “we are timely” and “we are empathetic” into daily habits, why the “driving test” is the ultimate measurable for behavior, and how consistent, lived language engages your whole team. Shout-out to the hardworking crew at Alameda Pet Hospital—2026 is going to be your best year yet.

Key takeaways:

1. Say it to see it: the words you repeat become the behaviors you measure
2. Use core-value phrasing daily (“We are timely,” “We are direct and kind communicators”)
3. Model first, then multiply: act out the culture you want others to mirror
4. Aim for 2026: set a clear culture goal and speak it into existence