Dispensing Leadership: The Hardest Person to Lead

In episode 18 of Dispensing Leadership, our hosts Shawn Bjorndal, PharmD, RPh, and Jesse McCullough, PharmD, tackle a critical question: Who is the most difficult person you have ever had to lead? Despite many pharmacists pointing to challenging colleagues or supervisors, they reveal a counterintuitive truth that the hardest person to lead is yourself.

With an estimated 95% of pharmacists lacking a plan to improve their leadership skills, Bjorndal and McCullough introduce a transformative framework to bridge this gap: Be, Do, Have.

Pharmacists often fixate on what they want to have, such as a high-performing workplace, strong coworker relationships, or excellent patient outcomes. However, success requires a stepwise formula: Pharmacists must first focus on who they need to be by acquiring critical leadership perspectives and skills. This evolution naturally shapes what they do, which ultimately determines what they have.

A key shift involves moving from a management mindset of treating everyone the same to a leadership approach of treating individuals differently based on their specific needs. Additionally, the hosts emphasize the importance of “being bigger” than your challenges.

Although clinical knowledge is vital, developing leadership skills is what activates that expertise and prevents professional frustration. By proactively growing within yourself, you become bigger than your problems, making them far easier to solve.

Tune into this episode of Dispensing Leadership to unlock your potential and build a proactive plan for personal growth.

In Dispensing Leadership, a podcast offering from Drug Topics and RPhAlly, Bjorndal and McCullough discuss essential leadership skills for pharmacists, how to develop them, and how to advance the pharmacy profession. All new episodes of Dispensing Leadership will be available in a video format via DrugTopics.com on the second Monday of each month. Check out our most recent episode: The Dog Days of Summer.