Leadership 1 & 2

What is leadership?

• The capacity to translate vision into reality

• Empowering others

• Process of social influence, which maximises the efforts of others, towards the achievement of a goal

• Set of behaviours used to help people align their collective direction, to execute strategic plans, and to continually renew an organization

• Helping others realize their potential and inspiring them to work with you to achieve a shared vision for the future

• Combination of legitimacy, personality and management skills that make others want to follow someone’s direction

• Helping people succeed, inspiring and uniting people behind a common purpose and then being accountable

What makes a good leader?

• Leaders mobilize people toward a vision

• Leaders create emotional bonds and harmony and build consensus through participation

• A good leader should have integrity, self-awareness, courage, respect, empathy and gratitude

• Leaders expect excellence and self-direction; developing people for the future

• Takes risks

• Effectively solving problems

• Having accountability

Why is leadership important?

• Serves as a guiding force that enables teams to achieve their objectives and drive positive outcomes

Healthcare leadership

• Isn’t about maintaining the status quo, but identifying challenges in the system and finding solutions to those problems

• Improves quality of care

• Creates adaptable leaders

• Encourages Forward-Thinking

• Produces Innovative Leaders

Leadership theories

• The explanations of HOW and WHY certain people become leaders

• They focus on the traits and behaviours that people can adopt to increase their leadership capabilities

Categories of Leadership Theories

• Great mean theories - Born to lead

• Trait theories - What type of person makes a good leader?

• Behavioural theories - What does a good leader do?

• Contingency theories - How does the situation influence good leadership?

• Power and influence theories - What is the source of the leader’s power?

• Other theories - What more contributes to good leadership?

Trait theories

Trait leadership is defined as:

• Integrated patterns of personal characteristics that reflect a range of individual differences and foster consistent leader effectiveness across a variety of group and organizational situations

Great Man Theories

• Became popular during the 19th century

• Great leaders are born and not made

• Oversimplistic theory

Behavioural Theory

Behaviorists view leadership as:

• Key set of actions instead of personal characteristics

• To determine these behaviors, researchers evaluated what successful leaders did, developed a taxonomy and identified broad patterns

Lewin’s Leadership Styles of Decision - Making

• Authoritarian

  • AKA: autocratic leaders

  • Make decisions without any participation from others

• Participative

  • AKA: democratic leaders

  • Involve their peers, team, co-workers in the decision-making process

• Delegative

  • AKA: laissez-faire leaders

  • Give FULL autonomay to make decisions to their teams

Likert’s leadership styles

Took Lewkin’s theory and developed on it

• Exploitative authoritative

  • Has low concern for people, uses fear and threats to achieve outcomes

• Benevolent authoritative

  • Authoritative but has concern for people and uses reward to encourage performance

• Consultative

  • Leader makes an effort to listen but many decisions are still made at the top

• Participative

  • Engages all members in decision-making

  • Communication flows both ways

Contingency Theories

• There is no one leadership style, rather the uniqueness of each situation requires a different approach

  • Fiedler’s Least Preferred Co-worker Theory

  • Cognitive Resource Theory

  • Strategic Contingencies Theory

  • Path-Goal Theory

  • Hersey-Blanchard Leadership Theory

Strategic Contingency Theory

Effectiveness of managing or coping → strategic contingencies control → subunit power (weight, scope, domain)

House’s Path-Goal Theory of Leadership

• Supportive leadership

• Participative leadership

• Directive leadership

• Achievement Oriented leadership

Power and Influence Theories

Power theories involve influencing people via authority. This influence can manifest in the form of rewards or punishments and/or through personal and positional power

• Transactional leadership

• Transformational leadership

Transactional leadership

• When there is an exchange of performance for either reward or penalty

• Transactional leaders give followers something they want in exchange for something the leaders want

• Transactional leadership is…

  • Task-oriented

  • Works within set organizational boundaries

  • Suggests a management focus

Transformational

• The relationship of mutual stimulation and elevation that converts followers into leaders and may convert leaders into moral agents

  • AKA: To inspire, develop, and transform people

• The goal of transformational leadership is to transform people and organisations in a literal sense

  • To change them in mind and heart

  • Enlarge vision, insight and understanding

  • Clarify purposes

  • Make behaviour congruent with beliefs, principles or values

  • Bring about changes that are permanent, self-perpetuating and momentum-building

Other theories: Servant Leadership

• The desire to serve the needs of others even before aspiring to lead them

• Characteristics:

  • Awareness

  • Listening

  • Empathy

  • Foresight

  • Conceptualization

  • Persuasion

  • Community-building

  • Stewardship

  • Healing

  • Commitment to the growth of people

Other theories: Exemplary Leadership

1. Model the Way → Establish principles concerning the way people should be treated and goals should be pursued. Set interim goals so that followers can achieve small wins on the way to larger objectives

2. Inspire a Shared Vision → Envision the future, creating an ideal image of what the organization can become. Enlist others in the dream to get people to see exciting possibilities for the future.

3. Challenge the Process → Search for opportunities to change the status quo, taking some risks along the way. Accept mistakes and disappointments as learning opportunities

4. Enable Others to Act → Foster collaboration and build spirited teams. Create an atmosphere of trust. Strengthen others, making each person feel capable.

5. Encourage the Heart → Recognize the contributions that people make. Celebrate accomplishments to make people feel like heroes.

Why leadership theories matter for pharmacists

• Leadership is not limited to job titles in pharmacy

• Pharmacists lead daily, even without formal authority:

  • Clinical decision-making

  • Patient counselling and advocacy

  • Managing risk, safety, and medicines optimisation

  • Influencing multidisciplinary teams

• Leadership theories help pharmacists:

  • Understand how they influence others

  • Adapt leadership style to different situations

  • Develop confidence early in their careers

The most effective pharmacists are adaptive leaders, not one-style leaders

Leadership Theories that Strongly Resonate with Pharmacists → Transformational Leadership

Transformational Leadership → focuses on vision, motivation and change

• Highly relevant because pharmacists:

  • Drive service innovation (eg. prescribing, clinical services)

  • Improve patient outcomes and quality improvement

• Encourages:

  • Inspiring others

  • Challenges the status quo

  • Professional growth and lifelong learning

• Theory focus:

  • Vision, Inspiration, Change leadership

  • Motivating others to improve practice

• GPhC 2021 alignment:

  • Standard 6: Professional judgement, leadership, accountability

  • Standard 9: Quality improvement, innovation, service development

• In pharmacy practice:

  • Leading service redesign (eg. prescribing clinics, AMR stewardship)

  • Driving patient-safety initiatives

  • Influencing practice change without formal authority

Leadership Theories that Strongly Resonate with Pharmacists → Servant Leadership

• Leadership through service, empathy, and ethics

• Strong alignment with:

  • Patient-centered values

  • Duty of care and professionalism

• Emphasises:

  • Listening

  • Supporting others

  • Putting patient and team needs first

• Theory focus:

  • Serving others first

  • Empathy, integrity, ethical decision-making

• GPhC 2021 alignment:

  • Standard 1: Person-centered care and shared decision-making

  • Standard 6: Professionalism, trust, ethical practice

• In pharmacy practice:

  • Advocating for vulnerable patients

  • Ethical decision-making under pressure

  • Supporting colleagues and learners

Leadership Theories that Strongly Resonate with Pharmacists → Situational Leadership

• Leadership style adapts to:

  • The task

  • The team member’s experience

  • Clinical urgency

• Particularly relevant in:

  • Busy dispensaries

  • Ward rounds

  • Emergency or high-risk situations

• Theory focus:

  • Adapting leadership style to context and competence

  • Flexibility in complex environments

• GPhC 2021 alignment:

  • Standard 3: Effective communication and collaboration

  • Standard 6: Sound judgement in dynamic situations

• In pharmacy practice:

  • Directing during dispensing errors or emergencies

  • Coaching students and trainees

  • Adjusting communication across MDTs

Leadership Theories that Strongly Resonate with Pharmacists → Distributed Leadership

• Leadership is shared across the team

• Reflects modern pharmacy practice:

  • Multi-disciplinary team working

  • Collaboration with technicians, nurses, dentists

• Encourages:

  • Collective responsibility

  • Mutual respect

  • Better patient outcomes

• Theory focus:

  • Leadership as a shared responsibility

  • Collective decision-making

• GPhC 2021 alignment:

  • Standard 3: Working effectively with others

  • Standard 8: Working within healthcare systems

• In pharmacy practice:

  • MDT working across primary, secondary, and community care

  • Delegation to technicians and support staff

  • Collaborative medicines optimisation