Hospital Pharmacy - June 2017 - 388

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editorial2017

HPXXXX10.1177/0018578717724223Hospital Pharmacy

Editorial

Formal Leadership: Thrilling (and Scary)
Like a Roller Coaster Ride

Hospital Pharmacy
2017, Vol. 52(6) 388-389
© The Author(s) 2017
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https://doi.org/10.1177/0018578717724223
DOI: 10.1177/0018578717724223
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Sara J. White1

As a Big L formal leader, you have fantastic opportunities
and responsibilities to your patients, staff, and organization;
however, like a roller coaster ride, it can be intimidating at
times and exciting at others, so don't squander the opportunities. An approach is to think several decades in the future and
you are interacting with your grandchild and they ask what
you did in your job and you want to be able to say I took full
advantage of my leadership opportunities, which means you
have to be willing to ride the leadership roller coaster. Keep
in mind your leadership team, staff, students, and residents
are on the ride with you, so be willing to talk about the ups
and downs and why you get back on.
Think back to your anticipation when you moved into
your formal leadership position as you were finally in charge
and could "straighten" things out. As with a roller coaster
ride, you begin by climbing steadily higher and higher, and
with each passing moment, your view of leadership expands
and you understand where you can make and seize opportunities for pharmacists to expand their role in support of
patient care. As you reach the top of the roller coaster, you
begin to focus on the future for pharmacy services and your
excitement with being a formal leader. What fun you are having. Who wouldn't want to be a pharmacy leader?
Then all of a sudden the bottom falls out of your ride and
you drop down the track as the reality of health care reform
and the need to perhaps cut Full Time Equivalent (FTEs)
and/or reduce your drug budget hit you while also improving
quality and medication safety. Thus, fear can set in and
thoughts of what have I gotten myself into. However, the ride
continues and for the moment you can't stop it, so having
faith that you, your leadership team, and your staff will figure out a way to successfully handle the challenges is critical
for an effective leader. This is also the point to refer back to
your documented personal leadership vision where you
described what you are trying to achieve as a leader as it
becomes your touchstone or the lighthouse directing you.
Letting go of being a pharmacist perfectionist in your leadership activities is also key.1 Keep in mind you are the role
model sitting in the front seat of the roller coaster, so how
you respond sets the tone for your leadership team and staff.
The leader's words and most importantly your actions are
where the department's culture comes from.
Then, the first unexpected turn smashes your head against
the seat back, and you find yourself suddenly turned upside

down and you feel your stomach churn. Just as you begin to
figure out how to reduce the costs of your operations, a regula1tory agency (Drug Enforcement Agency [DEA], Board of
Pharmacy [BOP], Health Department, or Joint Commission)
drop in unannounced, which demands your total attention for
a day or two. These agency recommendations may be useful
in justifying things that you need, such as equipment and
FTEs, so leverage or look for the silver lining/opportunities
in the visit. These outside folks while often times frustrating
do validate what you are doing right even if the focus is on
what needs improving.
At the same time, up ahead you also see a corkscrew and
sharp turn, and you wonder whether you can ever survive
this ride and being a leader much less enjoy it or ever want to
do it again. At this moment, you may wish you had never
stepped on the ride or taken the formal leadership position. In
addition to having a documented personal leadership vision,
you need to have defined your measures of success as a
leader as tracking them will assist you staying on the ride.
You also notice that on your ride home all you think about is
what you didn't get done which concludes that success has
less to do with what we can get ourselves to do and more to
do with keeping ourselves from doing what we shouldn't be
doing. Learning to be an effective delegator is helpful to
leaders.
Then it gets worse without warning the ride goes dark and
you can't ever anticipate the challenges coming at you as you
are smashed, buffeted, jerked from side to side, and flipped
over without warning. You are notified by Human Resources
that one of your employees has filed a sexual harassment
complaint against one of your managers; however, you also
see that your employee engagement scores have improved
significantly. Perseverance is an important leadership trait as
like the roller coaster sometimes things go your way and
sometimes they don't.
Just when you think you can't take it anymore, the car
slows, you jerk against your shoulder harness, and you
emerge into the sunlight with the ride completed. You are
1

Stanford Hospital and Clinics, Palo Alto, CA, USA

Corresponding Author:
Sara J. White, 550 Ortega Ave B123, Mountain View, CA 94040,
650-861-2391.
Email: RxSJW@Yahoo.com

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