A Community Pharmacist Leadership Strategy - Term Paper Example

A Community Pharmacist Leadership Strategy Total Number of Words 613 Introduction For several years, I have been employed in a large pharmaceutical company as a community pharmacist. Aside from effectively managing other pharmacists under my leadership, a major part of my duty and responsibility is to promote the health and wellness of each community member by rendering a regular health teaching campaigns whenever possible. The total number of pharmaceutical products that are being prescribed by the pharmacists within the community setting increases from 2,706 in 2004 up to 31,052 in 2006. (Guillaume et al., 2008) Each year, there are as much as 198,000 deaths that occur because of heart diseases (British Heart Foundation Statistics Databace, 2008). Given that diseases of the heart or the cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the main causes of death throughout the United Kingdom each year, medicines related to cardiovascular diseases is the most frequently prescribed drug (Guillaume et al., 2008). Aiming to lessen the mortality rate due to CVD, the Department of Health together with the NHS has been encouraging the health care industry and health care professionals to support the national public health awareness campaign. As one of the three community pharmacists who are currently working in a large pharmaceutical company in UK, we have been assigned to plan and conduct a cardiovascular disease promotional health teaching among our affiliated pharmaceutical retailers and business partners. In order to make us able to carry out the health teachings successfully, it is necessary on our part to improve our emotional intelligence. Back in 1990s, emotional intelligence has been considered an integral part of an effective leadership. Not only does it enable the leader to effectively deal with difficult leadership situations, it also enables the leader to have a competitive advantage in terms of being able to work effectively with other employees within a team. As part of the study, the significance of emotional intelligence in leadership will first be tackled. Eventually, two of my behavioural problems which could hinder my potential as an effective leader will be identified followed by discussing the emotional intelligence strategies, outcomes, and evaluation methods that will enable me to effectively work with the other two community pharmacists in planning strategic ways on how we should conduct a cardiovascular disease promotional campaign in our pharmacy. The Significance of Emotional Intelligence in Leadership Emotional intelligence (EI) is referring to a person’s “the ability to monitor ones own and others feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide ones thinking and actions” (Salovey & Mayer, 1990, p. 190; Mayer & Salovey, 1997, p. 10). Basically, the concept of emotional intelligence requires us to explore a person’s intelligence and emotions (Mayer & Salovey, 1997, p. 4). Emotions is simply pertaining to emotions like moods, fatigueness, energy level, aside from other positive and negative feelings whereas intelligence is referring to the cognitive ability to perceive things around us. Therefore, emotional intelligence is about having a better perception, use, understanding, and management of emotions. According to Daniel Goleman, emotional intelligence can be achieved when a person is capable of having the following: (1) self-awareness; (2) self-management; (3) social awareness; and (4) relationship management (Goleman, 1998). In line with the significance of emotional intelligence on leadership, Salovey and Mayer (1997) identified the four branches of emotional intelligence model as a person’s ability to: (1) accurately perceive, appraise and express emotions in oneself and others; (2) ability to access and use emotions to facilitate thinking; (3) ability to understand emotional meanings; and (4) ability to regulate and effectively manage emotions as a way of promoting emotional and intellectual growth (Mayer & Salovey, 1997, p. 10). Based on the four different branches of emotional intelligence, Mayer and Salovey (1997) arranged the human ability to deal with emotional intelligence from more basic psychological processes to higher such that the conscious reflective regulation of emotion being at the highest level whereas the simple human abilities to perceive and express emotion being the lowest level (p. 10 – 15). Since 1990s, several research studies have been made that can provide us a significant relationship between emotional intelligence and leadership (Johnson, 2008; Barbuto & Burbach, 2006; Brown, Bryant, & Reilly, 2006; Barling, Slater, & Kelloway, 2000). Lowe, Kroek and Sivasubramaniam (1996) explained that effective leaders often have been successful in acquiring positive leadership qualities that are commonly notable when a person has reached a highest level of emotional intelligence. These qualities includes the ability to stimulate himself and other people intellectually, ability to inspire other people, ability to influence other people, and is capable of providing individual consideration (Barbuto & Burbach, 2006; Lowe, Kroek, & Sivasubramaniam, 1996). Therefore, leaders with good emotional intelligence are capable of increasing employee performance, promoting team work, increasing job satisfaction, and effectively managing projects within a business organization (Barbuto & Burbach, 2006). Two Identified Behavioural Problems that Hinders My Potential as an Effective Leader Upon examining my leadership behaviour, I realized that I have the tenacity to flare up whenever other people criticize my ideas and thoughts. Unconsciously, I develop negative emotions related to anger and frustrations. For this reason, I often lack the ability to solve organizational conflicts which may arise out of pure misunderstanding and lack of communication. Another behavioural problem is that I lack the ability to perceive what other people feel with regards to my actions. There were some instances in the past whereby I was not conscious that my being frank and straight forward emotionally hurt the feelings of other people. Emotional Intelligence Strategies, Outcomes and Evaluation Methods that will Enable Me to Effectively work with the other Two Community Pharmacists in Planning Strategic Ways on How We Should Conduct a Cardiovascular Disease Promotional Campaign Upon examining the five dimensions of emotional intelligence which includes: self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills of supervisors when handling organizational conflicts, problem solving, and bargaining, the study of Rahim et al. (2002) found out that self-awareness is significantly associated with self-regulation, empathy and social skills; self-regulation is related to empathy and social skills; empathy and social skills are related to motivation and problem solving strategy but not a leader’s ability to bargain with his subordinates. Proposed Strategies Since one of my emotional intelligence problem is my inability to solve organizational conflicts, it is crucial on my part to develop self-awareness. By becoming aware of my own actions, it would be possible for me to control flaring up in case one of the two other community pharmacists would criticize my idea and thoughts. Likewise, I also need to develop self-awareness to increase my social skills and empathy towards people around me. Being empathic towards other people’s feelings will make it possible on my part to perceive what other people would feel before I even say something or act whenever I am around them. Basically, controlling my behavioral problems will make it easier for me as a leader to successfully plan and deliver a cardiovascular disease promotional campaign on behalf of the company we work with. In general, self-awareness is a very broad term. As a leader, self-awareness should be focused on knowing the strengths, weaknesses and talents of my co-workers aside from knowing how they would react or feel towards something, their personal values aside from giving credit and/or hearing their personal opinions. Expected Outcome As a leader of the group, improving my self-awareness would minimize the possibility that I would encounter work-related conflicts among the two other community pharmacists. By being able to control my temper and perceive what they would think and feel about what I say and act, there will be an increased possibility that the three of us could effectively work in harmony. By allowing them to share their opinions, respecting and acknowledging their own individual talents, it is possible for the entire team to deliver plan and deliver a good health teaching campaign that could convince our target audiences to support the pharmaceutical-related health care plan. Proposed Evaluation Methods Among the methods used in measuring the levels of emotional intelligence includes: (a) EIA (Emotional Intelligence Appraisal); (b) EIP (Emotional Intelligence Profile); and (c) the IEI (Index of Emotional Intelligence). (McEnrue & Groves, 2006; Bradberry & Greaves, 2004) Among these three evaluation methods, the use of EIA (Emotional Intelligence Appraisal) and the IEI (Index of Emotional Intelligence) since EIA measures self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship which are significant in addressing my behavioural problems (Bradberry, 2003) whereas IEI measures self-awareness and self-control, empathy, social expertness, personal influence, and mastery of purpose (Lynn, 2009). The problem with EIP is that this type of evaluation method is limited to specific situations. In general, EIP measures and provides detailed explanatory information concerning the following: (1) reflective; (2) conceptual; (3) empathetic; and (4) organized (HRD Press, 2009). This method does not measure the leader’s ability to become self-aware. Conclusion Self-awareness is a crucial part of emotional intelligence in leadership since being aware of self enables the leader to prevent unnecessary organizational conflicts which may hinder the progress of effectively planning and delivering a cardiovascular disease promotional health teaching among our affiliated pharmaceutical retailers and business partners. With regards to the importance of self-awareness in leadership strategy and emotional intelligence, Rahim et al. (2002) revealed the significant relationship between self-awareness with self-regulation, empathy and social skills. For this reason, improving my self-awareness will enable me as a community pharmacist leader to be empathic with other people. Becoming empathic towards other people will not only prevent me from flaring up in case the other two community pharmacists would criticize my ideas and thought with regards to the planning for cardiovascular health teaching campaign but also narrow down the possibility that I would unconsciously hurt other people by being tackless. *** End *** References: Barbuto, J., & Burbach, M. (2006). he emotional intelligence of transformational leaders: A field study of elected officials. Journal of Social Psychology , 146(1):51 - 64. Barling, J., Slater, F., & Kelloway, E. (2000). Transformational leadership and emotional intelligence: an exploratory study. Leadership and Organization Development Journal , 21:157 - 161. Bradberry, T. (2003). Emotional Intelligence Appraisal - Me Edition. TalentSmart, Inc. Bradberry, T., & Greaves, J. (2004). Emotional Intelligence Appraisal Technical Manual Update. In McEnrue M.P. & Groves K. 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