Article Club to Encourage Meaningful and Impactful Conversations on Leadership Among Pharmacy Faculty and Staff

Abstract

Objective. To describe outcomes from an article club that was designed to foster leadership within a pharmacy school by informally gathering interested faculty and staff and providing a safe environment for discussion on leadership concepts.Methods. At each monthly meeting, participants discussed an article from Harvard Business Review's top 10 leadership articles. After 10 sessions, participants were asked to complete an electronic survey about their perspectives on the activities and invited to participate in an interview. Descriptive statistics were calculated, and qualitative software was used to analyze the interview transcripts. Videoconferencing allowed for off-campus faculty and staff participation. No direct programmatic costs were incurred.Results. Four to 24 participants attended each session. Sixteen participants completed the survey, and five volunteered to be interviewed. All participants strongly agreed that the sessions increased awareness of leadership concepts, and 15 strongly agreed or agreed that the activities influenced their leadership decision-making and facilitated building a culture of leadership at the school. Interviews revealed that mid-career faculty participated to learn about general leadership concepts from discussions and a few junior faculty participated to gain leadership skills to help with promotion. All participants noted they were exposed to novel leadership styles by participating in the article discussion sessions. Teaching and practice commitments were the two reasons most often given for not participating.Conclusion. Providing an interactive discussion forum for pharmacy education faculty and staff to learn and discuss leadership concepts and qualities is effective for personal growth and professional development. Other schools and institutions can implement similar activities to foster leadership.