By Mital Thakrar

As pharmacists, our mindset and leadership skills are as crucial to running a successful community pharmacy as our expertise in medicine and healthcare. I wonder if in our daily routine we spend enough time considering our mindset and leadership as we should. 

With the new contractual changes coming and the greater focus on clinical services, I’d argue that considering this is more important than ever to help lead our teams, and patients, through the changes.

A person’s mindset plays a critical role in determining how they cope and mange different situations. Having a ‘can do’ approach and ‘growth’ mindset will not only help you personally achieve everything you wish to and reach the heights of your professional career, but it will also have a massive impact on your team’s culture too.

The good news is that mindsets can be changed through your own commitment, belief and self-development

Having a success mindset is a process, something that can be learnt, but it requires sheer commitment. This positive mindset can become infectious; inspiring your team with motivation and engagement, which then flows to your patients through the way we interact with them and the advice we give. 

And this is where leadership comes in – leadership is more than just management. If you’ve got a positive mindset then all aspects of your leadership style, and how engaged and motivated your teams will feel, will be improved. By leading your teams, you’re helping them realise a vision and feel engaged in it. You can lead your teams to feel empowered and do the right things for your patients. If you’re only managing them, then you’re just managing tasks and activities – you’re exercising a power over them. Sure, there’s a time for management, but by being a leader, you’re thinking beyond just the daily routine and can help your team achieve more. 

Business benefits

Engagement, inspiration and motivation are just some of the skills required to be a good leader and the demonstration of these skills within community pharmacy day in day out delivers business growth through various channels. An engaged team feels more empowered to have better conversations with patients and build lasting relationships, ensuring repeat custom which can grow business. 

This ‘growth’ mindset adopted by teams, together with the commitment of delivering excellent customer service by proactively improving their experience should be the core of any business development initiative.

The good news is that mindsets can be changed through your own commitment, belief and self-development. I believe there are four factors to help you realise your potential as a leader with a great mindset:

ONE: change the conversations you have with yourself. Are you guilty of not prioritising your work and creating negativity in your mind? Is this just letting your work pile up, and do you allow this to distract you from your bigger goals? Instead of these questions, fill your mind with positive thoughts and ‘can do’ thoughts daily. 

TWO: understand where you want to be and the goals you want to achieve. Spend some time looking at what you and your team do from your patients’ viewpoint. Do you think they’re viewing you how you’d like them to? Are you offering the service you think you’re delivering? Be honest with yourself, but see the opportunities, not just problems!

THREE: make sure you’re using all the information you take in from articles you read or courses you go on. Take the learnings you see, adapt them for your environment and try them out. By taking the time to study new leadership styles or the requirements for the new pharmacy contract, you are taking the first steps to developing yourself further and the service you offer.

FOUR: step out of your comfort zone. By doing this you will attain results that would never have been imagined previously. If what you try doesn’t work as you expected, learn from it. We all grow from these experiences.

These skills will give you the ability to adapt, think quickly and respond to situations that are sometimes out of your control. Every day in pharmacy, we are thrown new challenges. Being resilient, proactive to change and determined to be the best are all factors which create a positive culture within our teams and our profession overall. 

Go on, be the leader you want to be today.