Everyone deserves to be led well! Are you?

“Everyone deserves to be led well.” These are the words my mentor spoke to me some months ago. While I understood leadership to be important, these words helped to frame the importance of leadership in a new way for me. Everyone, excluding no one, deserves to be led well.

Now let me ask you a question: for the dozens of people who have led you over the years, did they ALL lead you well? If your experience is anything like mine, the answer to that question is a resounding “NO!”

Let's be clear: there is a spectrum of leadership skill and ability, it is not an either/or- type proposition. Some leaders are stronger than others, yet even in that difference you will likely observe strong skills each possesses. 

In the early days of 2020, before the COVID pandemic shut the world down, I sat down and wrote a short article, similar to this, where I posed the question: if an opportunity came your way, would you be able to take advantage of it? Pay close attention. The question was not...would you want to take advantage of an opportunity...it was would you be able to take advantage of the opportunity? To some the difference in answers to those two questions would be measured in light years. 

Let me ask you a follow-up question: What would allow you to take advantage of the opportunity? I suggest, the answer is leaders. And more specifically – good leaders!

Consider this: you come across the opportunity to serve 500 new patients and help them control their blood pressure. Your answer to that question is different based on the strength of the pharmacists/leaders on your team. To some, the answer would be “no problem.” But to others, the opportunity would pass them by.

Everyone deserves to be led well

Let me encourage you today. Let me remind you that you have the capacity and the opportunity to lead others well. I trust that excites you. I trust that puts a spring in your step. I know it puts a spring in mine. 

Let me take a step further. I believe we have the obligation to lead others well. Just imagine what things would look like in 5 years if you improved how you lead your team, your peers, your patients, yourself, your family... everyone. Doesn’t that future look bright?  Doesn’t that sound like a place you want to be? 

I encourage you to think about this concept regularly: “Everyone deserves to be led well.”

In fact, I challenge you to set a time on your phone to go off every so often – maybe 3 times a day to start – to interrupt your normal routine. When that timer goes off, look at the people around you or consider the person you are on the phone with or the people with prescriptions waiting to be picked up and simply remind yourself of this concept: Everyone deserves to be led well. Doing this will kindle awareness of the opportunity for leadership that exists all around you and put you on the fast track to leveling up your leadership.

Until next time -

Jesse McCullough, PharmD