(220) Developing Empirically Guided Leadership Curricula for Practicing Pharmacists through Comprehensive Needs Assessment

Objective : To develop empirically informed guidelines to drive content development and delivery of leadership curricula for practicing pharmacists.

Methods: A needs assessment survey targeted random NY State registered pharmacists, via Qualtrics. It ascertained pharmacists’ priority rating of, and perceived confidence in, each of 17 operationally defined leadership domains, including self-awareness, communication skills, positive relationships, decision-making, emotional intelligence, negotiation skills, work-life balance, sensitivity, feedback provision, mentoring/coaching, employee motivation, conflict management, strategic planning, delegation, ethics, diversity/inclusion promotion, and unconscious bias recognition. Priority ratings ranged from “not a priority” to “high priority,” and their perceived level of confidence was rated from “not at all confident” to “extremely confident.” Barriers to seeking leadership positions were elicited, as was their interest in obtaining formal leadership training.

Results: From the 152 completed responses, the majority (53.9%) were female and employed full-time (75.7%); 67.1% had more than 15 years of experience and 54.6% worked in a community pharmacy. Though two-thirds (68.4%) were in a “leader role,” 43.8% indicated no leadership training. Those that received formal training rated its effectiveness as “moderate” (38.5%) or “very effective” (30.8%). Of the 17 leadership domains, 13 were rated as predominantly “high priority”, with the other 4 receiving “moderate priority” ratings. Regarding perceived confidence levels, conflict management, unconscious bias detection, and negotiation skills had the lowest scores. The highest scores were for ethics, relationships, and decision-making. Barriers to pursuing leadership roles included lack of time, interest, employer support, and skills/knowledge. For leadership training, while 30.2% preferred online modalities, 28.9% preferred a “mix” of in-person/online education.

Conclusions: Needs assessment, customized to demarcated constituents, was useful for making data-informed decisions in developing leadership curricula.