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Can you express your leadership principles on one piece of paper with maybe 15-25 bullet points? How powerful would it be to have such documentation in front of you every day? Mark Figliuolo in One Piece of Paper-The Simple Approach to Powerful, Personal Leadership describes the following approach. Remember this is not intended to be a complete review but some key points for pharmacy leaders.  Seek out the book or Book Summary www.summary.com if this material interests you.

The author indicates the following four areas are critical to effective leadership.

Leading yourself- Ask yourself what motivates you and what are your rules of personal conduct/values? What do you want the “future you” to be?

• If you are unable to inspire yourself, how can you expect to inspire your staff?
• Ask yourself these questions and document your thinking.
  • Why do you get out of bed every day? You want to align your work with what you love to do so you are internally motivated by a deep sense of satisfaction.
  • How will you shape your future? What kind of a leader do you want to become? In other words what do you want the summation/legacy of your career to be?
  • What guidelines do you live by? What are you willing to sacrifice to reach your goals and what is nonnegotiable?
  • When you fall down, how do you pick yourself back up? Reframe the situation so you can tackle it from a different perspective.
  • How do you hold yourself accountable so you don’t blame others and are a “take charge leader”?

Leading the thinking-Ask where are you taking your workgroup/department and how will you lead the innovations needed?

• You become a thought leader by believing the status quo is never good enough.
• Develop and use a documented vision (compelling ideal future) statement so your people feel part of something bigger than they are.  Enlist their contributions so they are excited to come to work each day.
• The leader must be action oriented with an urgency to achieve actual results.
• Ensure that critical decisions get made even if there is not all the information you would like so that progress occurs.

Leading your people-how can you lead your people as individuals rather than treating them like interchangeable parts?

• Jot down the names of your direct reports and list the personal things (where grew up, family specifics, hobbies, proudest accomplishment, career aspirations, etc.) that you are aware of.  Seek additional information if needed and share your story.
• Stay connected to your team’s reality by knowing what they consider their major deliverables, what consumes their time, what are the most difficult job aspects, and what should you know more about.
• Commit to your people’s growth by creating stretch roles for them, seek opportunities for them, coach and provide feedback so they become more effective.

Leading a balanced life-if you burnout you are worthless so how do you define and achieve integration/balance of your career and life?

• Remember you serve as a role model for your people in this regard.
• Define your boundaries such as how much time you are willing to work as you probably spend more time at work than with you family.
• Keep things in perspective by taking a long term/strategic approach thus not getting consumed by the “day to day” fires at the expense of your vision.
• Define what you are passionate about so you appropriately allocate your time and energy.
• Develop some non-work activities that you are passionate about and schedule them for your non-work hours just like you schedule meetings at work.

Please go to the Pharmacy Leadership Community Discussion group and comment or do so here.  Thanks