Leadership journal club

In July 2009, the Student and New Practitioner Leadership Task Force (SNPLTF) of ASHP’s Center for Health-System Pharmacy Leadership issued the report Leadership Is a Professional Obligation.1 The report was commissioned as part of efforts by ASHP and the ASHP Research and Education Foundation to address what ASHP Past President Sara White had identified in 2005 as a looming “significant leadership gap.”2 The SNPLTF report identified gaps in pharmacy leadership development and provided recommendations to help remedy those gaps. One recommendation was to “increase exposure to leadership throughout residency programs and the pharmacy workforce.”1 One way for new practitioners and other pharmacists to gain increased exposure to leadership concepts is through reading and reflecting on the literature about leadership. Another way is to use cooperative learning techniques, which have been shown in an abundance of studies over the past quarter century to boost student achievement through improved academic learning, critical thinking, and cognitive growth, among other benefits. Cooperative learning requires that all participants “interact in a purposely structured heterogeneous group to support the learning of one self and others in the same group.”3