Leading in Pharmacy with a Stewardship Philosophy

David Hager, PharmD, BCPS, Director, Clinical Pharmacy Services, University of Wisconsin Health, Madison, WI, discusses the philosophy of leading a pharmacy team with stewardship. This video was filmed at the 2019 American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP) Summer Meetings & Exhibition in Boston.

David Hager, PharmD, BCPS: When I think about stewardship as a leadership philosophy, I think about a couple of things. The first is that it starts by being ‘other oriented,’ which means we understand that it isn’t about us as leaders and that the organization has trusted us with people and resources to accomplish the organization’s mission and vision. And our goal then, as leaders, is to not focus so much on weakness or areas of opportunity, but to identify individual strengths, to grow those strengths, and to put them in positions to use them more.

Fundamentally, what it’s about is trying to push down our ego, which is a very challenging thing to do. When we push ego down, it allows us to focus more on the communities and the people we work with and helping them show what they are able to accomplish on a daily basis.