What is Layered Leadership (and why should you care as a pharmacist)?

How do you prevent reaching your tipping point?

Bold prediction:

Pharmacists will grow in medical responsibility and clinical expertise. But while complexity (and exhaustion) increase, who will take care of the pharmacists?

In his first book, The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, Canadian author Malcolm Gladwell describes a threshold moment when trajectory changes dramatically. When a fad goes viral or a sudden, steep drop of a problem occurs, there exists an inflection point, a moment that holds a high rate of change, for better or worse.

It’s a critical time in pharmacy

What if I told you your pharmacist was at this tipping point? What it I told you some first aid today could determine the direction of their inflection tomorrow? What if there were 5 things they needed to do to help themselves? In a near-future column, I’ll show you how. Hang tight today.

For now, consider this:

In a 2021 survey by the Canadian Pharmacists Association, 92% of pharmacists said they were at risk of burnout and almost three quarters of pharmacists acknowledged considering leaving their job or the profession altogether.

Ouch.

If you were going into surgery and asked the surgeon how they were doing, only to have them reply, like the majority of pharmacists, “okay” or “not so good,” would you proceed with the surgery? Or proceed with the surgery with that particular surgeon?

"Layered Leadership" aims to flatten the curve at the pharmacists' tipping point, extending their longevity in the profession and enabling them to provide lifechanging care for patients for more years than they would have otherwise.

It is a platform that links leadership with wellness because it is imperative for leaders to take care of themselves before taking care of others. As a practitioner of what this preaches, I strive to make room in my week for working out, eating right and sleeping well.

Read on....

Here's what I do.

A pharmacy-athlete’s mindset: small workouts stitch your quilt. I want to make the

case for short cross-fit pulses in between longer workouts.

The cross-fit community has given us a lot, but for people who are not gifted with the high-intensity/super-motivated gene, cross-fit can offer something else. When short on time, energy, or motivation, try this 10-minute cross-fit workout. Assuming you have 10 minutes and gravity at your home, you have everything you need to put away the excuses.

Changing the mindset from “I don’t have time” to “I have 10 minutes” allows us to insert multiple workouts in the week. Follow this mindset for months and years and imagine the difference in basal metabolic rate and hormone regulation executing this mindset offers.

The short workouts stitch together a streak of workouts so you’ll be ready for the longer ones. When you put together all the components, you end up with a quilt you could not have enjoyed otherwise.

It’ll only take you 10 minutes

Get through as many cycles as you can until the time is up…

10 burpees

10 pulls-ups

10 body squats

10 skull crushers

10 plank raises

Do these movements with complete focus.

Now go!