An elective course in leader development

Abstract

Objective. To describe the design, implementation, and evaluation of a leader-development elective course. Design. Students discovered, reflected on, and enhanced their leadership skills by participating in leadership quality presentations, selecting and facilitating team-building activities for pharmacy-based scenarios, creating a personal mission statement, maintaining a journal, creating pharmacy performance matrices, facilitating leadership discussions and activities, and completing a variety of leader-development inventories to identify their strengths and opportunities for growth. Assessment. Students successfully completed 98% of the assignments. The most valued topics and assignments involved validated instruments, which promoted self-discovery and development. End-of-course survey results revealed all students agreed the course achieved all learning outcomes except preventing conflict from escalating (9% disagreed) and applying knowledge of core values to achieve greater effectiveness in interpersonal communication (4% disagreed). Conclusions. Students perceived this leader-development elective course was effective in achieving learning outcomes. Assignments guided the creation of personalized leader-development tracks, ultimately promoting lifelong learning.