Response to Letter to the Editor on Academic Pharmacy: Where is Our Influence Research Brief

To the Editor: Thank you for your comments and for adding to the literature concerning leadership domains in pharmacy. We agree that the results of the Academic Leadership Fellows published in our article (Vol. 81, Issue 4, Article 63 of the Journal) may be more reflective of leaders in pharmacy, being high in the strategic and executing domains. We also agree that the results of your findings stating students may reflect the pharmacy profession as a whole who have relationship building and executing as their top domains. If you delve further into both studies, you will notice that the third domain of leadership for the fellows was relationship building and the third domain for the students was strategic thinking. Therefore, results of both studies still suggest that our profession struggles with the influence domain of leadership. This reinforces the conclusion of our paper which states, “since the profession is deficient in the influencing domain, we align our signature leadership domains of executing, strategic thinking, and relationship building to focus on team-based care rather than obtaining provider status.” We should also use this same approach when influencing policy for the profession.