Leadership in Pharmacy Students, Faculty of Pharmacy Mahidol University

Abstract

Leadership in pharmacy profession is an important component in achieving organizational goals. Pharmacy leadership is gradually built individually and it is necessary to accumulate the knowledge skills and experiences. Objectives of this research were 1) to explore perceptions, attitude toward leadership and level of students’ leadership 2) to know students’ opinion toward leadership development situation in Faculty of Pharmacy Mahidol University 3) to find out factor influencing pharmacy leadership in the pharmacy students. Self-rated leadership evaluation was constructed by using National Quality Award guideline and Servant leadership concept. The population of this study was 709 pharmacy students Mahidol University from year 1-6. Survey was conducted in December 2014.The key findings were; 1) leadership level of pharmacy student was 4.4 from 6.0 which is at high level. The fifth and sixth year students had the highest level of the leadership comparing to the rest (p<0.01). 2) the most frequently used leadership development method was developmental activities i.e. student activity, sport club, voluntary activities, etc. (48.78%), following by self-help activities (31.08%) and formal training in the curriculum (20.14%). 3) factors affecting leadership were 1) perception of leadership level prior to study in the faculty 2) intention to be a leader in the future and 3) frequency or time in a leading position in the student’s activities. The conclusion 1) leadership level of pharmacy student was at high level 2) extra-curricular activities was the most selected method 3) factor affecting students’ leadership level were students’ perception to their leadership level, intention to be a leader in the future and frequency or time in a leading position in the extracurricular activities.

Keywords: Leadership, Pharmacy student, Pharmacy administration, Leadership development