Communication is Key by Snigda Thyagaraj

As I became older, I started to realize that not a lot of people valued communication as much as I do. I noticed that people didn’t want to initiate any serious conversations or be confrontational. They would rather bottle their feelings in and hope that their problems would go away. Trust me, it never went away. If anything, they would hold it in for so long that one day they would eventually blow up and have a mental breakdown. I believe people do this because no one really talks about mental health and building healthy coping mechanisms. This only happens in therapy which not everyone does because of the stigma. The reason I think this is an important topic is because I’ve seen people with pharmacy leadership roles not have the basic communication skills to be a leader. This can be detrimental to not only them, but to their coworkers as well.

For example, I had a pharmacy lead intern favor only one employee and devote most of their time training that person while there were three other interns needing that same type of training. This eventually caused a division within the work environment which became very problematic. In order for a team to work well with each other and become successful, you must have a great leader. The lack of communication and having a dismissive manner to the three employees caused a great amount of tension between all of us for almost a year. When there is bad energy like that in the workplace, employees start to lose interest and they start to make more mistakes. This is a negative cycle because of course, as more mistakes are being made, the more the lead intern thinks negatively of the employees. In order to avoid all of this, effective communication is essential. If I have any questions, I expect my leader to be empathetic and provide feedback with respect, not to be judgmental and dismissive. I really believe companies need to start deciding more carefully when it comes to hiring managers or lead interns because they are the core people to a happy and healthy work environment.

In the past, I definitely tried to work in pharmacies where I knew the pharmacy manager was friendly and communicative because it makes me more comfortable to work there. When I’m calm and comfortable, I make less mistakes which is crucial working in a pharmacy. Being yelled at or dismissed when you make a mistake is not a healthy way for a person to learn and to move on. It can be detrimental to one’s mental health which is truly not okay. I can only hope that people become more compassionate as a leader because having that type of authority comes with a lot of responsibility.

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