Beyond the Title | Leadership, Confidence & Collective Advancement

What does true advancement look like beyond job titles, promotions, and diversity initiatives?

In this powerful episode of Success in Doses: Becoming on Purpose, I sit down with pharmacy executive, mentor, and advocate Dr. Chara Reed for an honest conversation about leadership, confidence, representation, mentorship, and the responsibility of collective advancement.

With more than 30 years of experience across retail, specialty, infusion, and healthcare leadership, Chara shares lessons from her journey navigating corporate spaces, building influence, creating opportunities for others, and leading with purpose.

This conversation is for anyone striving to lead with authenticity, navigate professional spaces with confidence, and create impact that extends beyond themselves.

If you've ever questioned whether you belong in the room, this episode is your reminder that you do.

Thank you for supporting the show. Follow @successindosespod

career advancement, negotiation skills, pharmacists, personal development, confidence, asking for what you want, mindset shifts, professional growth, self-advocacy, boldness

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Success in Doses. I'm your host, Sale. This podcast is about the real journeys behind meaningful careers, the pivots, the risks, the moments of doubt, and the lessons that shape who we become. Each episode, I sit down with people who are building impactful lives and careers, and we break down the experiences that help them get there. Because success rarely happens overnight, it happens in doses. Let's dive in on becoming on purpose. Good morning, everybody, and welcome back to season two of Success in Doses, the season of becoming on purpose. This episode today is going to center on not just individual but the collective wins and advancement. We are going to discuss what true Black advancement looks like beyond title and diversity statements and how to pursue excellence without shrinking, overcompensating, or apologizing. And to help us kind of guide us through that conversation today, I could not think of a better person to have this conversation with than a person that I deeply admire and respect and her voice and authority in this conversation. Our guest today is Dr. Shara Reed. She is a seasoned pharmacy professional with over 30 years of experience spanning retail, specialty, and infusion pharmacy. Her career includes 20 years in chain retail pharmacy, two years in independent specialty pharmacy, and six years in multi-specialty pharmacy and infusion leadership. Shara has been instrumental in expanding pharmacy services in Illinois's largest independent physician group, overseeing three retail pharmacies, six infusion centers, and a surgical center. This success has led her to Sincora, where she supports oral oncology operations across 29 states, eventually advancing to Senior Director for Strategic Accounts. Now focusing on GPO strategy for specialty practice network GPO, Shara collaborates with manufacturers and sales teams to deliver impactful solutions to multi-specialty practices. A passionate advocate for diversity, she mentors minority pharmacists, serves on Midwestern University's Board of Trustees, and leads Pharmacist Women Networking Association. Shara's dedication to advancing pharmacy practice and empowering underrepresented communities continues to inspire and shape the industry. I am over the moon to introduce and welcome to the show, Dr. Shara Reed. Hi, Shara. Hey Sally, how are you? Doing really, really well. I am really, really good today. I've been like bouncing all day long, looking forward to this conversation. I'm really hoping that like what I know to be true from all of the last few years of knowing you, that all of my listeners will have an opportunity to get like a fraction of that. So I'm very interested in that opportunity.

SPEAKER_01 3:00

No, thank you so much for inviting me. It's honestly my honor. I look up to you and frankly, the sister, both of you are just pioneers in the healthcare space. So this was such an easy yes.

SPEAKER_00 3:16

Thank you so much. That means so much to me. I wanted to start with, I always love like origin stories. When you think about your professional journey, what was your understanding of advancement when you think about like your starting point, what you believed advancement was? What did that look like or mean to you?

SPEAKER_01 3:37

Yeah. So when I think back on, you know, Chara is a baby pharmacist, right? Over 20 years ago and thinking about a career, I really didn't think about it from any vantage point of advancing per se, right? I just thought I would work at the same company and I would probably retire, you know, with within the same company. I thought eventually there would be opportunities for advancement, but it really wasn't anything that was at the forefront of my brain because at that time, when I saw leaders, supervisors, district leaders, and senior leaders in the organization, I just really was operated under the assumption that I would have to be there a really long time to get to that type of level, you know, of my career, and that there would be so much I would have to learn because there's no way in the world that those people are in those positions without having this like really long tenured background in the space. That's really how I looked at it way back then.

SPEAKER_00 4:44

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And when did that change for you? Like, what do you remember? Was it a particular moment and or an experience maybe where you realized like, I think this may be a little different than what I've perceived it to be.

SPEAKER_01 4:59

Yeah, no, a hundred percent. I I definitely remember the moment when I realized that I had all the tools to advance my career. It was very specific. It was at a certain organization I was working at, and I was in a meeting with senior leaders. And um I remember walking out of that meeting, realizing that even these people in these seats of senior leadership are still trying to figure things out. And when you realize that it doesn't matter what point anybody is in their career, there are just a lot of things you have to figure out. And they managed to get into those positions, which means in a lot of ways, they managed to figure some things out. And I knew then I was like, you know what? I'm actually smart enough to try to figure this out. I think I have all the tools that I need in my tool belts, especially with my kind of value prop that I internally had used to be a leader. And I wasn't a leader in terms of like managing a whole ton of people, right? I had always had a manager type level of a role. And I knew that the skill sets that I developed as a very young pharmacist managing a pharmacy and a pharmacy team were the exact very same toolkit that you could use to really advance through and to that leadership pathway. I realized very quickly sitting in that meeting that um, yeah, it we're all just regular people trying to figure it out. And if they figured it out, why couldn't I?

SPEAKER_00 6:37

That's so funny because I feel like I tend to put like a halo around people and I get like starstruck. And I always try to tell like other pharmacists I mentor as like one of the things I feel like I learned really late was not being prepared with a response when people ask, how can I support you? I'm so fixated on making sure they know how much I love and respect and admire them that it never occurs to me that, hey, they could ask you and put you on the spot and say, what are you working on? What do you have going on? How can I support you? Right. So as you talk about this realization that like I already have all of the tools, because I feel like young professionals, we we honestly think that we have to get the credentials, we have to get the training, we have to get the certification. After that, certification, there's power and meaning in that, but in your opinion, how can we learn to balance that piece on the journey of accepting the challenge of figuring it out is also a part of it.

SPEAKER_01 7:44

We don't want to discount all the extra things that um people in healthcare and all the extra things that are out there that we can help educate us and help train us in different areas. Those are all cool and they're important. However, I tell pharmacists very simple things like start reading job descriptions. And when you read job descriptions, you will very quickly see that the most typically you're gonna find is you if it's a very clinical role, you might find a board certification requirement. If it's not a really traditional pharmacist role, you're only gonna probably see level of degrees. So they'll say advanced degree, bachelor's degree required, advanced degree preferred, or MBA preferred. And so when you start reading job descriptions, particularly just in general and healthcare, that don't necessarily require a Pharm D, you will very quickly see that a lot of those extra things that we kind of feel like we need to like go grasp and like go do the next thing and do the next thing and grab the next certification quite often are not actually required.

SPEAKER_00 8:57

Yeah. I'm curious about your take on where you see representation playing a role in how you've been able to ascend and and why mentorship continues to be such an important component of your career.

SPEAKER_01 9:12

Yeah, I I really was not the beneficiary of having a mentor um that could really help me advance in my career, right? And I'm gonna be what I didn't have because I knew how important sponsorship is. I know how important mentorship is. And sometimes when you're not the beneficiary of that, how do you make a change, right? And at the end of the day, Sally, I'm just gonna be honest, I'm a child of God. And God didn't make any mistakes when he put me in the family that he put me in, and he gave me the skin color that he gave me, ethnicity and the race that he gave me. And when I think about, even when we think about our ancestors and the different things that they truly had to go through, yeah, they put their bodies on the line, right? To have a better life. I just feel like if they could do it and do it so confidently and so securely, and literally quite often put their lives at risk to do it, yeah. What what would we be scared of? We are on the like we have, we're on their shoulders. These these were giants in all different, you know, aspects of having brown skin, you know, and that not being, you know, respected. And and quite frankly, not that long ago, yeah, being hated, yeah, you know, and and and thought of as unequal, and all the different things they had to face, that gives me a lot of confidence. And that gives me a lot of confidence because if my family and the people and my ancestors, my great-great-grandmother was a slave, right? Wow. And she raised her daughter, who raised my grandfather, who only had a third grade education and was a sharecropper and was part of the great migration, and the things that I know that he faced, yeah, being a black man in this country. I think about I have no fear. Yeah. Because I'm on the sh I am truly on the shoulders of giants.

SPEAKER_00 11:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:21

And I am going to make them proud, you know? And and and it's again, so I didn't God didn't make any mistakes. Yeah. I just don't believe that. And and I know that He put me here on this earth for a reason. And when you know what your source is, yes, you have all the confidence in the world. And there's no person that can shake that confidence that I have. There's just nobody that can shake it. It's unshakeable. And I I don't know like where that necessarily came from. Oh, you too. It's it's my family and it's my faith, faith in in Christ that allows me to know who I am. Yeah. And nobody's gonna, nobody is gonna take that from me. Nobody.

SPEAKER_00 12:10

Okay, so real quick, if you're enjoying this conversation, go ahead and rate and review the podcast. It helps more people find the show and keeps the conversation going. Okay, so let's get back to the conversation. Love that. And I I think like I have this conversation with my circle of friends often, and I'm like, the gift of heritage and the gift of history is that yes, I know that where I am today, I am a product of somebody else's struggles. And so even when the thought of giving up or the thought of shrinking crosses my mind, I think about the fact that my presence in this space was my mother's dream, right? My presence in this space was my father's dream. And they didn't have that opportunity, but did everything they could to position me and my sisters so that we could be in this room. The least I can do now that I am here is to make sure that I show up for myself because there's no one coming. There's no one coming to do it for me. The work has been done for me already to make sure that this door would be open and make sure that my legs won't fail me and I would walk in. Now that I'm here is to just show up confidently. I love that. And I love that you're rooted in faith because I think that a lot of different people have different things they anchor themselves on. I think like my family, it's always been the same. It's just purpose, purpose, purpose, placing everything that we do in the shadow of purpose to help because it's a huge source of courage. Like you said. So, with that in mind, what do you define black excellence to mean for you personally?

SPEAKER_01 13:49

Girl, black excellence for me is like it's so deep. And it is like several things. It's having your circle, your sister's circle. You know what that is? That means you know you got your sister circle. It's so important to me to have that circle of really strong, confident women that are there to compliment each other and not to compete. We compliment, we don't compete. We don't need to compete. And that is like, wow, I don't even know that I could have survived some of the things that I've survived without that circle. But even more important and why I love surrounding myself with really strong, other, excellent black females is that we all reach a handback. And sometimes reaching a handback, you might get bit. It's happening to me. I reached a hand back and I've gotten bit before, you know? It's true, it's true. It's it's true, it happens, but you can't let that deter you from the mission. Yeah. Right? The mission is that when our babies, our little brown babies, when they get an opportunity to sit in some of the same rooms and seats and hopefully even be able to go beyond the rooms that we've been able to go in, that we've hopefully made it a little bit easier for them because of the work that we've done in these spaces, right? And so that does require us to keep reaching a hand back and keep reaching a hand back and reaching a hand back and helping people without thought of what they can eventually do for me. I really don't think about what someone else can do for me when I'm helping someone out of the goodness of my heart, I'm helping them. Now, what they then do after that is not on me, right? It's on them. You you can only control yourself. 100%. So even though, yes, I certainly, you know, had times where I'm like, man, that that's kind of crazy. That that was someone that I helped. It's okay. I'm not worried about it. I'm not keeping score. I'm not worrying about it because I know at the end of the day, the more people I can help, the better this world is gonna be for our little babies. Yeah. To get into this, into whatever field or career it is that they they choose. Hopefully, some more doors have been opened and that the they can climb the ladder way past what we've even been able to accomplish.

SPEAKER_00 16:13

That and I hope that no matter how many times your hand gets bitten, that you don't give up on it. Because I love how passionate, and I know this because I know you, um, but I know how passionate you are for that group advancement, collective advancement, and reaching back to pull other people up or just whisper to them, check this out, check that out. Have you looked into this? Have you looked into that? So I hope that you stay encouraged. And I love the grace because I would be like, how dare you. I love that grace is baked in there where you look at it and you're like, hmm, how interesting is that? Okay, that happened. On to the next person. That is emotional maturity that I'm gonna keep working on. I'm gonna keep working on that little piece of it for myself. I wanted to talk to you also uh to touch on a little bit about overcompensation. I've struggled with this for a very long time. I think in clinical practice in particular, where a one-sentence response would have sufficed. I constantly think like, no, you gotta go deep and be as expansive as possible because it's not enough to just demonstrate competence, set the expectation to always exceed expectation beyond anything. And then when they come back and are surprised that I am as good as I said that I was, I don't celebrate it. It's actually hurtful. And so I was curious about how you've, if you've ever, or any advice you may have about overcompensating as a person of color in corporate setting or just in our professional careers.

SPEAKER_01 17:55

Yeah, no, overcompensation is definitely something that I've had to tackle because when for whatever reason, we often feel like we need to over-explain just exactly what you said. We we feel like we we need to like really give all the information. You know, trust me, I'm not being a slacker. I'm not like, you know, like we're kind of coming from this presupposition. But the reason we're coming from that is because of how the world trains us to do that, right? And because when you don't give all the information, quite often you can be misinterpreted, misunderstood. You can, you know, things can be taken out of context, you know, based on what they already feel like they want to believe about you. And here's the thing: when someone really wants to believe that you're coming from a place of negative intent, you can overcompensate all you want. It is not going to change anything. If they believe that your intent is not good and they're not gonna give you the benefit of the doubt, or that you're coming from a place of, I don't know, ill will, it really doesn't matter how much you say. And I I mean, I could talk about this for like an hour. I won't, but what I will say is that you you do have to get to a point. I don't know if it comes with age, life experience, I don't know what it what kind of gets us over that hump, but you have to come to a point where you have to realize you don't have to keep explaining yourself. And you literally just have to stop doing it. Because if someone doesn't want to believe you, I don't care if you write two paragraphs and put it on videotape, what you were doing, they're not gonna believe you. And so I have been faced with having things come at me. Well, what do you have to say about that? People feel this way about you. What do you have to say about that? And what I have to say about that is I'm not going to respond to how people feel because I'm not responsible for anybody else's feelings. And I'm not going to defend myself against how somebody feels about me. What you should be asking, if you're actually a real leader, you should be asking them why do they feel like that, instead of asking me how do I feel about how they feel. Like that that's ridiculous. I mean, am I at work or am I in the daycare? Like, where am I at? You know, am I working with grown folks or am I working with five-year-olds? Yeah. Five year olds are in their feelings all the time, every day, right? You know, all the time. They're always in their feelings. It don't take much for them to be all up in their feelings, right? Well, you know what? I can't help if a grown adult chooses to be all up in their feelings about something, I can't help it. I can't change it. And I certainly am not going to try to explain it or defend myself against it. It's a full stop. And so at some point, you kind of have to, and I think I've been just at some point, I just had to get to that point where you realize when someone truly doesn't want to believe you have good intentions, they're going to make everything that you do, they're going to see it always through a lens of you trying to do something bad, or you trying to get over on them, or you try there, there are that's gonna be their lens. And you honestly can't fix that. That that's a them problem. That is not a you problem. And so, as black women, as excellent black women, we cannot deal with them problems. Yeah, we can only deal with problems. I can only fix myself, I cannot fix somebody else, and I choose not to even try.

SPEAKER_00 21:41

Yeah, and and this leads perfectly into the next question I have because I can't tell you how many times the feedback I get is well, your confidence can be at times intimidating. And I am unsure how to number one, hear that and not. Not just go off and be like, and how is that my problem? It's been a thing that's come, and I don't believe that the solution to that is to adjust my confidence level so that you could become more comfortable. And so I get the overexplaining because I'm like, I really just want you to know that I'm rather sure about the angle I'm coming from and why this is the right direction. It's not because I want to like let you know that I am your boss or like you have to do what I say, right? So this is really important for me in just learning that like I have to quit.

SPEAKER_01 22:38

Girl, I've heard those same words.

SPEAKER_00 22:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:41

You know, that it's not confidence. They they call arrogance. And here's what I'm saying is one, absolutely love Deion Sanders' quote about this, where he says, you know, when you look good, you feel good. When you feel good, you play good. When you play good, your money's good. So kind of has this quote about this, and he's like, and it's not arrogance. He's like, it's confidence. It's not me being arrogant. It's not, he's he makes this quote. He said, I'm not being arrogant, I'm I'm confident. Yeah. And part of that confidence, he takes it all the way back to like, look, I come in looking good. Yeah. When I look good, then I feel good. And he's like, and when I feel good, he says he plays good. Well, good. Well, I'm a you know, I'm gonna be producing some quality work. Right. My work is gonna be when I feel good. So, but if someone again, it, you know, they're gonna see that. Like, and I think as black women, we we get faced with that quite often. And to be frank, it it's a racist trope, it is, is what it is. Let's call a spade a spade. It's a racist trope to feel like uh a black woman who's very sure of herself is arrogant, and you don't even know me, right? At all. At all. Okay. Am I confident? A hundred percent. I'm very confident in what I know, but what I'm also confident is when I don't know something. Yeah. And so I'm confident in the not knowing, too. I'm not going to be like saying I know something when I don't. I'm gonna be asking a lot of questions so that I can learn something, right? And I'm confident in my not knowing. Yeah. You know, so I just tell you straight up. I can confidently tell you that's an area that I know nothing about. So please help me learn something. Yeah. If you want to call that confidence, arrogance. I don't, I don't care. I mean, you gotta call you're gonna call it what you want to call it. But the fact of the matter is I'm confident in what I know and I'm confident in what I don't know. And that's what actually makes one. It makes a fantastic leader because there's no better leader than one who who's they have their own self-confidence within themselves. They're not trying to compete with you or their team or frankly anybody else, because they're confident enough in themselves that they don't they don't need to compete. And frankly, half the time, people who think these things, I literally don't think about them at all ever, you know? And so I'm like, they think about me a whole heck of a lot more than I actually frankly think about them.

SPEAKER_00 25:17

I'm always like, that's one of it's such a true statement though, because every time I'm hit with this and I'm like, who? Like, I go, I become Yeah, I mean I be thinking back like who, wait, when I'm confused. Like, y'all, there's a whole bunch of y'all thinking about me today. This and I'm like, I am living rent-free in your head. And meanwhile, I I'm just rent-free. I'm just focused on getting to my next cup of coffee. Like, where is the coffee? But there appears to be a full dissertation taking place regarding and know about they got a whole PhD on you, girl. Oh, wrote a whole paper. And I I love this conversation because I think that one of the things that I really, really love also, because I know that I suffered this very early in my career, is the isolation. I truly felt like um the insecurities that I had kind of internalized and things that were projected onto me and people's limiting self-belief that I took ownership of. Very isolating. Uh, we don't want to talk about the fact that we feel like we are at it alone. You touched on the tribe component a little bit. I really would just like you to give us an idea about really how instrumental it is to build a support structure because career growth can be a heck of an isolating career. So, in your experience or what you've experienced and observed, some advice you can give all of the young professionals just starting out about how to effectively really build that community for their growth and this journey that is going to be really long.

SPEAKER_01 27:05

Yes. Yeah, no, it's vitally important. And building a tribe, you know, is risky in some ways, right? Because you have to have some discernment truly about who you can trust and who you can't trust. 100%. And again, we've all faced the other side of thinking we could trust somebody and then quickly finding out that we can't, right? So that's where that discernment comes in, right? And and you don't have to display all your cards to everybody and to just anybody. You need to be smart about that. I think it's important to lift others within that tribe. Like it shouldn't just be about tearing people down or even frankly complaining about all the things, although we for sure have to have a space to vent because you you do need to be able to sometimes get some of these things out because they're incredibly frustrating and frankly very unfair in a lot of ways. But you you can build a tribe. The tribe sometimes all looks like you, and sometimes they don't all look like you. It really just depends, but you really need to be discerning about that because not all small skin folk are kin folk, girl. Talk about that. Talk about that. Right. You got you have to be discerning and you have to be careful, you have to remain professional, you know, until you have really built that trust. Because as we know, healthcare is a really, really small world. What goes around comes around. You never really know when you're gonna be in a meeting. I mean, it happens to I cannot, I can't even tell how many times in the last like four years. I have walked into a meeting and somebody in the room said, I know who you are. I know who you are, Chara. I follow you on LinkedIn. Or I used to call on you. You know, I it happens to me all the time, almost every time I go to a professional meeting or I go sit down in a room. Somebody has interfaced with me in some way, shape, form, or fashion. Okay. Many times that has been in person when I was in practice and they called on me. They were a drug rep in a role, a more entry-level role in their organization, and they have ascended into a C-suite level role. No joke, it's happened to me. And I walked in and I did not remember the person, and that's okay. Because when you're a pharmacy director, you meet a lot of people. But the one question I asked was, Did you have a good experience working with me? Was it a good experience? Like, I want to ask that question because I want to know because I think I gave everybody a good experience when I was giving people my time back then. And he said, Absolutely, you you were great. I I loved working with you, you know, and that like just reminded me that it's important to be a nice person. Sometimes receive you give what you receive, you receive what you give. That's important, but just be discerning. And the one thing you never have to be discerning about is being a nice person. You can always just be a nice person. That's never gonna hopefully should not turn around and you know, bite you. No. But just be nice, just be nice and be discerning about building the tribe. The tribe is important. Hopefully, it it's you know, it could be people in your same industry, it can be people in a different industry, it can be people that look like you, that don't look like you. Yeah, it could be people that you work directly with that you don't work directly with, but you have to put in the effort. And one of the things that um that I feel is so important is that for a man to have friends, he must show himself friendly, right? That that's a biblical principle that the Bible teaches us about friendship. And it tells you if you want to have good friends, you need to be a good friend first. Right. And so you need to make sure you're not betraying confidence, that you're giving good advice, that you're being a good listening, you know, a sounding board for somebody. And frankly, that a good friend will tell you when you it go in the wrong direction, too, right? That's the biggest sign of a good friend. They're not just a yes man, they're like, nah, hold up. We need to be looking at that a little bit differently. Yeah, and they'll have those hard conversations. And I know a true friend, when I have a really good friend, they will correct me. Yeah, right. And then I know, like, okay. And and it's like good advice, it ain't like that shady stuff. Well, I don't know why you're so sensitive. And that really wasn't, no, girl. It's gotta be solid, real advice. Yeah, don't be tripping. Yeah, don't sidestep it. No sidestepping. Help me be better, help me. I I have times where I will get an email that makes me hot, that lights me on fire, and you just want to you want to be a keyboard, like you have to get on that keyboard, and you just want to go at it, right? And I pause and I have taught myself, don't respond. Yeah. What I do sometimes one step further, I pick up the phone and I phone a friend and I say, okay, help me think through this. Yeah. This is what I said, this is what they said, and I do need to respond, but I want to do it in a way that does not inflame the situation, yeah, that stays professional and respectful, um, even though what I maybe received wasn't respectful. Yeah. And so I pick up the phone and I get good advice about how to handle that and not to inflame things and not to make things worse. So a good friend will be able to help you through those and take it down. We need to bring this back down from 60 to zero.

SPEAKER_00 32:51

Yeah. It's so true. And it's like one of the biggest mentoring points for students. And I tell them, and I'm like, you go on that rotation, and that preceptor is grossly unprofessional. The expectation is that you will mirror and model for them what they are not showing you. You cannot match their energy. It doesn't. I don't care what just transpired. If you cannot have that conversation with that preceptor, that's what the school is there for. You need to escalate the situation for someone to mediate that conversation. But you believing that in that moment, what you need to do is to match energy. Somebody has stared you the wrong way. So I just love that that's being reaffirmed here that it's a life hack, really. It's a life hack. Like not responding in the moment, putting things on pause and calling somebody that's gonna talk you off the ledge, and also just um validating the feeling, right? And saying, like, that's way out of line. That's completely inappropriate. They are not, you're not crazy for thinking and feeling what you're feeling, but still, but still, we need to figure out a way to redirect the energy. That's excellent advice. This is a question I'm going to ask everybody. And is what is one dose of advice that has changed the way you approach success or leadership?

SPEAKER_01 34:14

The biggest thing that I can say is you don't need a title to lead.

unknown 34:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:18

You can be a leader in a lot of different ways. And it doesn't require you to be a people leader to be a leader. It doesn't require a big fancy title. You can find ways in which to lead very, very early on in your career without even having the title. So it's important to learn those ways in which you can lead without the title. And those are those are life skills that you will take and you will be able to demonstrate and actually be able to articulate that transfer of skill for when you are going to move into that big title or that leadership role. We're going to have people reporting to you. You really want to have already um had experiences where you've taken initiative to lead and be a leader. Leading is even to what you just said. It's leader, it's a leadership skill. If someone comes at you left, yeah, and you don't match that energy. It takes, it requires a lot of self-control and it does require you to tap into that leadership skill. So even though a leader may not be acting like a leader, yeah, that's okay. That's on them. You can always remain professional, and leadership is knowing the right steps to take to handle those types of situations. That is demonstrating leadership and being able to see those things and articulate that this is how I chose to lead in a situation with an unprofessional leader. This is what I chose to do. I had to escalate it. I had to do this, or I had to do that, or I had to de-escalate it. I had a lot of ways. And so the the one little piece of advice is I would say there's a lot of ways to demonstrate leadership skills. You don't need to wait for the title to do it. Honestly, if you're waiting to get the title to do it, is you maybe aren't equipped yet to be a leader. You should have demonstrated leadership skills and every point, including being a student.

SPEAKER_00 36:18

There's ways to 100%. The opportunities are almost overwhelming. It's a matter of like paying attention because if you're paying attention around you, there is something you absolutely can take ownership of, make it your thing, and do it really, really well to the point where people will really take notice because it requires like being dialed in on the day-to-day to recognize what could be improved all around us. I can't thank you enough for doing this, but I really want my listeners to learn more about the Pharmacist Women Networking Association and what it is. And how did that come about with all of the things you've got going on already? How did the Pharmacist Women Networking Association come about?

SPEAKER_01 37:04

Yeah, no, I love this question. It's my favorite thing to talk about. So Pharmacist Women was just a little, you know, idea, harebrained idea I had back in 2018 when I was looking for a place that I could focus on women networking with each other. Because one of the things I knew, I didn't know when it was gonna happen, but I knew that it would happen. I had a thought one day when I was at one of my organizations that I worked at, and I said, this job's gonna change my life. And I bet the next job that I get, someone's gonna call me. And I'm gonna get the job because someone's gonna call me. And I just thought that one day. And I knew that the only way that would happen would be if I like was really strategically and purposefully networking. Absolutely. Right. And networking, not just like going to mixers and kind of like things and like passing out your card, but networking in my mind was really about relationship building. And so, and I thought, like, oh, I've actually been networking, I've been spending time with people in this job. I've been spending time with all sorts of different people trying to understand what their needs are, trying to collaborate with them on different initiatives. And that was actually like real networking. It wasn't just me going someplace and passing out my card and saying, hey, let's connect on LinkedIn. That that's not super effective. I did eventually get a call to get a job. And man, getting a phone call for a job makes things like a thousand times easier to get in, right? Oh, yeah. And so that that's a true story and that happened. And I had, I just had seen a vision of that happening to me. And it did. And I thought, well, how can I help facilitate this for other people, for women, and let me create this organization? And it wasn't like I knew what it was all gonna be, but what it has turned out to be is a place for women to collaborate together, to network. We meet every month in Chicago. We built so many friendships, so many women have gotten jobs. People come up to me and they tell me these like stories of how they got a job through Pharmacist Women, which is like super cool. But the most exciting thing that we're doing is next year we're gonna host our inaugural conference um here in the Chicagoland area. It's going to be a two and a half day conference. We have our conference space secured. We're going to start having true, like a conference that allows people to fly in. Um, so I'm excited. Like there's a lot of big things on the forefront of this little baby idea that I had back in 2018 that has now grown just literally on a Facebook page to 12,000 women who go in there questions and they help each other. And my whole thing was I knew I could only help so many people individually, one by one. Yeah. Collective, we can help a lot of people together. So I knew that that was gonna be more impactful and more meaningful than me just trying to like one-offs, try to help invent the people.

SPEAKER_00 40:09

I it's it's back to that community component of building, growing, and sustaining. To go from just an idea you thought you had to 12,000 women being in the network. Now there's a conference. We need this announcement kind of is that because folks gotta block the time off the calendar because I'm not going to be looking at that unfolding from a distance and liking a post. I'm gonna be right there talking about what the experience like. I'm like, I'm bugging out because I I have to be there. I have to be there. And anything that you need at all from me, you know you've got it. For the future. A conference like this is for people that are thinking about one to three and three to five. They will see the value and why being in a space like this with so many women that are in it, not thinking about getting in it, but they're in their careers and being around them and learning that opportunity. I can't imagine how transformative that's going to be. I am also just incredibly grateful for your time, for saying yes, for being supportive, but sincerely for being you and continuing to show up for those of us that really do look up to you and pull your name up as examples of what it is to be unapologetic about the who part of how we show up, and then letting the what and the how just speak for itself. I admire and respect you, and thank you so much for joining us today. And I hope everybody knows that you can go find Dr. Shara Reed on LinkedIn. You can also Women Pharmacist Networking Association is definitely on LinkedIn as a page as well. We thank you so much for joining us today, Shara.

SPEAKER_01 41:56

Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. This was fun.

SPEAKER_00 42:00

So now that it's just us, I wanted to take a moment to reflect on what we learned today. I mean it when I say that Shara is one of the voices in the profession of pharmacy that I respect deeply, but also as a person. Shara is the example that I think of when I'm struggling as a young mom and still have that fire in my belly, very ambitious, feel like I really still want to go after all of the things that I have had the audacity to dream about. I can still set out and make those things happen. I think this episode today, and what I hope is a huge takeaway from me for you, is that representation is not just because we need more statements or we need to toss more different versions and types of people in a department. But the power of representation continues to be the fact that when people see others that look like them succeeding, it quietly gives them permission and courage and a lot of hope in wanting to and aspiring to doing the same thing for themselves. I am really appreciative of the fact that you all, if it was the very first time that you met her and you got to hear her story and her journey and the way in which she is contributing to helping more women and more people in the profession overall get to have the careers that they absolutely deserve. That is the biggest gift that I hope this episode gave you today. As always, I am so grateful that you choose me to start your Monday with. Tune in again next week, Monday, for a brand new episode of Success and Doses. And this season, we are focusing on becoming on purpose. Have a wonderful week. Bye! If this episode gave you something to think about, something to hold on to, or even something to act on, I want to ask you for one more thing. Take a moment to write and review the podcast. It feels really small, but it's actually one of the biggest ways you can support this show. It helps more people find these conversations and become part of this community we're building right here on Success and Dosing.