Motivating Factors for Pharmacy Student Leadership: A Literature Review

The goal of this project was to identify motivating factors for pharmacy students to pursue leadership positions during pharmacy school was performed to identify factors for schools and organizations to emphasize to increase student leadership development and participation. A literature search was conducted on PubMed and Google Scholar were searched for articles pertaining to pharmacy student and motivational factors for leadership. A review of five articles resulted in networking opportunities, creating a desirable image for employers, interest in the organization’s mission, and professional development opportunities as the most common motivating factors for student pharmacists to pursue leadership positions. The most prevalent motivating factors identified by these studies focused on an internal benefit of the pharmacy student, as opposed to external benefits of the community or the profession. Therefore, a potential way to increase leadership may be through offering increased networking opportunities and CV development opportunities through student organizations