Comments on: Every Librarian A Leader, But…

By: Raghavendra R Pawar

Raghavendra R Pawar — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 11:45:10 +0000

Apparently Librarian should develop and being a leader of his department. But one who having the true leadership skills assist him to manage any kind of adversaries he encounters. Manage and control the difficult situation and circumstances demonstrates the person true leadership capabilities. Absolutely Librarians should cultivate leadership skill to manage their library affairs in effective way and also improve its position from its existing position to next level. Key ingredients of leadership are integrity, excellent oratory skill and understanding the problem and people to handle and lead.

By: Good Reasons For Those Bad Decisions

Good Reasons For Those Bad Decisions — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 11:51:09 +0000

[...] can have long-term and profound implications for our libraries and institutions. A leader able to make good judgment calls is an asset to his or her academic library. But according to the speaker we heard at ACRL’s [...]

By: Barbara Fister

Barbara Fister — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 19:15:59 +0000

“A library director must deal with things outside of the library while the front line librarian does not have to.”

It’s pretty much a must at our shop. We’re faculty, and service to the institution is required. Luckily, it’s also something people want to do. And when everyone’s involved, the library is more integrally part of the campus.

By: Bill Drew

Bill Drew — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 18:03:56 +0000

As a new interim library director, your posting about hits really close to home. I have considered myself a leader for several years in my role as a librarian and also in the role I played as president of the SUNY Librarians Association.

A library director must deal with things outside of the library while the front line librarian does not have to. I have been going to our college academic council in my new role. I am being asked for input on college wide policies and issues. That is both exhilirating and scary at the same time. As director my perspective must be much broader than just the library.

By: Marilyn R. Pukkila

Marilyn R. Pukkila — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 17:26:56 +0000

Good comments all. I find myself wondering how many librarians enter the profession with the *intention* of becoming directors. Or chairs in a collaborative environment such as Gustavus. I agree with the learning by doing model, both as a teacher and as a librarian! I think Mark has another important aspect of the question nailed when he points out that the jobs we take have to do with many non-job factors, including mobility and flexibility. There’s something else, though, a bit more intangible: how to cultivate a mindset in which individual librarians see themselves as leadership material. It took me a long time to get to that place, with a lot of experiential learning! And I’ve noticed that my most successful leadership ventures have happened when I’m not consciously acting as a leader; I’m just doing my job as I see it. Those times are very sweet!

By: Mark K.

Mark K. — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 02:47:50 +0000

Steven–

I would be thrilled to see something along the lines of PLA’s Grow Your Own @ Your Library Institutional Scholarship, except have the money go towards making it financially feasible to allow release time for one or more librarians at each selected academic library to “circulate through different units and to observe leaders in action,” as you say.

I like the idea of residencies, but I worry that such programs select for people in a very specific place in their lives, where they can pick up and go somewhere for a year or two, and then pick up *again* and go someplace else. At least, I haven’t heard of residencies that turn into permanent full-time positions, though I could be misinformed.

By: stevenb

stevenb — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 01:54:43 +0000

I mentioned in the earlier post that there are some existing programs that are a good start. They can give developing leaders some good ideas and tools. Where they lack is in the authentic practice. I’d certainly like to see more residency programs at libraries of all sizes; the too few current programs are offered mostly at large institutions. That gives potential leaders a year or two to be involved in library managment, to circulate through different units and to observe leaders in action. Owing to the costs involved, few programs are available. Perhaps there is a way our libraries can cooperatively fund more of them or though ACRL identify and obtain grants. Perhaps it is something we can do in our own libraries. Library directors can certainly identify potential leaders in their own organizations, and then help to develop their skills. I don’t have great ideas but we can start to work on generating more of them.

By: Barbara Fister

Barbara Fister — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 23:06:42 +0000

We pretty much take Mark’s advice in that we don’t have a formal path for learning to be a chair; but we do make most of our decisions together, so the learning curve is not as steep as it was when we embarked on this model (or in other departments where the work of the chair is less collaborative). Previously, nobody but the director had actually seen the budget and what went on with the administration was all a bit mysterious. Now we’re all familiar with the budget and what’s going on in admin, and we’re essentially able to answer just about any question that comes up about the library and where we’re headed – just as Mark describes in his library. We also are upfront in interviews – if this isn’t what you want to do, you probably don’t want to work at Gustavus.

It seems to me the one thing the profession could do to foster leadership is to stop using the metric of the number of people you supervise as the measure of a librarian’s relative worth. Supervision is mostly unnecessary, and it annoys new librarians who are, after all, grown-ups.

A colleague and I gave a paper on our model at ACRL in 2005 – and actually used the phrase “We have nothing to lose but the chains of authority.” My pinko tendencies were getting the better of me )

By: Mark K.

Mark K. — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 21:35:53 +0000

Marilyn–

Personally, I think the answer to the questions you ask Steven and Barbara can be found in your description of your own experience: people learn by doing. (I do hope they provide their own answers, though!)

I’m the director of a tiny university library. While we haven’t been able to establish a model like Barbara describes at Gustavus, I do insist on collaboration on library-wide issues and significant autonomy on service-specific issues. My intention is for everybody to gain experience in building staff consensus, being responsible and accountable, developing goals and objectives, managing personal and student employee workflows, addressing budget questions, advocating with stakeholders, and keeping up with developments in their field.

There are times when I have to make an executive decision, and there are times when a crisis balloons out of one person’s scope of responsibility and I need to step in. But for the most part, my staff works through their own successes and their own failures. That’s part of how they learn good judgment: by exercising it.

The other part of how they learn good judgment is that–within legal, ethical, and university policy constraints–I am transparent with my staff about the reasons for my own administrative decisions. We talk about money and priorities and trade-offs a lot. We also do a fair amount of post-mortems on incidents and initiatives: what worked? what didn’t? what could we have done different?

All this seems to fall under what Steven identifies as helping people grow through “experience, authentic practice, mentoring and a knowledge of the facts and data.” And I think he is right that we need to be intentional about identifying the people who, shall we say, grow the fastest and bear the most fruit. I think this is done most productively at the local level, myself, which is why I’m not sure what the profession as a whole can or should be doing, other than reducing barriers to participation in the field as much as possible.

By: Marilyn R. Pukkila

Marilyn R. Pukkila — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 19:06:13 +0000

It was my experience that I had no idea what sort of leader I would be until I was given authority in my job. And I certainly learned a few things about how I felt about authority! I was placed into an adminstrative position without much experience, and I’m afraid I did a lot of learning at the expense of my colleagues. It was all a long time ago, and I certainly have more confidence in my abilities now, but this confidence was born of real-life experience.

I’m curious, Steven: what sorts of things do you think our profession can do to develop leadership? I thoroughly enjoyed the ACRL/Harvard Institute, and I know there are mentor programs now for first-time directors. But what do you think the profession could do to better support the creation of librarians who “make the right judgment call in those crisis situations”?

And Barbara, I really like the collaborative approach to leadership you describe at Gustavus. Do you do anything to help new hires prepare for the challenges and opportunities of being elected chair?