Elisabeth Leonard on Libraries

My leadership philosophy

Next month, I am presenting at ER&L on leadership. I think one of the things I want to discuss is creating a personal philosophy, something I used to require of my SJSU management students...and something that I haven't looked at for myself recently.  So, here goes!

Throughout my career, I have almost always seen myself as a leader, even when I was not a manager and even though many times my leadership was momentary and informal.  As my career has progressed, my understandings of the distinctions between leadership and management have become more formalized and easier to express.  To me, leadership is fundamentally about creating a shared philosophy or vision for an organization, a unit, or a team.  That vision is based on understanding the organization’s mission, seeing where there is a need for change, and having the creativity to define what the change should look like within the organization’s context.  A great leader can define that vision in such a way that it transforms the organization and the people within it.

An effective administrator needs to be both a leader and a manager.  She needs a compelling vision, a mix of analytical, technical, and financial skills, blended with congenial soft skills.  Management after all is about human potential and how to tap into people’s greatest expression of themselves.  It also is about collaboration and cooperation, getting employees to understand their jobs and empowering them to do it well, while listening to their input and recognizing when the administrator needs to change her own opinions and approaches.

In higher education, a truly effective administrator will embody the leadership and management characteristics above, as well as many of the characteristics of a good teacher. She is then passionate, visionary, ethical, knowledgeable, flexible, and inspirational.  She supplies the necessary scaffolding for the people she works with so that they may learn and grow, while learning and growing alongside them.  I find leadership within such a construct to be rewarding for me and I hope that it is rewarding for those I serve, the students, faculty and staff of my institution.

Why innovativeness matters for managers

In March, Betsy Clementson and I are presenting on the results of our research on innovative characteristics of a small set of business librarians at The Conference for Entrepreneurial Librarians.  Innovation seems like it has become such a buzz word that it is losing its meaning.  Want to know why it matters?  From the pen of my favorite innovation author:

"Innovativeness indicates overt behavioral change, the ultimate goal of most diffusion programs, rather than just cognitive or attitudinal change.  Innovativeness is the bottom line behavior in the diffusion process."  Rogers, Diffusion of Innovations, p. 268.

Now, I don't care how much it sometimes seems like change itself seems like a goal, the reality for all organizations, including libraries, is that where innovative change is involved, it means by definition that value has been added to the organization (or else it is just change, not innovation).  It means that we are better meeting our organizational missions.  And what that means for managers is that they need to remember that their behavior influences the innovativeness of those around them....and if they can't promote innovativeness, they may be a bottle neck to the survival of their library. 

Are librarians innovative? Does organizational culture matter?

I have spent the last year working...I mean, really working!  I started a new job last Fall and was unable to do that work and also do my research.  This week, a colleague and I launched a survey to determine the innovative characteristics of librarians who work with the top entrepreneurship programs in the U.S. to see how innovative those librarians are. 

My dissertation is intended to examine a corrolary to this research: does organizational structure impact innovation within academic libraries?  I think that while some librarians "go rogue", innovating despite what their managers may support, that many more librarians either are not innovative or feel inhibited because they feel they may not be supported.  Similarly, I think that there are librarians who may not naturally be innovative, but find that their managers support experimentation, so they are then more willing to take a chance...perhaps even that some librarians are more innovative at work than they are in their personal lives!

So, don't be surprised if you start reading posts for the next couple months from me about my methodology or about how existing research resonates with me...and now I am off to start re-examing my methodolgy!

How Social Networking Has Changed Business

Social networking is also flattening organizations by distributing access to information. Everyone is equal on the social network. No hierarchies need get involved.

The biggest threat presented by social networks is to middle managers, who may become obsolete when they are no longer needed to convey messages up and down the organization

via blogs.hbr.org

An interesting read from an HBS professor...I was really struck by the notion that social networks eliminate hierarchy, especially for the middle manager...although I am not sure it is true. Maybe they sometimes circumvent hierarchy? After all, part of what the middle manager does is interpret the messages between upper management and the front lines.  In addition, the middle manager does much more than serve as a conduit.  It's interesting that the author thinks that new roles for the middle manager include leading projects.  Medtronics must be a very different organization than every library I have worked!  I have never had a management job where my only responsibility was to communicate (don't get me wrong, communication is at the core of job, I just mean that there is a lot more on my plate than PR).

All that said, I think every manager benefits from direct communication with the rest of the organization, as well as with the consumer.  I don't want to recount times when I have heard a library director speak, only to think that the director was well out of touch with her employees AND with most of her patrons.  If social networking makes this change, I will be on top of the world!

5 E-Book Trends That Will Change the Future of Publishing

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via mashable.com