A Leadership Primer for New Librarians: Tools for Helping Today's Early‐Career Librarians Become Tomorrow's Library Leaders

Citation

Sanders, R. (2010), "A Leadership Primer for New Librarians: Tools for Helping Today's Early‐Career Librarians Become Tomorrow's Library Leaders", Library Review, Vol. 59 No. 1, pp. 72-73. https://doi.org/10.1108/00242531011014745

This book describes what librarians want from a library leader, and it attempts to do that through discussion and anecdotes about how the authors, and their invited guest writers, have become leaders themselves. The authors’ collaboration began with their presentation of a paper on leadership (and “followership” – more of which later) to the Australian Library and Information Association's New Librarians Symposium in 2006. As well as being based on their own experiences, the authors, first as early‐career librarians themselves, and further, as managers and leaders now, enlisted the advice and suggestions of others by surveying through the medium of new librarians’ listservs. The results of that survey, along with gems from the experiences of other early‐career leaders, have given this work a well aimed pragmatic approach to what has often been a highly theoretical field.

The chapters of this work reflect that – “What you didn't learn in your LIS program”, “Becoming a leader even if you aren't in a leadership position”, “Why follower isn't a dirty word”, “Setting yourself apart”, “Self‐promotion”, and “The toolkit”. Much of this work resonates with the sound and effective practices of library leadership through the eyes of those achieving that role early in their careers. Each chapter is completed by exercises that are appropriate to the chapter content.

Back to “followership”. The chapters on “Becoming a leader even if you aren't in a leadership position” and “Why follower isn't a dirty word”, propose the notion that by becoming effective and influential “followers” in an organisation you can develop the skills and qualities to lead. The key factors in this development include learning to influence others, becoming a successful advocate, demonstrating support for, and loyalty to, both the established leadership and your peers, being prepared to take on tasks unwanted by others, and motivating and encouraging colleagues. The thesis is that the qualities of leadership are developed while “following”.

The experiences and ideas of other early career librarians are provided by guest writers, in the form of personal cases at the end of each chapter. These guests have been chosen for their responses given as part of a “call for contributions” to the book. There are many and varied tips and tricks provided by the guest writers, their advice including leadership adages based on military experience, maintaining your personal integrity, and overcoming self‐doubt; practicable brief treatises on being mentored, developing professional networks, taking opportunities, seeing supervision as a partnership and valuing professional development.

Least useful perhaps are two contributions who argue, largely theoretically, that successful leaders all have a high degree of emotional intelligence. This is undeniably true, but it would have been exciting to have them demonstrate this through practical scenarios in the way in which other contributors managed. But these are alone in the book as the guest pieces otherwise truly offer “advice from the field”.

The final chapter, “The toolkit”, consists of 100 tips which at first sight appears a daunting list, but really contains many actions that readers will already be undertaking naturally. The trick is to find the new ideas there which will inspire you further. One writer's summary provides the essence of all of these, and indeed of all the practitioner inputs to the discussion: “The recurring theme in all these tips is action. … Translate [your] enthusiasm into concrete, intentional, productive steps and you will equip yourself with the tools, ideas and relationships you need to be an effective leader.”

What this work clearly demonstrates is that leadership is not necessarily dependent on a position of authority or a display of traits, but rather is an activity that allows for the use of a variety of abilities depending on the demands of the culture and situation. Individuals do not become good leaders because of their personality traits or their skills and aptitudes, but rather through their ability to harness all of their personal characteristics as resources for leadership and apply them differently in a range of contexts. In the end, this book allows, indeed suggests, that you read all of the advice and then “Find what works best for you”.