Moderator: Mark Kille

Notetaker: Jamie LaRue

Attendees: Gene Hainer, Mark Kille, Jamie LaRue, Kerri Martin, Jamie Markus, Bethany Sewell, Mary Stansbury, and I think Diane Tobin(?).

 

Mark kicked it off: growing leaders was defined as looking within your organization to identify rising leaders, and mentoring people to send out to other organizations. 

 

A question: what would potential young leaders like to do to grow?

 

One answer: Diane said it was to learn strategies to lead projects, but not necessarily become an administrator. 

 

Another: grow and be mentored. Jamie Markus was pleased that his bosses at the Wyoming State Library gave him projects to lead, opportunity, general collegial support. They provided an atmosphere of "it's OK to goof up a little, manage projects you're not 100% comfortable with, or do something when the outcome may not be clear." 

 

Kerri said that young potential leaders don't just want to be assigned projects, sometimes they want to choose their own. 

 

Question: how do we find out what other libs doing to foster young librarians with passion for the future?

 

Another leadership trait: How to sell ideas. 

 

Developing other leaders is also a leadership trait: recognize those who need to grow, and provide resources or processes to move up. 

 

There are existing leadership programs, although most of them require some kind of existing association membership. For instance, ALA emerging leader program (which Bethany reported as both very useful, and instructive in learning just how tedious leadership can be). The Colorado Association of Libraries has a leadership program. The Snowbird program is now defunct. [Update: the Executive Board of MPLA voted unanimously at their October 11^th meeting to continue the MPLA Leadership Institute. The institute is tentatively scheduled for Spring of 2010. Exact dates and location will be announced as soon as a contract is signed.]

 

Mary asserted the desire to nurture untenured faculty. Library education hasn't included more concrete management skills. So her question: how might library education contribute to the desire to have more leadership skills, balancing this with the demand for all kinds of "core" skills. All agreed that we are fortunate to have a library school in the area. (And indeed, more than one: DU's and Emporia's.) 

 

Two areas of professional activity are part of leadership development: encouraging staff to do presentations on behalf of the library -- if not paid for at least work time. Another might be publications, which happens more in the academic than in the school or public realm. Both help identify talent, and offer opportunities for networking. 

 

One suggestion from Kerri: establish a "young professional program" within an organization which met regularly, discussed opportunities, perhaps had senior management liaison to help coach or assign projects. It was suggested that maybe library school involvement would be good to highlight some of the educational enrichment opportunities. 

 

Then we had some discussion about just what is leadership, anyhow? Among the skills mentioned: facilitation, project management, choosing what NOT to do, recognizing when leadership is needed, and stepping up to the challenge. 

 

Mary talked about the use of the book "Making Things Happen" in her library administration class, but felt that it was not well accepted. The focus on the project management aspect of leadership didn't seem to be as popular as the more classic "management theory X" presentation. This may be a framing issue: a need to present the context of the book differently. 

 

Jamie LaRue commented that with other changes in the profession, it may be that now organizations expect anyone with an MLIS to have some leadership responsibilities.

 

All agreed that we're looking for a more structured approach, a process for leadership development. 

 

You learn by doing. A young leaders group should have actual assignments. Rotating chair discussion of project status, to give everyone a chance to practice leadership skills. 

The ALA program does do a good job of giving practical objectives.

 

Many leadership programs have two focuses: first, know thyself. Second, know others.

 

Shadowing is believed to be useful. But hard to find opportunities outside organization, or get internal support fiscally and philosophically. Suggestion: maybe what we need is a kind of sample contract: how many hours, obligations of both parties, what's what's to be learned? 

 

There is a need for more practical experience before going out into real world. 

 

When you set up internal program, managers have to be fully versed in goals and purposes of the project. It's important to build in networking opportunities. 

 

The role of Sabbaticals. Not in demand for public libraries. In one church library (Mark's), librarians were required to do an annual research leave, but first they had to a proposal to be approved. Can be done as matching vacation. 

 

What is the role of continuing education in leadership development? Should be tied TO a project, and to the annual review. 

 

What is the role of advocacy skills? Internal and external. Formal and informal. Should be a job requirement, in addition to offering in-house training! 

 

Internal: group presentations may be more powerful than individual to make the case to an administrator for some course of action.External: storytelling. 

 

Jamie L. noted that a "best practice of staff development" in public libraries is to set aside 2% of the salary budget for continuing education (conferences, tuition, workshops).

 

It should be a performance expectation of supervisors to grow leaders. They should be annually evaluated on that.

 

How to grow a leadership development climate: the processes can strangle. Eliminate barriers to decision-making and innovation. Fight bureaucracies.

 

Leadership might be identified by the ability to grow other leaders.

 

We discussed the importance of having some room to play, room to experiment outside those strangling processes. One idea is to set thresholds of significance. If the project is less than $10,000 or takes up less than 1% of your time, have at it! Try stuff! Learn!

 

Today a good example of leadership, people who pulled together conference.

 

What are some possible outcomes of this discussion:

 

* Post notes on the LCOW wiki.

 

* Seek out and disseminate the "sample contract" for shadowing and mentoring. (Later, a simple contract can be found here: http://www.coachingandmentoring.com/Mentor/contract.htm )

 

* Find and post links to other leadership program opportunities. For instance: ALA, CAL, local county or municipal leadership programs (which have the advantage of making connections to peers in the community outside the field of librarianship).

 

* Note other possibilities. Gene Hainer noted that the State Library, CLiC and CAL are working on more comprehensive listings of continuing education opportunities.