ACRL Leadership Discussion Group1

This thread is for brainstorming. What topics would you like to see this group take on?

Some of us are not managers, but we are leaders in our organizations. I'm wondering if we might talk about what it means to be a leader when you are not a manager, and how to leverage those abilities, skills, knowledge, etc.

I know, overdone, but would love to hear about various, successful "leadership" communication styles and strategies in the LIS field, in particular.  Thanks.

I'd like us to discuss how to pursuade colleagues to take on new projects or embrace changes you'd like to see made. As Head of Instruction, I am a manager, but I don't manage everyone who does instruction, so creating change in our instruction program means convincing people of the efficacy of my ideas. If I can't sell it, it won't happen. And I think that's an issue whether you are a manager or not.

We can also tie into the leadership literature and look for ideas there that we can then use at our institutions e.g., John P. Kotter). The management literature also may provide ideas. For example, Rosabeth Moss Kanter talks about organizational change and empowerment.

Barb Mann

One idea I was playing around with was looking at leadership skills from a DISC perspective. Each communication style has strengths and weaknesses and leadership abilities could be  improved by knowing where you stand on DISC and how your communication strengths and weaknesses can be managed to persuade and lead others, according to their communication strengths and weaknesses.

But this is probably not a topic to start us off with!  

I don't know about others, but it seems like we're regularly "selling" what we do across campus, when few other departments have this issue. I've seen incremental, but real change on this, however, since I've committed to sitting on governance and other campus committees and been participating actively in these sort of "campus-wide" initiatives etc. - what is everyone's experience with these in their own organizations?

I just read this on an internal MIT Libraries blog:

"Followership: How Followers Are Creating Change and Changing Leaders by Barbara Kellerman – [D]eliberately departing from the leader-centric approach that dominates our thinking about leadership and management. Barbara Kellerman argues that, over time, followers have played increasingly vital roles. As Kellerman makes crystal clear, to fixate on leaders at the expense of followers is to do so at our peril. The latter are every bit as important as the former, which makes this book required reading for superiors and subordinates alike."

Might be an interesting book to discuss.

I'm sorry, I don't know what DISC is. Brief explanation?

Hi Ridie, 

DISC is one of those quadrant based personality assessments, but it is aimed at defining personality styles and then addressing how the strangths and weaknesses of each style can be maximized or minimized for effectively working with each of the other styles. It's about using personility styles to help build teams and reduce conflict. 

From one commercial site: 

The DISC Profile is a nonjudgmental tool used for understanding behavioral types and personality styles. It helps people explore behavior across four primary dimensions:

• Dominance: To the point, decisive and bottom line oriented. These people tend to be independent and results driven. They are strong-willed people who enjoy challenges, taking action, and immediate results. 
   
• Influence: Optimistic and outgoing. They tend to be highly social and out going. They prefer participating on teams, sharing thoughts, and entertaining and energizing others.
   
• Steadiness: Empathetic & Cooperative. These people tend to be team players and are supportive and helpful to others.  They prefer being behind the scene, working in consistent and predictable ways. They are often good listeners and avoid change and conflict
   
• Conscientiousness: Concerned, Cautious & Correct. These people are often focused on details and quality. They plan ahead, constantly check for accuracy, and what to know "how" and "why".

I am high "I" with strong "D". I have to work on certain things to effectively lead (or be led by) high "C" and "S" folks. Who can be driven crazy by me..... 

I would be interested in seeing how certain traits displayed by management influenced their staff. There are different kinds of management techniques and generally how people deal with things. Is there a certain formula for the perfect relationship between supervisor and staff? It would be nice to know how organization is implemented and tasks are delegated as well.

Hi Angela. 

I don't know that you'll run across a formula for the perfect relationship but a fair amount of leadership literature discusses the importance of understanding different leadership styles for achieving flexibility in different situations and with different personality types. I wrote about this in my latest "Leading From the Library" column that I write for LJ. It is about remarkable, perilous and toxic styles. You can find past columns here - I've written about this topic in other columns. You may also be interested in this upcoming LLAMA webinar on leadership styles and flexibility.

Hi Angela,

Some of the research on leadership styles may be useful here. Kurt Lewin provided the foundation for this work in the 1930s. Hersey & Blanchard's Situational Leadership Theory offers a matrix for matching a leadership style with what they term the "maturity level" of the person or group being led. There is some research that doesn't support their approach, but it still offers some perspective on how we lead as we interact in an dynamic environment. Another resource you may find useful is Daniel Goleman's Harvard Business Review article from March-April 2000 entitled, "Leadership that gets results."