Core Library Leaders and Managers Interest Group

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Purpose: Organizes, moderates, and distributes summaries of virtual and face-to-face discussions on topics of interest to leaders and managers at all levels and types of libraries.

This interest group is part of Core's Leadership and Management Section.

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Leadership Styles in Libraries

  • 1.  Leadership Styles in Libraries

    Posted Jan 06, 2020 12:10 PM
    Hello all,

    I am currently working on an article on leadership styles in academic libraries. I completed a dissertation on this topic earlier this year and have been expanding on that with interviews with academic library leaders. I mentioned this elsewhere and it was suggested that it'd be an interesting topic for discussion for us all. I wanted to post this here and open this to get your viewpoints not specifically on my research, but on library leadership styles in general. Your experiences as followers and as leaders. I will include my own findings below to get us started and just for common reference.



    I put together a blog article about my dissertation (with a link to the full thing) here, if you're interested. Essentially, in my dissertation research I found that while the ALA doesn't provide much guidance on leadership styles (with the exception of LLAMA's foundational competencies), it does advise that MLIS programs teach librarians to be transformational leaders. Perhaps because of this, our existing body of literature about leadership focuses heavily on transformational leadership. My research found, however, that democratic leadership is more common than transformational, and is potentially more strongly correlated to job satisfaction and autonomy. My continued research has helped me  conclude that a combination of democratic (also called participative) and transformational leadership practices are essential in libraries. I feel that (and a conclusion of my current article that I'm working on) is that communication is the vital, cyclical system that navigates library leaders in using democratic methods to achieve transformational goals. 

    Democratic/participative leadership most strongly emphasizes collaboration and participation. It focuses on equalizing library staff and reducing hierarchy in order to foster greater collaboration and involvement. Transformational leadership, on the other hand, involves some of these same elements but focuses on aligning staff with the library's vision and using strong (often charismatic) leadership to motivate and develop staff to be better. My personal conclusion is that both of these depend greatly on systems of communication and work best when used together more equally. 

    I will note that my research is focused on academic libraries. I held an open discussion on this topic at last year's Alabama Library Association convention and found that most seemed to agree on many of these points.

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    Daniel Wilson
    Director of Library & Learning Services
    American InterContinental University
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