A former vice president at my current university had a wise and insightful analogy that she used when referring to leaders in management positions: she said that such roles can be characterized as “meniscus positions” because, like the meniscus in the knee, they are subject to both downward pressure from above and upward pressure from below – and, as with the physical meniscus, the key to avoiding pain and maintaining integrity is to stay aligned.

What are these pressures, and what does “alignment” mean in this context? Let’s look at the first question first.

Every library leader has probably experienced the frustration that can come from feeling whipsawed between an administration that wants one thing (and believes it’s the leader’s job to represent the administration’s position to staff) and a staff that wants something different (and believes it’s the leader’s job to advocate on behalf of staff to the administration). This dynamic can arise both within the library organization and between the library and the university leadership. When the administration’s position and the staff’s position are in conflict, what is the leader’s obligation? 

In Part 1 of this multi-part discussion, I put forward a hypothetical situation: a library department wants to start offering remote work options to its staff, and the library administration invests significant time and energy in discussing the possibility – but then realizes that remote work isn’t allowed as a matter of institutional policy, and therefore isn’t an option for library employees. 

 Now let’s imagine what happens next.

The word is sent back to the library department that their remote work policy proposal has been rejected, because it contravenes university policy. The administration expects that this will end the discussion – after all, the library doesn’t have power to change university policy and doesn’t have authority to enact internal policies that go against it. But instead of simply dropping the issue, the department chair comes back to the administration and argues that the library should be acting as a campus leader in this regard – should be, at the very least, advocating for a policy change on behalf of the library’s employees, and maybe even should be engaging in some judicious institutional civil disobedience by simply allowing remote work. In the latter scenario, either the library’s action would fly under the institution’s radar (in which case, the manager feels, no harm done) or it would be noticed and would bring the issue to a head and hopefully result in institutional change.

This puts the library leadership in the position of having to make a very important and potentially difficult decision regarding political capital. And in order to think about this dilemma effectively, I need to clarify what I mean by “political capital.”

Political capital is, admittedly, a bit hard to define precisely. I would characterize it as a complex of things: goodwill between people who have an organizational relationship; obligation that arises from past exchanges of resources; and expectations that shape interactions between people and organizational units. The ebb and flow of political capital within an organization is shaped significantly by dependencies that bind individuals and units together and can also create friction between them. 

I also realize that the term “political capital” doesn’t sound good. It sounds cold and calculating and capitalist and cynical. I get that.

But here’s the thing: political capital is real, it is involved in every organizational interaction, and dealing with it is not optional. If you’re in a leadership position, you have only two choices: manage political capital in a conscious, strategic, and honest way, or accept the consequences of not managing it. 

In fact, managing political capital – both internally and externally – is one of the most fundamentally important roles of a library leader. A library director, for example, needs to think about it this way: virtually every interaction the director has with campus administration either banks political capital or draws on an existing fund of political capital. Examples of actions that will tend to add to the library’s fund of political capital might include:

• Undertaking (and successfully completing) a project on behalf of university administration
• Providing a service that makes a major university donor happy
• Allowing an important campus program or service to take up residence in the library, whether temporarily or permanently
• Publicly expressing support for a university priority or initiative

Actions that tend to draw down the library’s fund of political capital might include:

• Asking for a budget increase
• Saying “no” to any request from campus administration
• Proposing a change to campus policy
• Publicly objecting to official institutional positions or contradicting institutional statements

Now, a couple of things are very important to note here.

First, asking for virtually anything results in a drawdown of political capital, even if the request is unsuccessful. Simply asking for money, or proposing a change to campus policy, costs political capital.

Second, the library leader’s job is not to avoid drawing down political capital. The library leader’s job is to make those withdrawals wisely and strategically. Just because a course of action will involve an expenditure of political capital does not mean it’s an unwise course of action.

So let’s return to our scenario with the remote work proposal.

The director is now facing pressure from below to propose a policy change to the administration above; the existing policy creates pressure from above against such a change – and the director has to decide whether to resist the pressure from below (“Sorry, I’m not going to propose this policy change to administration”) or resist the pressure from above by pushing upward against it on behalf of the library staff.

What makes the calculus complex in this case is that the library director has a “bank account” of political capital not only with the university administration, but also with the library staff. To push for an institutional policy change (whether successfully or not) would draw down the balance of the former, while banking political capital with the latter – and vice versa. 

A selfish and ineffective leader will consider these funds of political capital in primarily personal terms: “Will it make my life easier if I bank political capital with the administration, or with my staff?”. A wiser leader will think in terms of the needs of the organization she serves and the staff she manages and will marshal the library’s political capital accordingly. Depending on circumstances, these considerations may lead to different strategic approaches. For example, the director may:

• calculate that the library’s existing fund of political capital is very deep at the moment, and that raising this issue on behalf of the staff is more likely to create a net benefit for both the library and the university than declining to do so;
• look back on recent months and see that there have been difficult moments that drew down the fund of institutional political capital, and respond to the internal manager that while this may be an issue worth raising in the future, it’s not a good idea now;
• look back on recent months and see that there have been difficult moments that drew down the fund of political capital with her staff, and decide that this is a particularly good moment to rebuild morale by advocating upwards on their behalf.

Of course, the director might also determine that regardless of what could possibly be done at the institutional level, remote work is just not a good idea in the context of the library organization, and respond accordingly to the manager. This response would result in an expenditure of internal political capital – but it may also be the right thing to do.

Because again: the library leader’s job is not to avoid any expense of political capital – it’s to make sure that political capital is both banked and expended wisely and strategically. 

Next week, in Part 3 of this series, we’ll dive a bit deeper into the issue of “alignment.”

Takeaways and Action Items

• If you’re in a leadership position, you have only two choices: manage political capital in a conscious, strategic, and honest way, or accept the consequences of not managing it.
• Every action you take as a library leader either banks or draws down your funds of political capital with both your host institution and the employees of library in which you lead.
• Take a few moments and consider what political capital looks like in your particular situation. Where is your “bank account” of political capital the strongest, and where might it need to be deepened? What can you do to deepen it where necessary – and does its depth in other areas offer you strategic options that you haven’t considered?