So far we’ve talked about why dependability itself is a crucial element of library leadership, and about three specific manifestations of dependability: institutional alignment (being consistently and conspicuously dedicated to supporting the mission and goals of the library’s sponsoring institution), consistency (applying principles in a consistent way across situations), and reliability (being someone upon whom both the campus administration and the people you lead can count on to do the right thing).

The last element of dependability I want to address is backbone. Here I’m defining backbone as both the capacity and the willingness to resist pressure to bend when bending would not be appropriate. Backbone is related to consistency and reliability in that backbone is the element of character that makes those qualities possible. In other words, when you are consistent and reliable as a leader, you are demonstrating that you have backbone. Because dealing with difficult people and situations is a big part of leadership, showing backbone as a leader means withstanding pressure from people with strong personalities, showing willingness to to have difficult conversations, and being willing and able to advance wise but unpopular initiatives.

To illustrate the importance and the application of backbone, let’s try a thought experiment.

Imagine that you are not in a leadership position. You’re a frontline library staff or faculty employee, and you have proposed a change in policy to your library director. This change would, in your view, make important and very salutary changes to the way your department does its work and serves patrons, and you have convinced your director that this is the case and secured her promise of support for the change. However, you know that one of your colleagues (someone notorious for his overbearing manner) opposes the change — and shortly after your conversation with the director, you see that colleague going into her office.

What thoughts are going through your head in that moment?

It depends very much on what kind of library director you have. If, in your experience, she has shown a consistent pattern of staying on a wise course even when people are trying to push her off of it, and if she has shown herself reliable in following through on commitments she has made to her employees, you’re probably feeling relatively calm and confident as you watch your colleague enter her office. If, on the other hand, your experience has been that your director would rather disappoint an employee who is not present than the person who happens to be in front of her at the moment , or that she is more easily swayed by passionate advocacy than by dispassionate analysis, or that she tends to be intimidated by people with strong personalities, then you’re probably watching with much more trepidation.

Now, the example I’ve used here is deliberately complicated — because while backbone is a virtue, like most virtues it can sometimes metastasize into a vice — in this case, the vice of inflexibility. Here, once again, is one of those dimensions in which leaders are required to strike a very difficult balance: you have to be strong, but you also have to be willing to recognize when you’re going in the wrong direction and change, even if it’s embarrassing or means disappointing someone. Doing so, rather than giving in to inertia or embarrassment, also demonstrates backbone — or, as we more commonly call it in this kind of situation, character.

The library director who has made a commitment to one employee without first doing all appropriate due diligence may later find herself talking to another employee who offers important countervailing information and conclude that she needs to change course. In this situation, she would demonstrate backbone by stepping back, making a concerted effort to get whatever additional information is needed, and then making a principled decision as to whether to continue forward or change course. In this case, backbone isn’t demonstrated by simply staying the course — it’s demonstrated by acknowledging the possibility that your original decision was hasty and less than fully informed, doing the work of becoming better informed, and then making what you believe to be the best decision on the merits rather than letting your course be determined by a desire not to offend or disappoint one party or the other.

However, when a director is confident that she’s made the right decision based on good information, and she is now faced with an employee (or patron) who passionately opposes that decision and is trying to get his way through intimidation or performative outrage rather than real argumentation, then standing up to that employee is the right way to show backbone.

Of course, this is only one example of how a good leader can show backbone, but it’s a relatively common one. Those who are new to library leadership may be surprised by how often people try to bully them — including people who report to them, and who might normally be expected to show deference.

Dealing with “bullying from below” will be the topic of my next post.