Vision & Balance: Leading and Managing in the Academic Library

With today’s post, I’m introducing an occasional series with the theme “Two and a Half Cheers.” Let me explain, briefly, what it’s about.

Usually we use the phrase “Two cheers for…” to preface discussion of something that is commonly underappreciated or even denigrated, but that we feel deserves at least a modicum of credit – maybe not unqualified celebration, but more appreciation than it usually gets. E.M. Forster’s 1951 book Two Cheers for Democracy is a classic in this vein; more recently, a sincere if somewhat qualified apologetic by Josh Bivens for President Biden’s economic policies carried the title Two Cheers for Pragmatism.

My series of posts will take the “two cheers” concept and give it a little nudge in the direction of celebration – hence the unifying theme of “Two and a Half Cheers.” While recognizing that no orientation or philosophy or practice or area of organizational emphasis deserves religious, unqualified support, I’ll argue (briefly) that the item under consideration is actually much more beneficial than harmful, and that those who dismiss or denigrate it in principle – particularly in the context of library leadership – are making the classic error of letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.

The first entry in this series will be a consideration of efficiency – a term much maligned or at least dismissed, especially in the academic context, and one that I believe deserves much more respect. 

Fundamentally, the term “efficiency” is simply a measure of how much waste is incurred in accomplishing a task. The less waste is involved in accomplishing it, the more efficiently it has been accomplished. Efficiency is different from effectiveness, obviously; a task may be accomplished very effectively either with a substantial amount of wasted time, effort, or money (in which case it was accomplished less efficiently) or with very little wasted time, effort or money (in which case it was accomplished more efficiently).

Efficiency has gotten a bad rap over the years, especially in academia and especially in academic libraries, for a number of reasons, some of them good and some of them… less good. Among the better reasons are the fact that academic work often does not lend itself readily to the rigorous measurement of either effort or deliverables, which means that demands for greater efficiency in academic work can actually be destructive of effectiveness; the fact that the uncritical pursuit of efficiency can lead to a soulless and sterile work environment that undermines some of the characteristics of the academy that make it uniquely valuable in a consumer society; and the fact that so much of what academia produces demonstrates its full value only long after the effort has been expended, making a reliable measure of efficiency in the short- to medium-term virtually impossible. 

However, there are also areas of academia – and especially of academic library work – in which efficiency is highly desirable and very much worth pursuing, even if it isn’t completely measurable. 

For example, we should always consider efficiency when planning and managing meetings. A one-hour meeting that involves eight people represents the equivalent time commitment of one person’s full day of work. When thinking about how to use that meeting time, the leader should ask herself “How likely is it that the outcomes of this meeting would represent a good use of one person’s full workday?” In this context, efficiency may not be precisely measurable, but it can still be maximized by keeping the meeting agenda tight and well managed and by ensuring that it results in real deliverables. 

Another example is the use of systems and IT staff time. A library leader should take care to ensure that this extremely valuable resource is being kept focused on the most high-priority needs of the library and its users, not squandered with poorly managed or prioritized demands. Does your IT staff have clear guidance from library leadership on when they should say “yes” and when they can say “no” to demands from staff? Do they get clear and regular guidance on how to prioritize projects? Are there well-established principles in place to help them make decisions without having to constantly ask their line leadership? If not, the balance of effort to outcome will be poor and everyone (including the IT staff) will be frustrated.

One more example of a library context in which pursuing efficiency is essential: the use of library space. Every library leader should have a good sense of how the space in his facility is being utilized, and of the degree to which these space allocations are helping the library help the university achieve its goals. How are study spaces and student service spaces balanced with space devoted to collections? Do back-office functions take up prime space that might be better dedicated to patron use – or, conversely, are patron spaces so generous that back-office services are being hamstrung by insufficient space? Every physical area in the library represents an investment of resources, and leaders should always be trying to assess the degree to which those investments are paying off in benefit to the host institution.

So let’s pause before reflexively pooh-poohing efficiency. Yes, like any organizational principle, it’s vulnerable to abuse. But it’s an essential leadership and management  principle nonetheless.

Tuesday’s post was about managing the library agenda in a macro, high-level way, by being careful to avoid the mistake of allowing your organizational agenda to be driven by the person who happens to be making his case in your office at any given moment. 

Today we’re going to talk about avoiding a similar, but more micro and granular error: unintentionally letting the first item on your meeting agenda become the one on which the most meeting time is spent.

Now, it’s important to note that there are many different ways of managing meeting agendas, and none is perfect; all of them have pros and cons. One way is to arrange the agenda in descending order of importance, and to take as much time as needed with each topic; this ensures that the most important item will get all the discussion time required, and that the likelihood of an item being pushed to the next meeting is inversely proportional to its importance. Another strategy is to assign a specific amount of meeting time to each agenda item, using both the importance and the complexity of the issue to determine how much time will be budgeted to each item.

And another way – let’s face it, the most common one – to organize a meeting agenda is simply to keep a running list of items up until the meeting, adding items to the list as they arise, and them providing the undifferentiated list to meeting attendees with no time allocations and no indication as to which items are either most urgent or most important.  

Although I’ve acknowledged that there is no single, perfect way to administer a meeting agenda, I’m going to make two very specific recommendations here. But first, some underlying realities of meeting management:

First, we all know how difficult it is to call an end to discussion of complex or difficult issues. (Let’s call this the “Inertia Problem”: discussions in motion tend to remain in motion.) In many cases, you will never arrive at a point where there’s no longer anything useful to be said on the topic; you will only arrive at a point where you have to choose to stop talking and make a decision. If you’re leading the meeting, your difficult task is to determine where that point is and then insist that the discussion end and the decision-making happen. 

Second, the current agenda item is the in-meeting equivalent of the employee who is standing in your office, passionately advocating for a proposal. That person is not more important than the other employees who are not currently in your office (and who may or may not share his advocacy for the proposal), but he’s the one you are being forced to deal with right now, and the temptation to mollify or placate him may work against taking the needs of all other employees (or library patrons) into account. (Let’s call this the “Proximity-Importance Fallacy.”)

Third, we all just lose track of time, especially when an issue is interesting, complex, or controversial. (Let’s call this “Time Blindness.”) I can’t count the number of times I’ve been in a two-hour meeting with a five-item agenda, and have suddenly looked at the clock in the middle of a fascinating and engaging discussion and realized that we’ve spent half of our allocated meeting time on the first agenda item – and are not yet anywhere near a resolution to that item.

The solution to these three problems – Inertia, the Proximity-Importance Fallacy, and Time Blindness – is (and please now picture me adopting a B-movie Nazi accent and walking stiff-legged around the room with a swagger stick under my arm) discipline! 

OK, “discipline” is easy to say. But in the context of managing meeting agendas, what does “discipline” actually look like?

I’m going to suggest two discipline strategies that will make your meetings both more productive and more enjoyable.

First, don’t have a meeting about a topic that doesn’t need a meeting. With my leadership team, most of the items on our meeting agendas are only there because we first determined that they couldn’t be handled asynchronously by email. This doesn’t mean we don’t deal with a lot of stuff in meetings – we meet weekly and our agendas are usually quite full – but it does mean that we don’t waste precious face-to-face time talking about items that don’t really require face-to-face discussion. Sometimes we start out discussing an issue by email, and quickly realize that we really do need in-person discussion, perhaps involving people from outside the leadership team as well. Fair enough; in that case, we still save meeting time by having gotten a head start on the topic.

Second, give each agenda item a time budget and either stick with it or consciously reallocate time during the meeting. For example: suppose you need to discuss a personnel issue that is important but not complicated, and you believe that 20 minutes of a two-hour meeting will be sufficient. You then allocate other chunks of time to four or five other agenda items, all of those allocations adding up to two hours. For that personnel issue, one of three things is going to happen: either you’ll take care of it in less than 20 minutes (excellent!), or you’ll be wrapping up the discussion at around the 19^th minute (still great!), or you’ll come to minute 18 and realize that the issue is going to require more than 20 minutes of discussion (oops). In that third scenario, drawing the discussion to a premature conclusion just because you’re out of time would be a mistake. Instead, you should pause for a moment, acknowledge that the item needs more discussion time, and propose one of two approaches: either suspend discussion and defer its continuation to a later meeting, or reallocate time from another current agenda item so that discussion can continue. (This could mean spending less time on another planned topic, or maybe pushing another agenda item to a later meeting entirely.) Either of those approaches allows you to keep control of the meeting’s time management – and it has at least two very important effects: first, it maximizes the likelihood that you’ll spend the right amount of time on the right topics; second, it increases your team’s confidence that your library is handling issues in a conscious, strategic, and rational way.

Now, I realize that the paragraph above might seem a bit rigid and prescriptive. A bit… I don’t know… Nazi. But here’s the thing: if you fail to allocate meeting time consciously and strategically, you will end up allocating it passively and chaotically, and that’s never a recipe for effective leadership or for a happy and effective library organization.

Takeaways and Action Items

• Remember that meeting agendas do not manage themselves. The only way they get managed effectively is if someone takes explicit responsibility for managing them.
• Assess your own meeting-management strategies. Are they effective? Do you regularly find yourself frustrated by your inability to get everything done in a meeting that you need to? Would any of the strategies discussed above be helpful?
• How do you asses both the importance of agenda items and the amount of time that each will likely need? Is that assessment method working well for you?

Sometimes the most important lessons we can learn as leaders are the ones we already understand intellectually, but have yet to learn experientially – or to get all the way down into our hearts. 

For example: all of us know – intellectually – that the concerns of one member of our organization don’t become more important than those of others just because that person happens to be standing in our office at a given moment. And yet, as human beings, we naturally want to deal with the issues that are most prominently on our radar in any given moment – and nothing puts an agenda item more prominently on your radar than a person standing in front of you, passionately advocating for it.

In such a moment, the temptation will be to give immediate attention to that issue, if for no other reason than to mollify the person advocating for it (and, perhaps, to get that person out of your office). People understand this natural human tendency, which is why they will sometimes jockey to bring program proposals to you in person rather than through whatever the normal channel would be. This creates a potentially awkward situation for the leader: on the one hand, you don’t want to be inaccessible; you want your employees to feel comfortable bringing you their issues, concerns, and proposals. On the other hand, program and policy questions need to be decided based on clear and consistent principles, not based on who manages to catch you in the hall or get onto your meeting calendar. 

The solution to this conundrum is a great example of something that is simple but not easy. It is to listen to everyone, but never to make a commitment until the proposal has gone through whatever the normal discussion, vetting, and approval process would be for that kind of proposal. Simple! But not easy when the person in front of you is passionately engaged – and even less easy if your library hasn’t established clear, principle-based, well-documented processes for vetting proposals. So there are three principles are work here:

1. A healthy organization has clear and accessible channels through which its employees can submit ideas and concerns
2. A healthy organization operates according to principle, not personality
3. A good leader listens to everyone, but makes decisions based on principle, not personality

The first of these principles requires organizational discipline: it takes time and effort both to create and to effectively maintain good channels of communication for ideas and concerns. The second two require personal discipline and strength of character on the part of leaders: in moments of stress and pressure, leaders have to resist the temptation to take the easy way (which usually involves giving in to whoever has the loudest voice and the strongest personality) and instead take the hard way (which always involves acting according to principle). 

These are fundamental principles of managing the library’s organizational agenda. On Thursday, in our subscribers-only post, we’ll talk about managing meeting agendas.

Takeaways and Action Items

• Ask yourself the question: if I were a line employee and wanted to propose a change to program or policy in the library, is it clear how I can advance that proposal for consideration? If not, what needs to change in your organization to make that path both clear and effective?
• Who in your organization do you find it hardest to say “no” to? Why? How will you prepare for your next interaction with that person to make it more likely that, in that moment, you’ll act according to principle rather than according to personality?
• If someone asked you “What are the three most important principles that drive your library’s decision-making?”, how would you respond? Would everyone in your organization answer the same way?

We’ve all heard the aphorism that the leader who tries to make everyone in her organization happy will only succeed at making everyone unhappy. Most of us probably believe it. (I certainly do.) But what does that aphorism mean, and what leadership principles does it elucidate?

The most obvious reality behind this statement is the fact that sometimes, members of your organization are going to want mutually exclusive things. One person will want the library to stop charging late fees; another will insist that keeping late fees is essential. One department will want to expand its work area into the space of another department, which wants to keep all of its current space. Two staff employees will apply for the same faculty position. In some of these circumstances, a compromise might be possible: space can be divided between departments; late fees can be kept but reduced. However, in some cases, a compromise is not possible: if only one faculty position is open, both staff employees can’t be hired into it. 

This means that a leader’s job is sometimes a matter of brokering compromises and looking for win-win solutions, and sometimes a matter of deciding who will win and who will lose. The former requires patience, analytical thinking, an ability to help competing individuals see mutual benefit in compromise, and the creative ability to discover new options when only two options appear possible. The latter requires analytical thinking and the strength to do the right thing even when doing so will be uncomfortable and will make one of his employees angry or unhappy. 

The leader who can’t accept that win-lose solutions are sometimes the only ones available will be paralyzed when such situations arise (as they inevitably will), and the leader who insists on trying bring every conflict to a win-win solution will end up forcing poor and possibly destructive solutions.

So what’s the leadership principle that applies here? It’s simple, but not easy:

Leaders must care about the feelings of their employees. But leaders can’t let their decision-making be driven by the feelings of their employees. 

Managing this balance between caring and not being driven by is one of the most difficult challenges leaders face. In an earlier column, I discussed some ideas for dealing with resistant or recalcitrant employees when tough changes are necessary, saying that leaders must avoid the false choice between simply bulldozing them (“This is happening; sit down and shut up”) and letting staff reluctance prevent necessary change. This is that same principle, applied in a context broader than change management. 

What does the application of this principle look like in practice? Earlier I suggested one specific conversation-opener when dealing with an employee who objects to necessary change: “I realize that this change is going to be very distressing to you. The change is necessary, and we have to do it. What can I do to help make this transition less difficult for you?” 

Here are some other examples of language a leader can use to simultaneously signal genuine care for the employee and the fact that the employee is not going to get his or her way. Note that each of these examples incorporates three essential elements: clear and direct communication of the decision; a brief explanation of why the decision was made; an invitation to engage in further discussion about what might help the affected person deal with the decision:

• “We carefully evaluated both your proposal and the other one, and decided to accept the other one [decision], because we believe it will most benefit our patrons [explanation]. What impact do you expect this to have on you and your department, and what can we do to help mitigate that impact? [invitation]”
• “We received five requests to attend the same conference, and we only have enough budget to support three of them. Yours was one of the ones we denied [decision], because the conference is most specifically relevant to the work of the other three [explanation]. Is there anything else we might be able to do to support your professional development this year? [invitation]”
• “I’ve decided not to reallocate the other department’s space to your department [decision]. Although I can see why you need more space, their work is also important and it would have been significantly impacted by a space reduction [explanation]. Can we meet to discuss the implications of this decision for your area, and talk through some possible solutions that don’t involve increasing your space? [invitation]”

Good leaders often have to deal with a certain amount of emotional anguish, because being good leaders means both caring about the people you lead and also, regularly, making those people unhappy. But leaders who are willing to accept that anguish in the short run will find that it’s alleviated in the long run by the joy of leading an organization that is healthier and happier overall. 

Takeaways and Action Items

• When people want mutually exclusive things, one will have to win and the other will have to lose. Making such decisions and communicating them both effectively and empathetically are essential tasks of leadership. 
• Ask yourself: when was the last time you found yourself giving in to an employee’s unreasonable demand? What led you to do that? How would you handle that situation if you faced it again today?
• Before you meet with someone to whom you must give bad news, take a moment to write down an opening statement that incorporates the three elements discussed above: decision, explanation, and invitation. Don’t memorize the statement or (heaven knows) read it when you meet, but have the idea of it in your head.

When you’re in a position of leadership, people are going to lobby you – either for things they want for themselves, like raises or budget increases, or for initiatives they believe the library should undertake. In previous columns I’ve addressed a couple of principles for dealing with that kind of lobbying: first, the importance of recognizing both the power and the limitations of the argument from anecdote; and second, the importance of looking at data in context.

Today I’m going to suggest a third principle to help you respond wisely and effectively when you’re being lobbied: Ask for the receipts.

Here’s what I mean by that. Those who try to convince you to do something (or not to do something) will often invoke the authority of studies or of data or of experience. Obviously, there’s nothing wrong with that – in fact, when the people we lead are trying to convince us of something, we fully expect and hope that they will cite evidence in support of their lobbying. And it’s also very important that we receive such appeals to evidence critically. When someone tells us that “library employees are unhappy about X” or that “studies have shown that Y is true,” we need to ask follow-up questions.

Conversations that follow this principle might look something like the following exchanges:

Employee: “Everyone in Cataloging is really unhappy about the shift to RDA and think it’s a terrible idea. I think we’d better stick with AACR2.”

Leader: “Tell me more about the mood in Cataloging. What are you hearing, and whom are you hearing it from? 

—

Employee: “Studies have shown that workers are more productive when they’re physically present in the office. We need to cancel all remote-work arrangements.”

Leader: “That’s potentially really important information. Could you send me links to some of those studies so I can review them with my leadership team?”

—

Employee: “Every time I walk past the Social Sciences help desk, there’s a line of patrons waiting for help. I think we need to add more staffing there.” 

Leader: “Thanks for that information – I hate the thought of patrons having to wait for help. Has there been any kind of structured study of the traffic patterns at that desk that we could use to help us come up with a good strategy?”

Note that in none of these cases does the leader respond to the argument by expressing skepticism about the report. Instead, she responds immediately with appreciation and interest; then she gently asks for more complete information. Both elements of that response are important: you never want your employee to feel dismissed, and you never want to assume that the information they’re bringing you isn’t accurate. You want to draw out more information, and enlist the employee in helping you come to a wise and strategically effective solution. If, upon further investigation, the evidence doesn’t support the employee’s position, you’re letting the evidence send that message; it the evidence does support it, then you’re well situated to move forward in a wise direction. 

Takeaways and Action Items

• Referring to evidence isn’t the same thing as supplying evidence. When someone makes reference to evidence, ask to see the evidence.
• Never make an employee feel like you’re skeptical of what they’re telling you; instead, enlist the employee in the joint project of learning more about the issue.
• Review in your mind recent experiences with employees lobbying you for changes to library practice. What did they use to support their arguments? How did you receive and evaluate those arguments? Should you have dug deeper?

Every library has at least one; many libraries have two or more: the employee who reflexively objects; who seems constantly to be looking for reasons to be outraged; who thinks everything the library currently does is wrongheaded, but looks at every proposed change in policy or practice and sees only potential disaster; who doesn’t seem to listen to the actual content of what leadership says but hears a million subtexts, all of them offensive.

If you are now, or have ever been, a leader in a library, I’ll bet money that when you read the paragraph above at least one specific person you’ve worked with leapt immediately to mind.

So here’s the question: what do you do with someone like that?

And I have a suggestion: try to pull them close. Why do I say that, and what do I mean? Read on.

Yes, naysayers make your life as a leader more difficult. They will drive you crazy with what feels to you like knee-jerk opposition to every initiative your propose, no matter how obviously right and necessary it is, and they will offend you by constantly (and often publicly) questioning your motives. They will see every hidden downside and amplify every possible negative consequence, no matter how minor or unlikely it might be. But here’s the thing: first of all, they’re not always wrong – and sometimes they see realities that neither you nor your more compliant and agreeable employees see. Furthermore, they will say things to you that others in your organization are also thinking, but don’t have the courage to say. And their willingness to be offensive can, frankly, save you a lot of time – while other people are beating around the bush, trying to be gentle and politic, the reflexive naysayer is cutting the bush down, burning it, and walking straight at you through the flames with a list of objections. 

So take advantage of that, and let your library benefit from it. Where possible and appropriate, bring your naysayers into the tent rather than building a fence around the tent to keep them out. Compulsive naysayers are often driven by the feeling that their views are both important and also unwelcome or unheard, so explicitly providing a structured and respectful forum in which their concerns can get a hearing will often help to defuse their anger and may bring important information to the table.

What might that look like? Depending on your circumstances, it could mean:

• Putting them on a task force created to identify areas needing improvement
• Inviting them to a meeting of your leadership team to express specific concerns
• Privately and informally inviting input from them on controversial issues
• If they are particularly concerned about one policy or area of the library and seem to bring it up repeatedly in inappropriate contexts, asking them to work with one or two other people to formulate a proposal for resolving that issue

Now, two important caveats:

First, being a compulsive naysayer does not grant a person immunity from being held accountable for their behavior. If their naysaying behavior is unprofessional or disrespectful of others, hurts the library’s reputation, or undermines the library’s strategic priorities, then that behavior will need to be addressed regardless of the content of their objections or concerns. But in my experience, naysayers most often express themselves in ways that – while perhaps designed to make you uncomfortable – are not patently inappropriate and do deserve a respectful response. One great way to respond is with questions designed to move the conversation in a more constructive direction. Depending on the form the naysaying takes, you might respond with questions like these: 

•  “What would a better approach to this problem look like to you?”
• “You clearly really dislike this proposal. Do you think it should be discarded, or fixed? If the latter, what adjustments would you recommend?”
• “Are there steps you believe we should have taken before settling on this course of action, but did not? If so, what are they?”
• “How will you know when the library has solved this problem?”

Of course, sometimes naysayers will respond negatively to such questions precisely because they’re not interested in finding solutions; they’re interested in fomenting resistance or simply making you uncomfortable, and that’s their whole goal. But one benefit of talking to them and asking them questions, rather than trying to shut them up (especially in a public forum) is that you signal to both them and their colleagues your willingness to work on solutions. If they engage, so much the better – you have a chance to improve your organization. And if, at that point, they stop wanting to engage, then you have made clear that the disengagement was their choice.

Second important caveat: occasionally, compulsive naysaying – especially when accompanied by unusually severe or pervasively disruptive public behavior – may be a manifestation of emotional or mental illness, or some other organic disorder. It’s important that leaders not try to function as mental health professionals, but if you have someone in your library who you believe may be suffering from a disorder, counsel with your HR team sooner than later. 

Takeaways and Action Items

• Compulsive naysayers make life difficult for leaders – but that doesn’t mean they’re always wrong, and sometimes they’re right in important ways.
• Swallowing your pride and listening, even when the message is being delivered in an obnoxious way, can yield unexpected benefits for you and your library.
• Do you have a compulsive naysayer in your organization? If so, how have you responded to this person in the past, and how well did it work for you? Would a different approach likely be more helpful?

Everyone knew that the election of Donald Trump would result in some level of disruption once he was inaugurated. But I think most of us were taken by surprise by the sheer scale, depth, and immediacy of the changes he would implement. On his first day he signed 26 executive orders, almost three times as many as his predecessor did on his own first day, and the flow of orders has continued; National Public Radio’s website counts a total of 75 as of this morning. The orders have included – as recently as yesterday – a “Temporary Pause of Agency Grant, Loan, and Other Financial Assistance Programs” as well as a freeze on federal hiring in the Executive Branch, a crackdown on illegal immigration, and the termination of all federal diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. These orders (and others surely to come) have had and will continue to have significant impacts on many in the academic library world (especially those in the public sector) for some time to come, and maybe permanently.

As a leader, what should you do in this moment? I have three suggestions:

1. Gather and share information both comprehensively and critically. Get as much information about what’s happening and what’s on the horizon as you reasonably can, while bearing in mind that virtually every source from which you gather is going to be biased to some degree. Some information purveyors will have an interest in downplaying the significance or extent of disruption; others will have an interest in maximizing outrage. Evaluate your information critically before passing it along – don’t let yourself become part of a distortion machine.
2. Your staff wants reality more than reassurance. In times of disruption, it will always be deeply tempting for leaders to provide words of hope and reassurance – we see our people’s distress and anxiety, and we want to relieve it. That’s a good impulse, of course, but if it leads us to make promises we can’t keep it will only lead to worse distress in the long run. Do you have employees without legal immigration status? You can express solidarity with them and promise to do all you can to help and support them, but you can’t promise that they will be safe from arrest in your library. Are you a public college or university library with employees whose jobs are centered on DEI programming? You may or may not be able to promise that their jobs are safe; before offering any assurance in that regard, talk with your institution’s HR office to find out what the local government’s and campus’s strategies are going to be. This is a moment when you will need to draw on the political capital you have built up with your employees in the past by being open, transparent, and sincerely interested in their welfare; they will need to trust you, and whether they do so will be determined by your past behavior as a leader. Misleading them now with false or uninformed assurances will not only serve them badly; it will also come back to bite you in the future.
3. Remember that your library is more ideologically diverse than you think it is. Readers of Vision & Balance may remember that I raised this point around Election Day 2024, and it remains a critical one in this particular moment: you may think you know the politics of everyone in your library, but you don’t. There will be many in your organization who are freaked out and outraged by what is currently happening in the US government. There will also be some (probably a minority, but some) who have more mixed feelings, and some (a smaller minority) who are exhilarated. You are the leader of all of them, not only those you agree with politically. This doesn’t mean that you can’t express your own views – though being an organizational leader, and perhaps a college or university official, does put some limits on how you can appropriately do that – but it does mean that you must foster an environment of inclusion that accommodates all of your employees (not to mention your patrons). Whether you yourself are pro-Trump or anti-Trump, you have the same obligations as a leader to your employees who agree with you as you do to those who don’t.

We are at the beginning of a complex and difficult period for academia generally and for libraries in particular – especially for those at public institutions and those that rely heavily on federal government funding. Now, more than ever, librarianship needs leaders who can demonstrate wisdom, judgment, and empathy for all the people they lead and all the people their libraries serve.

One of the things about being in a position of organizational power – whether you’re an internal unit head or a library director – is that people will be constantly trying to convince you to do certain things. Those things may be micro (“I need a raise”; “We need more student employees”) or  macro (“The library needs a new remote-work policy”; “The library needs to do more to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion”), or they may be somewhere in between. But you will regularly be dealing with arguments both in favor of and against doing particular things, and the people advancing those arguments are likely to offer data in support of their contentions.

And here’s something I’ve noticed about how people present data: when they use percentages but don’t tell you raw numbers, or use raw numbers but don’t tell you percentages, you should be cautious in accepting the data at face value. Because in many contexts, either the raw numbers or the percentages – when presented alone – will be misleading.

For example, consider the following statements:

• “Circulation of books on chemistry has increased by 200% in the past year.”
• “The price of Database X went up by over $1,000 with this renewal.”
• “Interlibrary loan transactions are down 20% over the past five years.”
• “Twenty of our student employees have quit, this semester alone.”

In each of the above cases, you’ve been presented with either a percentage or a raw number; and in each of those cases, your first question should be about the data point that wasn’t offered. For example:

• “How many chemistry books circulated last year, as compared to this year?”
• “What percentage increase is represented by the new price for Database X?”
• “How many ILL transactions have we conducted in each of the past five years?”
• “What percentage of our total complement of student employees is represented by those twenty?”

Why are these follow-up questions important? Because in any of the cases above, either the raw number or the percentage by itself may give you a distorted impression of what’s going on. If Database X went from $5,000 to $6,000 in price, that $1,000 increase represents a 20% jump in cost; but if went from $30,000 to $31,000, it’s a 3% increase. A thousand dollars is a thousand dollars, of course, but it does matter whether the database provider is imposing a huge price hike or a modest one.

Or consider the chemistry books. If 30 of them circulated in 2023 and 90 of them circulated in 2024, that’s a very big percentage increase – but because the real numbers can only represent the behavior of a small number of patrons (perhaps only one or two), this is a data point that offers pretty limited information on which to make collection development decisions. On the other hand, if the 200% increase in circs was an increase from 3,000 to 9,000 circulations (which would almost certainly represent the behavior of a relatively large number of patrons), that would tell you something different.

To be clear, I’m not saying that whenever someone hands you raw numbers without percentages (or vice versa) they’re trying to mislead you. More likely, they’re just offering data that supports their argument and not thinking too hard about whether the data are fully complete. Gentle follow-up questions are the best way to get to a more complete and accurate picture – and to help teach your staff about the responsible use of data.

Takeaways and Action Items

• Are there items in your to-do list that are based on data you’ve been provided by advocates for one course of action or another? Review the data and make sure you can be confident in its completeness and reliability before proceeding with that action item.
• Ask yourself how you approach data and statistics in your own decision-making and case-making to the leaders to whom you report. Are you always providing the most accurate possible picture of reality, as opposed to the version of reality that best supports your desired course of action?
• Think about how you’ll respond when someone presents a case based on what looks like a partial and perhaps misleading data point. How will you ask for more and better data without making the other person feel criticized or attacked?

Some of the worst examples of leadership I’ve seen over the course of my career have been provided by people who seemed to feel that being the leader had to mean being the smartest person in the room at all times – and, if they weren’t the smartest person in the room, making sure that the smarter people were kept quiet so that they wouldn’t show the leader up.

Obviously, such a mindset is deeply counterproductive in leaders, and can lead to severe organizational dysfunction (not to mention very unhappy employees). 

The good news about bad examples is that if you’re willing to learn from them (rather than just succumb to frustration and resentment) they can teach you a great deal. One of the most important lessons I’ve learned from examples of toxic or ineffective leadership is the importance of letting other people be smarter than you.

It’s not just a matter of recognizing that other people in the organization have specific knowledge and skillsets that you don’t have. Even the most narcissistic and self-regarding leader will usually acknowledge that his IT director understands network administration better than he does, or that his senior cataloger has a superior understanding of name authority rules. More than that, it’s about recognizing that no matter how smart and how talented you may be, there are people in your organization who are smarter and more talented – and being willing (or, even better, eager) to give them room to move and space to shine. 

Now, please note: “giving them room to move and space to shine” does not mean failing to hold smart people accountable for their work and their at-work behavior, nor does it mean giving them a pass on adhering to policy, or making everyone else change their practices or workflows to accommodate them. Some things that it does mean include:

• Looking for chances to put them in the spotlight. Do you have someone in your library who is exceptionally good at data analysis? Instead of just asking for data that you can bring to your next meeting with the provost, bring your analyst to the meeting instead and have her share some particularly important insights about trends in the library. If a reporter calls to ask you questions about a multimillion-dollar gift that was recently announced, encourage him to talk to the exceptional development person who did all the work rather than to you. When you run into the university president at an event and she congratulates you on the library’s recent rise in national rankings, don’t just say “We have a great team”; give her two or three specific examples of work done by exceptional people in your organization that contributed directly to that change in ranking, identifying those people by name. And so forth.
• Watching for signs of particular talent among your staff, and looking for ways to let them use it. There are few things more exhilarating than being given free rein to do something you’re really good at, and leaders who provide those opportunities will command both respect and loyalty from the people they lead. More importantly, they will have provided the employee a chance for growth and development and the organization a chance to benefit more fully from that employee’s talent. Have you noticed someone in your library who is a particularly good strategic thinker? Put her in charge of a renovation project. Is there someone who seems particularly good at dealing with difficult people? Put him at the head of a task force charged with investigating ways to improve library morale.
• Expressing sincere, detailed appreciation for the unusual talents and skills shown by the people you lead. In an earlier post, I mentioned that while it’s always good for people to hear general words of encouragement from their leader (“You’re the best!” “Thanks for all you do!”), what’s even better is for them to hear words of encouragement and appreciation that demonstrate the leader’s attention to their work:
  • “You nailed that presentation yesterday. Thanks very much – you made the whole library look good.”
  • “I really appreciated your insightful comments in yesterday’s meeting about the remote work policy. I’m going to be discussing your ideas with my leadership team and will probably be getting back to you with some follow-up questions.”
  • “Your supervisor tells me that you fixed some longstanding issues with the withdrawal workflow in Acquisitions – I’m so glad you’re there and grateful for the difference you’re making.”

Wise leaders not only recognize the superior intelligence and talent of others in their organizations; they also openly acknowledge it and look for ways to encourage its full expression for the benefit of the library organization and its patrons.

Takeaways and Action Items

• The leader is not necessarily the smartest or most gifted person in the organization, nor should s/he want or expect to be. Instead, focus on what you can do as a leader to provide opportunities for those who are smarter and more gifted than you.
• Look around you in your organization: who is particularly smart and gifted, either generally or in very specific areas? Ask yourself what you can do to provide more opportunities for them to express those gifts.
• Ask yourself how you respond when you’re in a meeting that includes someone who is obviously smarter than you. Is there a part of you that gets a bit irritated? What will you do about that?

In Tuesday’s post, I shared the experience of hearing fellow managers say “My library really needs to do [X], but my staff would never accept it.” To which I tended to respond (silently, in my head) “If you’re going to take a leader’s money, you need to be willing to do a leader’s work.”

That’s easy to say, of course. But what exactly is the important work that, as leaders, we’re sometimes tempted to avoid doing when dealing with recalcitrant or resistant staff? And how do we do it?

I have a few thoughts.

First of all, as I mentioned briefly in my previous post, in these situations leaders and managers always have to manage two countervailing temptations: to either exercise dictatorial power (“I’m in charge and you’ll do as I say”) or avoid conflict (“Oh, you don’t want to do [X]? Okay, you don’t have to”). Some of us are more inclined to take the power-move approach, and some of us are more inclined to try to appease – but both approaches are bad, for multiple reasons. These include:

Both approaches are lazy. Whether you’re wielding power arbitrarily or running away from conflict, you’re taking the easy way out and avoiding doing the actual work that leadership requires.

Both approaches are ineffective. You might be able to force someone to do your will in the short run, but forcing them to do it will lead them to do as little of what you want as possible, and probably also to look for ways to undermine you later. On the other hand, simply acceding to the wishes of recalcitrant staff might save you the pain of conflict in the short run, but it will radically undermine your ability to move the library in the direction you need it to go.

Both approaches increase staff dissatisfaction. Staff who are bullied will be unhappy with their leader; staff who see their leader letting himself be bullied will also be unhappy with their leader, because they will know that their leader can’t be relied upon to do the right thing in a difficult situation. Leaders whose goal is to make everyone happy will, invariably, end up making everyone unhappy.

Both approaches are selfish and put the wants of the leader above the needs of the organization. The leader who bosses people around is indulging her ego and/or her laziness rather than handling personnel in the way that will best help them and the organization; the leader who avoids conflict at all costs is indulging his desire for social comfort rather than doing the difficult work required to help bring resistant staff along.

So much for diagnosis. What, exactly, is the “leader’s work” that I believe leaders must do when it comes to recalcitrant or resistant staff?

I believe it consists primarily in these three things:

First, being willing to hear that you’re wrong. Because guess what: recalcitrant and resistant staff are not always wrong. They always – always – understand things about your library that you do not, and you ignore their perspectives at your peril. Before dismissing them as reactionary or reflexively rebellious, listen carefully to the content of their concerns and objections. (Of course, ideally you will have done this before setting out on a course of action anyway.) Analyze what they tell you on its merits, not based on whether it will be frustrating for you to have to stop or delay your plans. This kind of listening is some of the most difficult work that leaders are called upon to do. The expectation that they do this difficult work is one of the reasons leaders get paid more than the people they lead.

Second, being willing to absorb abuse. Change sometimes makes people angry, and sometimes for good reasons. Most people are able to control their anger and handle it professionally, but in my experience, every library contains at least one or two people who can’t (or won’t) behave professionally when they’re angry. Now, to be clear: abusive behavior, even by subordinates towards leaders, is never acceptable, and those who engage in such behavior need to be held accountable. But leaders can’t let the fear of being yelled at, or simply of making people unhappy, stop them from doing the right thing.

Third, being willing to do the difficult and sometimes time-intensive work of bringing people along. It takes no time at all, and very little effort, to say “Shut up and do what I tell you.” And it takes no time at all, and very little effort, to say “Never mind, I’m not going to make you change.” What may – and often does – take a lot of time and effort is the process that follows a conversation during which you say “I realize that this change is going to be very distressing to you. The change is necessary, and we have to do it. What can I do to help make this transition less difficult for you?” Note that this approach acknowledges two important things: both the necessity of the change in question, and the impact of the change on the person who is upset. It does not put the angry staff member in charge of whether change is going to happen, but it acknowledges the reality of his or her distress and signals the leader’s desire to help minimize the pain. It empowers the staff member (“Here’s how you can help me”), but leaves the leader in charge of organizational direction. It does not eliminate the conflict – the leader and the staff member still disagree and the disagreement is obvious – but it shifts the conversation to what can be done to help make things better. And it makes obvious the leader’s sincere concern for the wellbeing of the staff member.

The interpersonal problems that arise from implementing organizational change are among the most difficult, complex, and stress-inducing problems that a leader will ever deal with. But dealing with them effectively, fairly, and consistently is among the most important duties of a leader. And a leader who isn’t willing to undertake that work really isn’t a leader at all.