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Caring for our leaders

One day I was visited by a gentlemen who worked for a non-profit in the Midwest. His organization had formed to address a recurrent problem. The pattern looked like this:
  • A fantastic new leader showed up in the community. That meant the community was able to recruit good leaders!
  • The new leader hit the ground running, quickly forming key connections, and tackling significant issues.
  • The new leader, responding well to early challenges, became the go-to person for other challenges.
  • Slowly, the new leader's plate got full. Then over-full. Then way over-full.
  • Then the leader burned out. Maybe there was a half-hearted attempt to get away for a while--a vacation, a sabbatical. But more often, he or she just imploded. There were substance abuse issues, broken relationships, or some kind of community scandal. But the root problem wasn't any of those things. The problem was that the community saved up all their problems for the new person, then kept piling them on until something broke.
Said my visitor, "we need to learn how to care for our leaders."

Arguably, leaders also need to look after themselves. They need to have strategies for self-care, and enough mindfulness to know when they're hitting their limits. But they also need both formal and informal support.

In the library world, we're seeing a generational turnover. Some state libraries report a sedate 10% turnover of directors; others see 20% or higher. Amidst that general turnover, there are outliers: Some libraries, it seems, grind through new directors every couple of years. That's a warning sign. The issue usually isn't the directors' fault.

Most library directors report to boards. So let's call out their role in this. Recruiting, orienting, and managing an executive is a primary responsibility of the board. A significant part of "managing" is retention. Too often, boards have themselves established an internal culture inimical to executive performance. To that end, library boards should:
  • Place the successful introduction and integration of the first year director into the community as a board goal. They should check in on their own progress monthly.
  • Build into the annual evaluation of the director a core question: what are you doing to keep yourself refreshed? Encourage the use of vacation time, and professional development opportunities.
  • Encourage the director to find either formal or informal mentoring. Some boards pay for leadership courses, whose key value is more than the curriculum; it's the network of colleagues. Others pay for executive coaching, a confidential professional resource to allow the director to seek clarity and/or advice outside the organization. Maybe the board president consciously adopts the role. Or a board might assign a qualified member to be the director's advocate and sounding board. On occasion, directors may form their own private advisory boards, meaning people who don't have governing authority, but do have expertise, wisdom, and the ability to share it.
  • Remember to celebrate. Particularly when competent new people show up and start making progress, take the time to mark those achievements. Reward them with gratitude, goodwill, and whenever possible, humor. For many, leadership demands a lot of time well beyond the work week. Laughter, friendliness, goes a long way to make the time less tedious.

An investment in leadership is an investment in positive and sustainable change. Library boards need to take the care of the executive as seriously as they tend library finances.

Postscript

I wrote this many months ago, and recently found it in a file purge. I never got around to posting it anywhere, I think. So I'll put it here.

When I was hired at my current job, Executive Director of the Garfield County Public LIbrary District, the board president, interim director, and HR director had put together an "Assimilation Plan." Despite the Borgian connotations, I willingly added my biological distinctiveness to the collective. Why? Because it was in fact the most thoughtful executive orientation plan I'd ever seen. It directly answered many of the issues raised in this blog. Rural libraries can move fast. But this kind of formal, intentional approach to executive orientation is a best practice, worthy of emulation and broad adoption.

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