My partner and I just finished co-teaching a leadership institute for librarians in the Western States. But I keep thinking about it.
Some people, I know, think leadership is all about power. But I always wonder: power to do what? To make or to break?
Over my 40-odd years of administrative experience — and some of them have been very odd indeed — I’ve boiled my idea of leadership down to three things.
Another formulation of leadership comes from my late friend, Peggy Sullivan. Peggy was a library luminary, an educator, a university dean, a scholar of library history, the elected president of the American Library Association (1980-81) and later the chief executive officer (1992-94). I met her when she was in her late 80s, but she was still going strong, incisive and funny. Her definition of leadership was pithy: “Figure out where you want to go, then do stuff that gets you there.”
The more I think about it, the more powerful it gets.
“Where do you want to go?” is usually some variant of “where do we want to go?” That is, direction is not just the independent judgment of the putative boss. Ideally, it’s the best thinking of an informed and thoughtful staff, facilitated and contributed to by the leader. If that staff and leader have any smarts at all, direction is grounded in user (customer/member) needs or aspirations. To reverse that flow: who do we serve, what have we learned about how best to serve them, and what are the key directions that matter?
The point: leaders should be able to say, succinctly, based on thoughtful analysis, “Here’s where we’re going.”
“Does this take us there?” is equally important. Every institution has legacy programs and activities. We get invested in them, both financially and emotionally. But do those programs and activities move us in the direction we need to go? And if not, will we have the honesty and courage to let them go? Will we have the creativity to spin out new ones? And will we hold ourselves accountable to the vision of powerful and effective service?
If leaders can’t answer those questions, and with answers that assert real agency (here defined as the ability and will to act on our own behalf), they’re not leading.
“When you’re going through hell, keep going.” – Winston Churchill.
“A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.” – Lao Tzu
Some people, I know, think leadership is all about power. But I always wonder: power to do what? To make or to break?
Over my 40-odd years of administrative experience — and some of them have been very odd indeed — I’ve boiled my idea of leadership down to three things.
- Know thyself. That is, have a relatively clear-eyed assessment of your strengths. Build on those strengths. But also learn how to recognize in other people the strengths that you do not have.
- Play well with others. Leadership begins with listening and paying attention. Then it moves into emotional intelligence — the ability to read and respond appropriately to human communication. The good news is that emotional intelligence is a skill set. It can be learned. The bad news is that a lot of people don’t bother.
- Make it better. There’s no point in leadership that makes things worse. Good leaders don’t worry about status, although they do consider reputation. The job of leadership is improvement. It’s not perfection.
Another formulation of leadership comes from my late friend, Peggy Sullivan. Peggy was a library luminary, an educator, a university dean, a scholar of library history, the elected president of the American Library Association (1980-81) and later the chief executive officer (1992-94). I met her when she was in her late 80s, but she was still going strong, incisive and funny. Her definition of leadership was pithy: “Figure out where you want to go, then do stuff that gets you there.”
The more I think about it, the more powerful it gets.
“Where do you want to go?” is usually some variant of “where do we want to go?” That is, direction is not just the independent judgment of the putative boss. Ideally, it’s the best thinking of an informed and thoughtful staff, facilitated and contributed to by the leader. If that staff and leader have any smarts at all, direction is grounded in user (customer/member) needs or aspirations. To reverse that flow: who do we serve, what have we learned about how best to serve them, and what are the key directions that matter?
The point: leaders should be able to say, succinctly, based on thoughtful analysis, “Here’s where we’re going.”
“Does this take us there?” is equally important. Every institution has legacy programs and activities. We get invested in them, both financially and emotionally. But do those programs and activities move us in the direction we need to go? And if not, will we have the honesty and courage to let them go? Will we have the creativity to spin out new ones? And will we hold ourselves accountable to the vision of powerful and effective service?
If leaders can’t answer those questions, and with answers that assert real agency (here defined as the ability and will to act on our own behalf), they’re not leading.
“When you’re going through hell, keep going.” – Winston Churchill.
“A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.” – Lao Tzu
[This column originally appeared in the May 14, 2025 edition of the Sopris Sun.]
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