James LaRue - myliblog

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....

[The First Year Director: Strategies for Success, 2 of 8] Make them look good The first dictum in managing your relationship with your boss is this: make them look good. I say "them" because for most public library directors, their boss is a governing board (i.e. hires the director, adopts the budget, sets policy, etc.). How do you know who the boss is? To quote my friend Pat Wagner, "the boss is the one who signs your paycheck." The boss isn't the only important player, but it's not a bad place to start. In some cases, a board may be advisory. That is, while its members may well advise the director on library business, those governing decisions are made by someone else (a mayor, a town council, a board of county commissioners). In other cases, the boss is someone else in the governing body's hierarchy. I once reported to the head of Cultural Affairs. There is an advantage to having a single boss: it's easier to figure out what matters to the...

Two persistent topics for public library boards and directors is the performance assessment. I have already posted about the director evaluation here . This post is about a self-assessment for public boards, based on a cooperative effort between the Arapahoe Public Library District and Douglas County Libraries some ten years ago.