PLA Leadership Development with Ron Heifetz

This event took place on Saturday, January 15, 2005 (sorry for late post – too many Midwinter meetings!)

Ron Heifetz was invited by PLA President Clara Bohrer to discuss leadership with public librarian leaders attending Midwinter. Heifetz is founding director of the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and principal in Cambridge Leadership Associates- www.cambridge-leadership.com. He began his talk by discussing the doctor-patient relationship (Heifetz is a physician too!). Doctors are trained to give technically accurate advice. An overweight smoker who has a heart attack will be told to quit smoking and go on a diet. Six months later, many patients remain overweight smokers. Why? The medical advice was technically correct but it does not consider the required adaptations that the patient must make to be healthy. It is not enough to be right! Leadership (the physician’s) must be empathetic, must listen and must understand that adaptive change will be resisted.

Heifetz recognizes that leadership is risky and hard business. He reminded the audience that people don’t like to deal with problems and that if they can ignore them or find a scapegoat, they probably will. He said one of the challenges of being a leader is to not take criticism personally. Criticism can be a way to avoid confronting the real problem. When a leader is criticized, those criticizing don’t know you, they are criticizing a role you (the leader) play. It’s important not to take it personally, you need to get past defensiveness so you can listen with a clear mind. He implored librarians to learn from mistakes and not to hide failure!

In an article in Fast Company, he reminds readers that Bill Gates originally did not think that the Internet would be a big deal. He encouraged librarians at the conference to share their successes AND their failures. Why didn’t it work? Was it a good idea that could still be saved? There is as much or more to learn from our failures as from our successes. He used classical music and the symphony to illustrate his point that leadership is difficult and requires the leader to confront problems head-on. American symphonies are struggling. Their traditional audiences are aging and younger people are not replacing them. Many symphonies can continue at present, while their audience is still in the 50-60 age group, financially secure and able to contribute. But, if the crisis is not handled now, in the next 20 years, that same audience will be gone. Libraries might consider some parallels to the symphony. (Amazingly, in addition to his medical training and his management pedigree, Heifetz is also a cellist, having studied with Russian virtuoso, Gregor Piatigorsky.) Heifetz’ talk was down-to-earth, humorous and very thought-provoking.

I could have listened and asked questions for a few more hours and so could many in the audience. His most recent book, “Leadership on the Line: Staying Alive through the Dangers of Leading,” written with Marty Linsky, was available to afterward and he graciously stayed to autograph dozens of books.

Barb Macikas, PLA Deputy Executive Director

Ron Heifetz autographs copies of his book and chats with attendees on Saturday evening.