The PLA Blog | Official Blog of the Public Library Association
I’m a Leader, I’m a Follower: Middle Management Theory and Practice
Beverly Lynch (UCLA) moderated this panel discussion of managing up and down. The panelists discussed shared leadership and the fact that top level managers need leaders at all levels of their organizations. It is possible (and desirable) to manage up, down and across the organization. This may mean that you facilitate, coax, and/or cajole. As [...]
Leadership Development in Transition: Steering the Ship from Helm and Deck
This program offered specific, realistic suggestions about how people at all levels of the organization can be leaders in an appropriate, constructive way. Jill Canono, Leadership Consultant at State Library and Archives of Florida, began by stating that shared leadership means shared vision, values, responsibilities, and accountability. It also means asking a lot of questions [...]
Leading from Any Position: Opportunites to Contribute to Your Library’s Success
(Wow! Somehow actually attending the conference, and shuttling from hotel to meetings to meals, to social events, left little time for blogging about the conference! With any luck, I will get caught up today.) This session was also part of the Empowerment Conference. (Sidebar: The Empowerment Conference sessions I went to were great—small groups, interactive [...]
Leadership = Vision + Communication + Empowerment
Saturday, July 11, 2009, 9:15 a.m. (Part of the Empowerment Conference) Wow! I successfully caught a shuttle bus! I rode to the McCormick Center! I got my badge holder! (they were out of them at the “satellite” reservation location. I found the 9:15 session I wanted to attend, early, and there was plenty of room [...]
Emerging Leaders at ALA
I’m Karen Keys, a young adult librarian at Queens Library in New York. I’m going to be posting about my experiences at Midwinter over the next few days. On my jam-packed, snackless, luggage-charging flight, the woman to my left inquired about my end destination. I told her I was headed to Denver for a library [...]
Day 1: OCLC Leadership Symposium
OCLC Symposium–New Leadership for New ChallengesTo prepare the crowd for discussing change, an OCLC representative issued clickers at the door. These small electronic devices allowed symposium attendees to vote on the fly for answers to survey questions displayed on the large board. The OCLC representative joked that the crowd went for the “safe” answers of [...]
