Reflection

The most important things I learned from the course were from People Skills - learning to listen reflectively and how to employ the assertion process.  I also found the article by Cavicchia "Shame in the Coaching Relationship: Reflections on Organisational Vulnerability" to be extremely valuable.  The Leadership book helped me understand the roles and qualities of a leader and the importance of the give and take nature between a leader and his/her group members.  Other points that stick with me are that to be an effective leader you must be a visionary, truly connect with your members on a personl level/meet their needs, and use your networking skills to further your cause. These are things that I maybe knew but hadn't realized their impact on my ability to be a great leader instead of just a good one.

 

If I had to choose a theory that I think defines my approach to leadership, it would be the Situational Approach.  I feel like I tailor my support and directive behaviors to the group members' development level.  I believe a lot of this is due to my experience as a teacher. 

I believe I am already an effective leader at the building level- not that there isn't room for improvement.  At the end of the school year, I sent a document to my principal outlining what I had accomplished my first year as an LMS and what my goals were for the immediate future according to my library improvement plan.  My 2011-2012 goals include:

• Library Facebook (or other social networking) page
• School-wide end-of-year summer reading promotion & program
• Book Swaps – students bring in gently-used books they’re finished with & choose a different one to take home (twice a year- before Christmas Break and summer?)
• A seating area (couch, easy chairs, coffee table, rug)
• More involvement in dept. and/or staff meetings to present demos & ways to incorporate free 2.0 technologies
• Quarterly newsletter
• ebook & ereader research

2012-2013 (after graduation) goals:

• Reshelf fiction by genre
• Revamp library webpage
• More collaboration with the Crawfordsville District Public Library
• Annual Poetry Slams
• Leadership at the state level: presentations at ILF, involvement in Young Hoosier nominee selection, other

Although I don't have them stated as library goals, other areas that I have promoted and will continue promote are content area reading and inquiry (vs the standard research paper).  These are items that I've been laying the groundwork for and would like to see addressed in the school improvement plan. 

I also have been promoting the use of 2.O technologies.  I had shown a L. Arts teacher a Glogster poster that I'd created for a YHB.  She then wanted students to use Glogster for an assignment, but since the free version has access to adult content, our admin wouldn't allow it.  I made my pitch for Glogster and other sites that have a social networking aspect and how that shouldn't be the limiting factor because we would also teach students how to use the technolgy responsibly.  I also pointed out that students were already using Glogster and other similar technolgies outside of school, that we needed to get relevent, and that dozens upon dozens of other schools- elem. through HS- had links to it on their webpages (provided website addresses) and were, therfore, using it. As a result, we are forming a committee to further discuss how to approach this aspect of 2.0 technologies as well as other filtering issues.

What I'm anxious to do is take my leadership skills beyond the building level, to the state/national level.  That is my personal goal, and I believe that once I'm finished with school, I will have the time to devote to becoming a noted professonal in the field. 

 

How do I see leadership issues playing out around me?

I did not have time to post much last week between interning, reading/posting to the forum, homework assignment, and family obligations (nursing home to cut my step-father's hair; shopping/running errands for my invalid mother, and father-in-law visit.) Hope to make up for it this week.

For the small staff and budget it has, the WLPL accomplishes quite a bit.  The director, Nick,  has a very middle-of-the-road management style,  He doesn't like confrontations.  There were times when I thought he should be assertive about what I considered important things not getting done, and he seemed to just brush them aside.  One example that I mentioned earlier in my blog was about  the lack of timely promotion of events.  Maybe just the fact that someone brought it up at the staff meeting was be enough to ensure it didn't happen again.  No fingers were directly pointed but I knew who was being alluded to, so maybe that's all it takes. Or maybe Nick spoke with the person in private; I don't know.  (avoiding the Cavicchia shame factor?) I might have used some of the indirect questioning mention in the article:  “Might it be possible that. . .?”, “Have you thought of . . .?”

At the monthly staff meeting, one of the employees read the paper during the bulk of the 3 hours.  From a couple of comments I heard later, I got the feeling that this was a common occurrence.  Actually, I wasn't surprised by this person's behavior because I rarely see her doing much of anything when she's "working" at the upstairs reference desk, and I know that she has processing/cataloging responsibilities that she's to be working on.  I also have never seen her speak to a patron; she's only spoken to me when I've initiated the conversation, and then her response has been minimal.  I think she is a definte weak link in the staff, and if I was in charge, I would let her go.  I also think that Scott has too much on his plate; he does all the scheduling of events and rooms, promotion, and securing speakers, etc. plus he works the Information desk (main floor) - which is always crazy busy-  including answering the phones.  If they would replace the weak link with a someone who is more outgoing, that person could work the Information desk downstairs/answer the phones and Scott could work at the reference desk upstairs- which is a much calmer place- and get a whole lot more accomplished. (Or put weak link in the tech processing room and hire someone part-time for the Information desk or use some volunteers??)

There was an agenda for the monthly staff meeting but we didn't get through everything.  When Nick was starting to wrap things up, Ruth, who is in charge of patron services, said that she needed to bring up a couple of circulation issues.  Apparently, the departments are always listed in the same order on the agenda, so the ones at the bottom of the list often are cut short or not given time at all AND they are not put at the top of the list for the next meeting.   I suggested assigning a specific time limit per topic and using a time keeper to ensure everything got discussed and also rotating the order that the depts. are listed on the agenda.

The department heads are definitely more vocal than Nick.   One day there was a conflict over the scheduling of one of the community rooms.  A room had gotten double booked for the second time. The Teen Writing Group was supposed to be meeeting there every other Wednesday; it had been on the calendar since May.  My supervisor, Nancy, made it clear that the other group would have to move because the Teen Group had been scheduled first, plus they had moved the last time. 

Pam is in charge if the children's department and Linda works under her and does children's programming.  WHen I brought up the organizational issue of books in that dept. - too many categories and not patron friendly or shelver friendly - she said that she knew some changes needed to be made but that Linda wasn't always on board.  There had been times when Pam made decisions in which she considered Linda's input but didn't use her reccommendation for whatever reason, and Linda had taken it personally - at one time going to Nick and trying to make Pam out as the "bad guy."  Linda is very good with the patrons and at programming, and Pam is concerned about possibly losing her over some future decision that Linda might not agree with.   We talked about Pam taking Linda aside and basically employing the assertion process.  Maybe I should loan her my book!

One of the general skills that I had listed to work on is time management.  I already keep a "To Do" list and prioritize it, but when you are the lone LMS and responsible for everything, it is easy to get sidetracked.  Anyway, I had the opportunity to observe two different approaches to the same project.  I had typed up a list of Feed read-alikes and was discussing with Nancy formatting options: a table vs columns, etc.  Her suggestion was to just leave it the list as it was and to literally "cut and paste" it to another sheet of paper and photocopy.  At first I was baffled as to why she would want me to do it that way, but then I realized it was a huge time saver.  After all, it's a one-time use list (One Great Read).   I got to see just how much time it would've saved when I got downstairs to photocopy it.  Bekke was at the desk; she took it from me and spent an hour creating columns and playing with margins before we got it printed.  Time mgmt. lesson learned.