Linking Our Libraries

Welcome back to Linking Our Libraries! This week we are going to talk about the leadership competency that sounds like Adulting: Accountability.

Check out our full shownotes page here.

Who is joining us this week? Rhonda Huisman, doctoral candidate and Dean of the University Library at St Cloud State University!

We hear people talking about “adulting" online and in person. When you think about it, this means being accountable. And that’s kind of terrifying. Being accountable means taking responsibility for results - positive and negative. It’s great to take responsibility for the good things that happen in your library – everyone can join in celebrating together! It is much less fun to be accountable when your program is a disaster, people are complaining about your books, the computers explode, and the ceiling falls in with water damage.

Leadership means standing up, being accountable, and then helping everyone else to get back on track. Things will not always go as planned. It’s okay. Leaders will accept responsibility, and start working on strategies to move forward.

You can easily think of any number of leaders you have seen at work or in the news, who refuse to acknowledge they make mistakes or are involved in any workplace problems. These people are not real leaders; and everyone can see it. No one wants to work with someone who constantly tries to shift blame and hog credit.

Check out our full shownotes page here!

Welcome back to Linking Our Libraries! This week we are going to talk about managing resources. If your people don’t have the things they need to get their jobs done, your leadership skills could use some sharpening!

It seems pretty obvious when you think about: you and your organization need money and stuff to accomplish your mission. But it can be really easy to assume this is someone else’s job, or to assume that things just appear in front of you – maybe by magic!

The reality is simpler, and maybe less romantic: as a leader it is your job to get things done, and that means you need to be sure everyone has what they need. You need to find the money and the facilities and any supplies to make everything happen.

Enthusiasm can be easily overlooked as a significant leadership competency. As long as you have a mission, a strategic plan, and a staff – do you need anything else? Well, yes. Yes, you do. Any leader can immediately tell you the difference between a staff or a group that is only reluctantly going along with you to accomplish goals, and one that is excited to make things happen.

Leaders are not the only cause of a good workplace, but a leader with enthusiasm for the library, for the mission, for the staff, and for the patrons, can make a positive difference in it all.

 What do we mean by enthusiasm? It does not have to be overly syrupy, saccharine-sweet cheerleading. That can get old, fast. Instead we mean optimism, positive emotional connection to whatever you are working on in your library.

Check out our full shownotes page here!

Leadership means being involved. It means working with other people. And it means getting in there and figuring out the best ways to serve your community and to keep your organization moving forward. Political understanding will let you do these things.

Click here to check out our shownotes page, with all of our information!

Welcome back to Linking Our Libraries! This week we are going to talk about Flexibility as one of the most important skills leaders need to be successful in their workplaces.

Check out our full shownotes page here, for all the info and links to the books we discuss.

Joining us is Bethany Kauffman, Media Specialist and Book Club Advisor from Rogers High School.

This is another one of those leadership competencies that may not seem important at first glance. But it is an important tool people can use to meet the needs of the communities they are serving. Everything we discuss here goes back to getting the job done, and flexibility is one of the tools you need for that!

What do we mean by flexibility? For us it means the ability to change course when necessary to achieve your goals, and changing plans to be successful.

This week we are going to talk about building and having credibility as one of the most important skills leaders need to be successful in their workplaces.

This is another one of the key competencies leaders need to be successful. Take a moment now and think about leaders, managers, and directors you know who lack credibility. They lie, the cheat, the shade the truth. You never know that what they are saying to you in the moment is what they will say tomorrow – or an hour from now. You just know that this is someone you cannot rely on to lead your work successfully.

So, what is credibility? For us, it means building trust in others; doing what you say you will do; being consistent in speech and actions. It’s easy to define, and really easy to lose.

Join Angie, Lydia, and Mary as we talk about credibility ideas!

Check out our full show notes page here!

Joining us this week is Valerie Horton, director of Minitex!

Check out our full show notes page here!

Vision can mean different things to different people. But nearly every study of leadership skills and competencies agree that this is one of the most important leaders can develop. For our purposes, vision means looking at the future and see where the library can go; articulating directions to others.

Of course, if we all had crystal balls and perfect views of the future, this would be so easy! “Let’s do this! Let’s try that! Oops! Money will be short next year; let’s start on some grants now!”

Sadly, few of us will have those skills. We have never yet met a leader who always knew what was going to happen in the future, and could also make perfect predictions. (Check out our episode on planning for other ideas!)

But vision is bigger than that. Vision means that you look at the present, you understand the past, and you think about where you want to go in the future. It is a deceptively complex skill, because you cannot ever know you are doing exactly the right thing –but if you do not have vision, you and your library go nowhere.

It's time for the Minnesota Libraries Association Annual Conference! So we are posting this reprise to ensure everyone has some helpful tips on attending and presenting at conferences.

Some shameless self-promotion here! We will be presenting at this conference on Thurs Oct 11 at 8:00am: The Basics of Community Engagement: Nailing the Fundamentals so Magic Can Happen! 

On Friday Oct 12 at 10:30 we will be giving this presentation: Leadership is On The Air! Training Through Podcasting!

Welcome back to Linking Our Libraries! This week we are going to talk about Creativity in the workplace.

 Check out our full show notes page here.

We are the Central Minnesota Libraries Exchange, and we are here to chat with you this season about building your leadership skills. We provide support and training for all types of libraries, and our work can be used by anyone who wants to build skills, and to become a better leader in your own organization.

Creativity in the workplace is such a great skill to develop! In any organization, the way work was done five years ago, a year ago, or potentially even yesterday, is just not good enough anymore. Society changes pretty quickly, and we need to not only keep up but to be out front providing leadership. The horrifying phrase “…but we’ve always done it that way…” probably means things need to change. 

But you may be slightly panicking here. Maybe you don’t know how to sing, dance, draw, or paint – so you think you are not creative. Don’t worry! Creativity at work does not require any of these skills – though if you do have them, feel free to incorporate them into you work.

Instead we define creativity in the workplace as seeing different ways to accomplish goals, and bringing forward new ideas. Anyone can do this!

Welcome back to Linking Our Libraries! This week we are going to talk about Communication as a tool that leaders use to get things done.

Being an effective communicator is one of the very best ways to demonstrate your leadership strength. What do we mean by communication? This week we mean speaking, writing, listening; understanding your message and conveying it to others.

We have talked about good communication skills in a prior episode, so check out that episode together with this one. In that episode, we talk about the process of communication. In this one, we are going to focus in on some specifics of different communication strategies to help you build up your skills.

Check out our show notes page to get all the information we discuss today, plus links to the books we discuss here.