September 11, 2020
https://pakobserver.net/librarians-with-leadership-skills/
Librarians with leadership skills?
Abid Hussain
MANY people have argued that even though leadership and management are
synonym terms, there are certain differences between them. Abraham Zaleznik has
articulated that managers “seek order and control and are almost compulsively
addicted to disposing of problems before they understand their potential
significance”. In other words, the manager uses well-established techniques to
accomplish the goals of an organization. Leaders on the other hand are individuals
who answer any question in silence, are patient during chaos and avoid premature
finalities on important tasks. There are more than a hundred definitions of
leadership but in a nutshell, a leader always focuses on social influence to attain
societal and organizational goals with his leadership skills. In a broader sense, the
motto of leadership is to motivate people to develop, accept and carry out a
shared vision.
Perception of leadership in libraries varies among organizations. In small libraries
there are either middle managers or group leaders, while in many organizations
they recruit librarians on the basis of library education with practical experience in
library affairs. However, to meet the competencies of organizational goals,
librarians are sometimes feeling left out and avoid extracurricular activities. In
modern day libraries, people are hiring smart workers to cope with all leadership
challenges. A short-coming is that librarians in many organizations confine
themselves only to the library team, while they should also be evident at all levels
of the organization such as trust creativity, innovation, adaptability and imagination
within an organization. Librarians are true leaders and should focus more on
problem solving, efficiency, quality improvement and effectiveness in the services
being offered. Gone are the days when librarians were confined to the four walls
of libraries. Today, librarians are engaging in the mission and vision of
organizations. Librarians in the Age of Information Technology adjust themselves
in organizational climates to achieve the shared vision of that organization. For
this, they should use their influential leadership styles. They should motivate others
to use the information for the assigned research tasks.
In the leadership phenomenon, the role of librarians is considerable. In today’s
age, people in smart organizations are hiring smart leaders with innovative skills
and ideas. A similar case can now be witnessed for librarians. Those who are not
willing to update their skills are no longer acceptable/suitable for meeting
organizational standards.
A librarian should play the role of a cooperative researcher. In this case, they
should develop and manage effective services that are helpful to researchers as
peruser’s needs. Librarians should support and collaborate users by enhancing their
services up-to the entire satisfaction of researchers. In academic libraries, the
librarians should cooperate with the students, faculty and researchers in attaining
their educational goals. In the preservation of information and library resources, the
role of librarians is to understand the organizational structure in order to use the
information in existing formats.
Librarians should also demonstrate the values and principles of librarianship while
trying to achieve the goals of the organization. Librarians should educate
themselves about distance education in an organization. In this regard, they should
develop a web-based software for outreach to clients. This strategy will make them
proactive information providers for the benefit of their organization. To carry out
their institutions’ mission, librarians should play a role as liaisons to the faculty to
fulfil their research needs. In any organization, people often hire staff to lead the
organization in the right direction. Librarians will also seek following leadership
qualities to become a great leader:
(a) Understanding your unique role: The librarians should understand their unique
role in any organization. In almost all cases, they are the only academic teachers
in a building who interact with different people on a daily basis. This unique role
will make them an invaluable resource in literacy and research planning transition.
(b) Act with confidence: Librarians are capable to attain educational goals of
organization in curriculum, student grouping, literacy, research as well as
technology integration. Hence, they should be confident and hold their head high
and should feel proud that they can offer these assets at any stage. (c) Empowered
leader: An empowered leader is one who enables followers, trusts them and
develops followers towards their full potential. Confident leaders provide the
necessary support because they acknowledge that “raising others raises them, and
bringing down others, only brings them down”. Empowering leadership in the
library means they allow the staff to freely share their thoughts and ideas to help
them attaining organizational goals. (d) Visionary Thinker: In the library
perspective, if a leader needs to solve the problems of tomorrow, they should
think differently from the way they do today. A library leader with visionary
thinking will move boldly forward and will not look back. For this, a librarian
may set a mission and vision that allows them to thrive in the future. (e)
Trustworthy: Leadership always relies on trust. If there is a trust deficit
environment in leadership, leaders will neither attract nor retain followers.
Trustworthy leadership in a library always leads an organization in the right
direction. To sum it up, Brian Tracy, an American-Canadian public motivational
speaker has rightly said that “leadership is the ability to get extraordinary
achievement from ordinary people.”
The writer is working as Library Officer in Institute of Strategic Studies, a thinkthink based in Islamabad.