How Should We Prepare Librarians to Lead?

A few years ago, we hired a new librarian. The individual had interviewed well. They were outgoing and enthusiastic, displaying a professional pride that we found uplifting, especially as we were emerging from the pandemic. They were soon promoted into a leadership role.

Several months later, the same young professional, now not so enthusiastic, was sitting in Human Resources, dealing with yet another employee complaint about their inability to effectively manage and resolve conflicts with and among their staff members. In this case, the end result arrived quickly: job dissatisfaction, a quick burnout, and a voluntary exit from the organization.

Clearly, we had failed to prepare and retain this employee.

Retention is a key concern for chief talent officers and executives in public library systems. Retention issues are driven, among other factors, by staff dissatisfaction and burnout, especially among our newer professionals. For any business, staff burnout and turnover lead to financial costs through increased sick call-offs, increased overtime, negative impact on staff engagement, and the need to recruit, hire, and train new employees, all of which impact our ability to provide our needed public service.

But what drives job dissatisfaction among public library professionals?

From the front lines of public library services, we see much of the job dissatisfaction in our profession developing early in people’s careers. New librarians enter the public library workforce primarily with the body of knowledge imparted to them from their library or information science degree programs. But they are often charged with tasks for which they are insufficiently prepared, including supervising staff and dealing with performance and conduct issues as well as customer service.

Over time, if these competency gaps go unaddressed, librarians may naturally grow frustrated in their roles.

Many public library organizations—including the Las Vegas–Clark County Library District (the District), where Jeff serves as director of Human Resources and Kelvin as executive director—have started to address these gaps via internal leadership development programs. But as a body of professionals, we should acknowledge and address these gaps before our new graduates enter the workforce.

Where the Competency Gap Comes From

Library and information science programs have traditionally covered topics such as archives and records management, information policy, information literacy, and collection development. More recent additions to the curriculum have focused on the impact and utilization of new technology in librarianship, including artificial intelligence, digital information and analytics, and electronic information storage and retrieval. These technical competencies are central to our professional mission. But for the most part, library school programs lack formal training in staff performance management, customer service and marketing, service planning, budgeting, and other vital leadership competencies.

This lack of training means that unless new professionals served in leadership roles in other industries, they are routinely thrust into library leadership roles without formal administrative management training or sufficient exposure to skills like conflict resolution and effective communication. For example, librarians are routinely assigned to manage staff—such as pages or library assistants—as part of their job duties, requiring that they address and coach performance issues and interpersonal conflicts. Within a short period, any individual deficiency in basic leadership competencies turns daily tasks, like coaching staff or applying administrative policies and procedures, into a source of anxiety and stress, not only for the leader, but also for the staff members they supervise.

We recently asked a group of our managers, “What skills or competencies not traditionally taught in MLS/MLIS programs would you like to see added to the curriculum?” The response from one of our newer leaders clearly articulated the issue: “MLIS programs focus on understanding processes and procedures related to finding and managing information, but they often overlook the people aspect of working in libraries. Conflict resolution and management are essential to successfully interacting with coworkers and dealing with frustrated customers. I have seen staff avoid addressing issues with others due to fear of conflict, allowing problems to escalate when they could have been resolved earlier.”

Such insights highlight the need for public libraries to take a comprehensive approach to developing leadership competencies.

Addressing the Competency Gap at the Library District

Public libraries seem to be waking up to the need to address post-graduation competency gaps through internal leadership development programs similar to those that have existed for decades in the private sector. At the District, our leadership development program has adopted a bottom-up approach.

First, our New Leader Onboarding program addresses administrative and basic managerial needs, establishing a solid foundation. The program, an internally-resourced initiative implemented in the fiscal year 2022–2023, is mandatory for all team members in leadership roles. It currently consists of nine modules, each focusing on one of the District’s administrative divisions: Financial Services, Information Technology, Library Operations, Collections and Development, General Services, Human Resources, Branding and Marketing, Community Engagement, and Business Strategy and Planning.

Each module is led by a subject matter expert and lasts between one and three hours. Instructors cover administrative policies and procedures related to their division. For instance, the purchasing process can be cumbersome in the public sector. During the General Services portion of the program, the request-for-proposal (RFP) process is discussed along with key policy considerations, such as avoiding conflicts of interest. The Human Resources module addresses high-value but low-frequency responsibilities, like the process for reporting employee harassment. The curriculum is designed to help new district leaders navigate the library’s administrative culture and become familiar with key administrative processes and internal stakeholders. New leaders are expected to complete the modules within their first 18 months of employment, with one module presented each month.

In 2024, we implemented our LEAD program. LEAD, which stands for Learn, Engage, Accelerate, and Develop, begins to address key leadership competencies, such as conflict resolution and effective communication—two areas where new leaders often feel uncomfortable. The program is structured around four instructor-led in-person modules, each lasting about 2.5 hours. In addition to completing these modules, all participants create individual leadership plans and schedule regular check-in meetings with supervisors for accountability and progress training. In addition, participants are provided with personalized development plans to support targeted growth in their leadership capabilities.

After leaders complete the LEAD program, we continue to develop their skills by identifying additional education programs, leadership competency gaps, and specialty skill sets to offer on an ad hoc or application basis. This training is typically externally resourced; preliminary partners have been identified and include the University of Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV), the College of Southern Nevada, the American Library Association, and the Public Library Association. We’ve already identified the need for additional training in areas including project management, change management, process improvement (LEAN/Six Sigma training), and employee/labor relations.

Other Industry Re­­sponses

Professional organizations have also taken steps to address leadership competency gaps. For example, the American Library Association (ALA) has offered the ALA Leadership Institute, a four-day immersive leadership development program for future library leaders currently on hiatus. In addition, the California Library Association (CLA), San José State University, and Simmons University recently collaborated on the design, development, and delivery of the iLead Project, which seeks to build a pipeline of library leaders through 29 training modules, 14 aligned with ALA leadership core competencies and 15 with competencies identified by the project. These include project management, marketing and advocacy, and team building.

Toward A More Permanent Solution

These initiatives represent a step in the right direction; but more can be done at the LIS graduate program level to prepare future public library practitioners with the leadership competencies they will need when they hit ground in a public library. Given recent federal funding cuts, public librarians will be asked to do even more with fewer resources in the future, which most likely will involve additional supervisory responsibilities as well as non-traditional duties, such as distributing prepackaged meals to school children.

Indeed, much of the public librarian’s role has shifted from an archivist and reference resource to a people manager, educator, and social worker. While library administrators can play catch-up from within our respective organizations through internal leadership development initiatives, the logical departure point for such training is as part of our library and information science school curricula.

As a temporary solution, LIS programs could be well-served by requiring their students to complete a set number of credit hours focusing on managerial and human resources-related curricula taught outside the LIS department, for example, under business or public administration graduate programs. As more LIS programs realize the value of such training, they may develop their own program tracks, focused on administrative and managerial roles in public library systems.

Overall, combining graduate-level LIS administrative and managerial-focused curricula and internally driven public library leadership development programs may help relieve some of the job dissatisfaction and burnout that many of our professionals suffer in our public libraries. Addressing this issue could help us retain our valued public librarians.