Suggestion from Self

Idea for Virtual Leadership Workshop
Difference between
Change
Progress
Growth

in reference to: NYM--not your mother's--LIBRARY: PLA 2010 Leadership Pre-Conference (view on Google Sidewiki)

PLA 2010 Leadership Pre-Conference

Much thought given to why this didn't work for me.
Comments from Leadership Task Force members were that perhaps it seemed uninformative because it wasn't new to me, but that other attendees may not already be aware of simple concept of know yourself, know your community and get a seat "at the table."

I don't buy it. I wish it were possible to survey the participants to find out if this was new information. It seemed to me that the presenter must think that librarians are living under a rock if this is to be perceived as professional level insight.

I had hoped to be able to bring something back to the library leaders in my system libraries, but the learning experience was limited to the networking done at the break out tables with peers. When we came back to the larger group to share our take on the case studies, for the most part we were all on the same page. The case study was lame, in that it wasn't even a library case study. I really had the feeling that the presenter didn't care if we got something from the workshop or not. Had any work gone into the preparation? (Was obviously canned to me.) I had the sense that he thought he was doing us a favor by showing up. Maybe he was doing it for free. That would explain a lot.

One positive note is yet to be played out. Our closing exercise was to discuss with those at our table what we planned to take away with us to apply at home. My hope is that we will have an opportunity to do some social networking with each other so that we might support one another in making sense of how to lead after the pre-conference ship has sailed.

Check it out...training resources for library staff

http://alalearning.org/join

PLA Preconference (background reading: Wheatley)

"When an individual changes, its neighbors take notice and decide how they will respond. Over time, individuals become so intermeshed in this process of co-evolving that it becomes impossible to distinguish the boundary between self and other, or self and environment. There is a continual exchange of information and energy between all neighbors, and a continuous process of change and adaptation everywhere in the system. And another paradox, it is these individual changes that contribute to the overall health and stability of the entire system."

I like this quote, and I totally agree with her POV (what I've seen or read so far). However, none of it sounds new. Is it just me or has "new age" finally been adopted into business management strategy as as a new paradigm?

Leading at PLA

NOT ENOUGH GENERALS WERE KILLED
PETER F. DRUCKER, FOREWORD IN
THE DRUCKER FOUNDATION (1996), THE LEADER OF THE FUTURE

I have been working with organizations of all kinds for fifty years or more - as a teacher and administrator in the university, as a consultant to corporations, as a board member, as a volunteer. Over the years, I have discussed with scores - perhaps even hundreds - of leaders their roles, their goals, and their performance. I have worked with manufacturing giants and tiny firms, with organizations that span the world and others that work with severely handicapped children in one small town. I have worked with some exceedingly bright executives and a few
dummies, with people who talk a good deal about leadership and others who apparently never even think of themselves as leaders and who are rarely, if ever, talk about leadership.

The lessons are unambiguous. The first is that there may be "born leaders", but there surely are
far too few to depend on them. Leadership must be learned and can be learned - and this, of
course, is what this book was written for and should be used for. But the second major lesson is
that "leadership personality", "leadership style", and "leadership traits" do not exist. Among the
most effective leaders I have encountered and worked with in a half a century, some locked
themselves into their office and others were ultragregarious. Some (though not many) were "nice guys"" and others were stern disciplinarians. Some were quick and impulsive; others studied and studied again and then took forever to come to a decision. Some were warm and instantly "simpatico"; others remained aloof even after years of working closely with others, not only with outsiders like me but with the people within their own organization. Some immediately spoke of their family; others never mentioned anything apart from the task in hand.

Some leaders were excrutiangly vain - and it did not affect their performance (as his spectacular
vanity did not affect General Douglas MacArthur's performance until the very end of his career).
Some were self-effacing to a fault - and again it did not affect their performance as leaders (as it
did not affect the performance of General Marshall or Harry Truman). Some were as austere in
their private lives as a hermit in the desert; others were ostentatious and pleasure-loving and
whooped it up at every opportunity. Some were good listeners, but among the most effective
leaders I have worked with were also a few loners who listened only to their own inner voice.

The one and only personality trait the effective ones I have encountered did have in common was something they did not have: they had little or no "charisma" and little use either for the term or for what it signifies. All the effective leaders I have encountered - both those I worked with and those I merely watched - knew four simple things:
· The only definition of a leader is someone who has followers. Some people are thinkers.
Some are prophets. Both roles are important and badly needed. But without followers,
there can be no leaders.
· An effective leaders is not someone who is loved or admired. He or she is someone whose
followers do the right things. Popularity is not leadership. Results are.
· Leaders are highly visible. They therefore set examples.
· Leadership is not rank, privileges, titles, or money. It is responsibility.
Regardless of their almost limitless diversity with respect to personality, style, abilities, and
interests, the effective leaders I have met, worked with, and observed also behaved much the
same way:
· They did not start out with the question, "What do I want?" They started out asking, "What
needs to be done?"
· Then they asked, "What can and should I do to make a difference?" This has to be
something that both needs to be done and fits the leader's strengths and the way she or
he is most effective.
· They consistently asked, "What are the organization's mission and goals? What constitutes
performance and results in this organization?"
· They were extremely tolerant of diversity in people and did not look for carbon copies of
themselves. It rarely even occurred to them to ask, "Do I like or dislike this person?" But
they were totally - fiendishly - intolerant when it came to a person's performance,
standards, and values.
· The were not afraid of strength in their associates. They gloried in it. Whether they had
heard it or not, their motto was what Andred Carnegie wanted to have put on his
tombstone: "Here lies a man who attracted better people into his service than he was
himself."
· One way or another, they submitted themselves to the "mirror test" - that is, they made
sure that the person they saw in the mirror in the morning was the kind of person they
wanted to be, respect, and believe in. This way they fortified themselves against the
leader's greatest temptations - to do things that are popular rather than right and to do
petty, mean, sleazy things.

Finally, these effective leaders were not preachers; they were doers. In the mid 1920s, when I was in my final high school years, a whole spate of books on World War I and its campaigns suddenly appeared in English, French, and German. For our term project, our excellent history teacher - himself a badly wounded veteran - told each of us to pick several of these books, read them carefully, and write a major essay on our selections. When we then discussed these essays in class, one of my fellow students said, "Every one of these books says that the Great War was a war of total military incompetence. Why was it?" Our teacher did not hesitate a second but shot right back, "Because not enough generals were killed; they stayed way behind the lines and let others do the fighting and dying."

Effective leaders delegate a good many things; they have to or they drown in trivia. But they do
not delegate the one thing that only they can do with excellence, the one thing that will make a
difference, the one thing that will set standards, the one thing they want to be remembered for.
They do it.
It does not matter what kind of organization you work in; you will find opportunities to learn about leadership from all organizations - public, private, and nonprofit. Many people do not realize it, but the largest number of leadership jobs in the United States is in the nonprofit, social sector. Nearly one million nonprofit organizations are active in this country today, and they provide excellent opportunities for learning about leadership. The nonprofit sector is and has been the true growth sector in America's society and economy. It will become increasingly important during the coming years as more and more of the tasks that government was expected to do during the last thirty or forty years will have to be taken over by community organizations, that is, by nonprofit organizations.

The Leader of the Future (1996) is a book for leaders in all sectors: business, nonprofit, and
government. It is written by people who themselves are leaders with proven performance records. It can - and should - be read as the definitive text on the subject. It informs and stimulates. The first section of this book looks at the future of organizations and examines the role of leaders in the emerging society of organizations. The second part of the book gives vivid accounts of today's and tomorrow's leaders in action. It then turns to look at leadership development strategies, and it concludes with some powerful personal statements from effective leaders.

This is a book about the future. But I hope it will also be read as a call to action. I hope that it will
first challenge every reader to ask, "What in my organization could I do that would truly make a
difference? How can I truly set an example?" And I hope that it will then motivate each reader to do it.
Peter F. Drücker - Claremont, California, October 1995
Continue to Chap 1 – The new Language of Organizing and its implications for Leaders