Leading Libraries Series: Introduction

Introduction to the series

 

Leading Libraries was one of 18 leadership development programmes supported by Transforming Leadership. Funded by the National Lottery, Transforming Leadership was launched by Arts Council England to address specific issues around diversity across leadership, opportunities for emerging and early career leaders, and the development of executive skills at senior levels.

In 2019 Libraries Connected was delighted to be awarded funding enabling it to commission the Transforming Leadership: Leading Libraries Programme (Leading Libraries).

Motivation for the programme came from a real desire to build a leadership for public libraries which can actively represent the communities they serve.

This 'Leading Libraries' series forms part of the 'legacy' of that programme, offering a wide range of online materials for anyone within the libraries service who wants to develop their leadership practice, regardless of role or seniority.

These materials were produced in 2020/21 for the Leading Libraries Programme by The Birmingham Leadership Institute at the University of Birmingham.

Leading Libraries was commissioned by Libraries Connected in partnership with CILIP (including the BAME network), CLOA and LGA. It was funded by Arts Council England, as part of the National Lottery Transforming Leadership programme.

 

Partners

Arts Council England

We are the national development agency for creativity and culture. We have set out our strategic vision in Let’s Create that by 2030 we want England to be a country in which the creativity of each of us is valued and given the chance to flourish and where everyone of us has access to a remarkable range of high quality cultural experiences. We invest public money from Government and The National Lottery to help support the sector and to deliver this vision. Find out more about the Transforming Leadership programme here.

 

Libraries Connected

Libraries Connected is the sector support organisation for public libraries. The charity is partly funded by Arts Council England as the Sector Support Organisation for libraries. This funding provides increased capacity with a team of staff and trustees to work alongside our members. We are proud to remain a membership organisation, made up of every library service in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Our role is to:

• Represent the public library sector to communicate the value of libraries
• Connect partners to local libraries by brokering national relationships with a wide range of organisations and individuals
• Improve library services by developing and sharing best practice, providing training for library staff and facilitating a network of library leaders in the UK
• Drive innovation and new thinking on the role of libraries in a modern society.

 

CILIP

CILIP is the UK library and information association. We are the only chartered body in the world dedicated to uniting, supporting and advocating for information professionals and librarians – the people who help the world make better decisions. Our membership is open to everyone working in libraries, information or knowledge management, data science and analytics or a related professional role.

We work with employers, learning providers and suppliers across the library and information sector in the UK and internationally to develop talent, promote innovation, encourage workforce diversity and ultimately to secure the long-term future of our profession.

Go to the CILIP website to find out more.

 

CILIP BAME Network

The BAME Network has been established to provide a forum for librarians and information professionals from Black Asian and Minority Ethnic backgrounds to share their experiences, support each other and network. Working with CILIP and other partners, the Network will support the advancement of BAME professionals in the workforce and the development of diverse library, knowledge and information services.

The launch of the CILIP BAME Network is an important step in addressing the under-representation of People of Colour within the library and information workforce as identified in the CILIP/ARA Workforce Mapping data (2015).

Find out more about the CILIP BAME network.

 

Local Government Association (LGA)

The Local Government Association or LGA is the national membership body for local authorities and we work on behalf of our member councils to support, promote and improve local government.

We are a politically-led, cross-party organisation that works on behalf of councils to ensure local government has a strong, credible voice with national government. We aim to influence and set the political agenda on the issues that matter to councils so they are able to deliver local solutions to national problems.

Go to the LGA website to find out more.

 

Chief Cultural and Leisure Officers Association (CLOA)

CLOA’s mission is to be the lead body that advises on, advocates and champions culture and leisure on behalf of sector professionals, locally, regionally and nationally. Our vision is that every locality has a thriving, high quality and distinctive cultural and leisure offer.

We have two clear strategic aims which are:

• To provide quality advice and support to senior officers to develop and sustain best practice.
• Providing an informed and coherent voice at a national level to champion, support and advocate for best practice in local government culture and leisure development and delivery.

Go to the CLOA website to find out more.

 

Developing collaborative and distributed forms of leadership

The content and structure of the 'Leading Libraries' programme was designed with a strong emphasis on the value of diversity and the need for new, more inclusive, styles of leadership. These new styles recognise different types of lived experience and personal motivations, rather than relying on traditional, 'heroic' leadership characteristics which form the basis of much leadership literature.

Unlike more individualistic leadership approaches, the 'Leading for' Capabilities which are at the heart of the series are designed to support more collaborative and distributed leadership approaches to change and leadership. While these two ideas are similar in many ways, in their emphasis on collective problem-solving and decision-making, there are key differences:

• Collaborative leadership approaches emphasise shared direction-setting, decision-making and accountability for delivery, usually within an existing team or between partners across organisations. Practices like setting collective (rather than individual) objectives, cross-organisation information sharing and high levels of partnering support these approaches.
• Distributed leadership approaches go further by assuming that people can 'lead from any chair', regardless of role or seniority and emphasises the use of personal expertise and lived experience as key elements in taking change forward collectively. Distributed leadership approaches can also include people from outside the organisation – citizens, users or customers – as is the case with many new design-thinking or crowd innovation processes.

 

Developing the 21st century public servant

Much of the content for the programme was inspired by the organisational and leadership principles outlined in the work on the '21st Century Public Servant’ developed by Catherine Needham and Catherine Mangan at the University of Birmingham in 2014. Libraries Connected and CILIP recognised the strong synergies between this work, with the public library ethos, and in a turbulent time for libraries, we also wanted the programme to support leaders to prioritize workforce health, happiness and wellbeing.

The 21st Century Public Servant Report identified 10 important themes from their original research, five of which were particularly relevant to the Leading Libraries objectives. Those five are:

• Changing organisational contexts
• The evolving relationship with citizens
• The end of 'hero' leadership
• The importance of 'being relational'
• An emphasis on 'soft' vs 'hard' skills.

All of these themes point to more 'human' aspects of leadership – the need for self awareness, interpersonal skills and respect for our differences.

In addition, the authors identified a series of new roles for public servants – including 'municipal entrepreneur', 'navigator', 'storyteller' and 'resource weaver'. While many of the roles draw on the relational skills described above, they also emphasise the need for innovative practices which allow staff and citizens to 'co-produce' new solutions to the problems they face. The ability to think beyond the present 'ways we do things around here', ask good questions and inquire into alternative, creative ways forward is a key element of this form of leadership.

 

 

Continue to Introducing the 21st Century Public Servant