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EDITORIAL The nature of

leadership in
Or you got it or you aint: the libraries
nature of leadership in libraries
David McMenemy 265
Department of Computer and Information Sciences,
University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK
Abstract
Purpose To examine the nature of leadership as a set of skills that can be acquired, vs the
argument that they are skills a person either has or has not, and discuss this in relation to the recent
focus on leadership in libraries.
Design/methodology/approach The article is a reflective opinion.
Findings Argues that an over-emphasis on leadership in the library manager is a potential danger
to the collegiality of the profession, and that leadership is such a diversely interpreted term that it
leads to a mishmash of ideas and emphases within the wider profession.
Practical implications Relates to a topic much debated and discussed in recent years within the
library profession.
Originality/value The article takes a reflective and critical stance towards the discourse around
leadership.
Keywords Leadership, Management activities, Librarians, Professional services
Paper type Viewpoint

The quote represented in the title of this paper references a conversation in the
television show, Curb Your Enthusiasm, where the comedian and producer Mel Brooks
recalls an actor he worked with commenting on people with talent. The actor told him,
or you got it, or you aint. In other words, you either have it, or you do not!
This is my own belief too related to the skills of leadership, and yet I am perplexed
to see an ever-dizzying array of articles and books on how to become a leader, and
training courses on how to do so. For me such notions are flawed and represent an
unrealistic view of leadership as something that can be taught. My understanding is
that it is far more to do with the nature and experiences of the human being than
anything that can actually be taught in a management seminar. Furthermore, I feel the
discourse around leadership to be potentially troublesome, since the basis by which
assumptions are made about leadership being something that can be taught lead to it
being seen as just another management skill that can be acquired; the reality is that it
is far more important than that, and such views trivialise something that is of vital
importance in our profession. To me the basis of leadership is related to the experiences
gained and problems overcome in the practice of a profession. Undoubtedly depending
on the personality of the individual, some will learn a lot from such experiences,
whereas some may not reflect appropriately, but the crucial aspect is experience.

Leadership in libraries why is it important?

Librarianship is well in need of people who can lead; that is really lead, not simply
conform to a stereotype of what a good manager is, because for me they are not Library Review
Vol. 57 No. 4, 2008
necessarily one and the same. In a 2001 study of the public library workforce in the UK, pp. 265-268
researchers found over 350 definitions of the word leadership (Usherwood et al., 2001, # Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0024-2535
p. 78), so perhaps my analysis is covered by one of them, or is adding another. The fact DOI 10.1108/00242530810868698
LR the term is so widely interpreted however is a cause for concern, as the question it
posits is, whose definition is correct?
57,4 Contributors to the Usherwood et al. study suggested some attributes of leadership,
namely:
. Vision.
. Authority.
266 . Political nous.
. The ability to make connections.
. The ability to carry their staff with them (Usherwood et al., 2001, p. 78).
This seems like a straightforward list until we consider how a training course might
meet these needs. How does one teach someone to have vision, for instance? Vision is
about an individuals way of seeing the world, how they interpret the future challenges
they will face, and how they will react to the immediate challenges presented. Such
reactions are cognitive and can hardly be taught, yet the myths prevail that they can.
Learned perhaps through dealing with problems and learning from them over a
number of years, but taught, hardly.

Leadership as management skill

The focus on leadership in recent years is part of a wider discourse that is directly
traceable to the development of the managerialist state. Clarke and Newman (1997,
p. 92) argue that what takes place is a construction of new subject positions, where:
administrators, public servants and practitioners come to see themselves as
business managers, purchases, contractors, strategists, leaders and so on. Thus
positions that in the past were defined as professional librarians change their focus to
become overtly management roles. The irony is that such positions were always so, but
with a change in emphasis and discourse comes legitimacy in the eyes of other
managers. Rather than being merely a librarian, one can say they are a manager, with
all of the potential this has for career development!
The confusion related to what constitutes leadership is evident in a 2006 study of
Canadian librarians. Respondents were asked to indicate what they felt were core
competencies for their staff, and it was no surprise to see confusion reigned as to what
was meant by leadership as a competency:
Leadership is a core competency for all employees in one library and a core competency for
professional and managerial employees in another library. In these libraries, leadership refers
to setting high performance standards and ensuring achievement of strategic objectives. In
two libraries, leadership is considered a core competency for supervisory employees only
(Chan, 2006, p. 148).
And here, we see from respondents the conflation of two terms namely leadership and
management. Undoubtedly, while leaders may manage, managers do not necessarily
lead. Leadership being interpreted as solely being about performance measures and
achieving strategic objectives is a sad indictment of our professional discourse, yet it
remains a cliche.
Major staff leadership programmes in libraries have gained public funding on both
sides of the Atlantic, in the USA and UK, and the emphasis on training is to be
admired. Yet they work on the basis of plucking a handful of people from the relative
obscurity of their library to be chosen as future leaders; in essence a Pop Idol for
librarians. My major concern with such initiatives relates to the criteria for selection, The nature of
and the danger that candidates can be chosen because they are young, are potentially leadership in
good managers, and say the right things, which equates to good leadership in the
mindsets of some. libraries

The mythology of the lone visionary voice

Culturally, it is hard to resist the notion of the visionary individual who transforms 267
their company/organisation or service, as we are bombarded with the concept from the
media constantly. In the UK and US television shows like The Apprentice and Dragons
Den paint a picture of the dynamic individual as someone to look up to and aspire to,
and to learn from. There is obviously some truth in this concept, since we all learn from
people we admire, but one of the more questionable aspects of such programmes is
their emphasis on the notion that anyone can be like the people featured if they merely
had their skills. The concept that anyone can do it if given the opportunity may well be
utilitarian, but is based on the flimsiest of evidence.
In a Web 2.0 world, we are taught to believe that the individual voice has the most to
say, with emphasis on blogs and social networking. This is merely an extension of a
culture that has seen the notion of the individual be highlighted as the transforming
influence in society. Traceable back to the doctrines of the New Right, where
professions and bureaucracies were treated with mixtures of fear and contempt, the
new model is for the visionary transformation from the top, the leader as the sole
arbiter of strategy for their organisation. This is dangerous for many reasons, because
rather than challenge orthodoxy, as we are led to believe modern leaders do, what
essentially happens is that they are created through the emergence of a new orthodoxy
of managerialism, and as such the radical nature of their leadership is neither radical,
nor is it particularly strategic. Managerialism is a narrow doctrine, focussed around
issues of service measurement and improvement that owe little to professional
competencies and more to bean counting. It is crucial that tomorrows leaders are not
guilty of such limited thinking.

Conclusion
In our professions leaders, we must seek more than a good manager or someone who
has attended the correct courses; we must seek experience, vision, integrity, and an
understanding of the potential of the organisation and the people within it. Just as
importantly, we need leaders who wish to take their place as part of the profession, not
see their roles as merely caretakers of a service.
The movement towards bringing people from outside of the profession to lead is
dangerous because it presupposes that the notion of the leader as manager supersedes
the experienced professional librarian as leader, and this is dangerous to the long-term
viability of the profession. Librarians have led their profession well for well over a
hundred years, and there is no reason why this cannot continue. What we need is for
the profession as a collective to challenge flimsy notions of what makes a leader, and
truly define what skills we need for the future in those charged with its care. I would
argue that the modern, shallow interpretation of leadership is anti-profession and thus
anti-librarianship. As Waine has argued, Concepts of leadership are inimical to
professional practice with its emphasis on collegiality and team working (Waine, 2000,
p. 247). We need to be careful that we do not select leaders who march the profession up
a cul de sac.
LR References
57,4 Chan, D.C. (2006), Core competencies and performance management in Canadian public
libraries, Library Management, Vol. 27 No. 3, pp. 144-53.
Clarke, J. and Newman, J. (1997), The Managerial State: Power, Politics and Ideology in the
Remaking of Social Welfare, Sage, London.
Usherwood, B. et al. (2001), Recruit, Retain and Lead: The Public Library Workforce Study,
268 ReSource, Sheffield.
Waine, B. (2000), Managing performance through pay, in Clarke, J., Gewirtz, S. and
McLaughlin, E. (Eds), New Managerialism New Welfare?, Sage Publications London.

Corresponding author
David McMenemy can be contacted at: david.mcmenemy@cis.strath.ac.uk

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