Posted on by hildaweisburg

Gratitude is a Leadership Skill

This is the season for gratitude, making it the perfect time to incorporate it into your leadership toolbox. We may not have a lot of ways to reward people for a job well done, but expressing gratitude is easy once you get started doing it, and it leads to huge returns.

There are lots of ways to notice what you have to be grateful for and, from that, what you can acknowledge others for. I live this by keeping a gratitude journal. I record three things for which I am grateful every day. Some are small – such as the manager at the place where I go to fax who gave me a discount – and others are large – like my health. After my list of three, I add one way I give back such as contributing to the community food bank. Some of my give-backs are smaller, such as curating and sharing articles of interest to school librarians or offering a meaningful compliment.

It turns out that expressing gratitude is more than a good way to get along with people. It is biologically beneficial, as Scott Hutcheson explains in his article, The Most Overlooked Performance Hack? Gratitude. His post describes the physical benefits as well as why it is so often neglected. Here are the facts that support his claim:

The biology of gratitude – Hutcheson says, “by retraining the brain to focus on what’s working rather than what’s missing. The effects ripple through mood, motivation, and even physiology.” I have long believed and seen that the world is like a mirror. When you smile at it, it smiles back. Apparently, it also triggers the production of the powerful neurochemicals, dopamine and oxytocin, resulting in motivation and trust. Both are vital in our dealings with students, teachers, administrators and any with whom we interact. The result is the recipient enjoys working with you, leading to increased opportunities to build on. Studies show that meaningful gratitude makes people feel fulfilled. Gratitude calms stress and increases our empathy and willingness to work with others. In other words, recipients feel positive which increases their satisfaction with life. I personally find that by taking the time to appreciate all I have going for me, the problems I face feel less heavy, and I can honestly face the world with a smile.

Why gratitude disappears at work – We live in a world that evaluates rather than appreciates. Our feedback comes from observations, and there is little or no appreciation unless we achieve some type of reward. As Hutcheson says, “gratitude functions like exercise. It only works if it’s consistent.” Probably the best principal I ever worked for would send a “kudos” email to the whole staff to acknowledge a teacher for doing something great or getting a grant or award. It felt so good to be noticed and appreciated for one’s work. Additionally, it built staff connection and support. We would invariably compliment the teacher who earned the “kudo” knowing that we too might be similarly acknowledged at work. This appreciation and its benefits outside of evaluations.

With my additions, here are the three types of gratitude Hutcheson:

  1. Relational gratitude: This is direct-to-one thanks. Make it specific. Hutcheson says it builds trust, and as I often state, trust is the foundation of relationships.
  2. Reflective gratitude: Build in time at the end of a cooperative or collaborative project to reflect on what worked and what can be improved. Acknowledge how the other person, usually the teacher, helped you do your job and contributed to success.
  3. Restorative gratitude: There is a place for gratitude when the project didn’t succeed as well as planned. Our colleagues are under as much stress as we are. It matters when we let them know we recognize their challenges. Point to what was learned in the process. If appropriate, suggest where you can do more of the heavy lifting next time, but only if you think that won’t stress you out.

The leadership advantage – Your “goal is to make gratitude habitual rather than performative.”  Try keeping a gratitude journal to exercise that “muscle.” Practicing gratitude does not require extra work, and the benefits it brings to your leadership is immense. People like being and working with a person who is grateful and acknowledges it.

When you practice gratitude, you benefit as well. It gives you a more positive mindset in the midst of the challenges and stresses you face. I’ll end this blog by saying thank you to you, my reader. I appreciate your recognizing my passion to help make school librarians be viewed as an invaluable element in the success of students and teachers.

Posted on by hildaweisburg

SOAR When Speaking to Your Principal

You need to have a relationship with your principal in order for your library to thrive. So how is that relationship going? Do you have a strong, positive one where your principal supports everything you do? Or do you have one who claims to believe in libraries but is not fully aware of how they have changed. Maybe your principal feel you are not very valuable and a drag on the school budget. If you and your principal share common values about what the school library is and needs to be, you don’t have a problem. But if your relationship falls into the second or third category, how do you change it to be more like the first one?

In their article Dealing With a Difficult Boss for Psychology Today, Wes Adams and Tamara Myles write about the importance of “managing up,” ways to deal with managers who are challenging and/or unproductive. Many of us have experienced difficulties in getting through to principals who hold to preconceived ideas and attitudes about libraries. Adams and Myles recommend a SOAR approach to open communication. This may help to build that important relationship. Here’s their explanation of putting SOAR to work along with my usual tweaks to align it more in our education world:

S-Shared Goals – Start by drawing on what you have in common. Students are at the core of what you both care about and support. But there are other common areas you might address, such as keeping parents included in their child’s education or supporting the mandates of the Superintendent of Schools who is concerned about test results.

O-Opportunities – Point to what can be used to reach those common goals. You both want the school budget to pass. Look for ways to show the value the library brings. Your library can be a perfect location to welcome the business community. They can be invited to share the skills of their trade with students in a related class, such as a business class or a course on future careers. They might also be willing to sponsor an author visit which in turn would bring the local newspaper to cover it, giving the business publicity and the school some vital community visibilily.

A-Alignment – Turn these opportunities into a true conversation by drawing you principal into the discussion. What do they like about what you have presented? What questions do they have? Do they have recommendations for improvement or modifications? Don’t become argumentative with any of their proposals. This is a time to see how to incorporate their suggestions, deepening your professional relationship.

R-Results – Share your goal for the outcome of whatever you have proposed. Let the principal know you will be keeping them posted on how things are going. Make sure they know both the progress and final results. You can do it in meetings or via email. Be open to their responses. If you don’t hear from them after emailing them, schedule a brief meeting.

Adams and Myles further recommend that “when the project is complete, remember to tie the results back to those same priorities and goals to build credibility and gain influence. Doing so consistently reminds your [principal]that you are delivering, which earns trust.” And as I keep saying, trust is the foundation of relationships.

Your relationship with your principal is vital to your long-term success, maybe even your job security. The more your principal sees you as making them look good, the faster and more willing they will approve your next proposal. You will be seen as a valuable leader and the library will thrive.

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Lead Like a Politician

Did the title make you pause? Did you want to reject it? These days, most people have a negative view of politicians, but like them or not, they do lead. And they are able to get people to vote for them.

As school librarians we need to get out the “vote” for us. Whether it’s our students, teachers, administrators, or parents, we need their support and recognition of our value to them. In Jed Brewer’s article, “You Are a Politician: Four Lessons From Local Politics That Make for Better Organizational Leaders,” his lessons for business leaders apply equally well to our ability to be leaders in our educational setting. Here are the four for you with my tweaks.

  1. It’s About the Problem — Always – To be heard, you need to speak to the listener’s wants and needs. With students it’s usually about the grade or the inability to see the value in what they are doing. Hopefully, you are creating engaging lessons, giving learners agency in working on the assignment or project. Teachers want students to learn and do well on high stakes tests. Focus on what you can bring that will advance their goals when you suggest they do a cooperative or collaborative project with you. Your principal worries about the superintendent and the Board of Education and especially the budget. Keep them informed about student successes, sending them things they can use in their reports, such as pictures/videos of student creations tying them to state standards. Parents are always concerned about their children and how they are doing. Make sure they know how your LibGuide and website keep them informed and allow opportunities for them to access you. In dealing with all these different wants and needs, Brewer recommends you find opportunities to connect with each group to be sure you know what they see as their problems and concerns.
  2. Nothing Beats the Personal Touch — Ever – Getting to know students individually is a challenge for us, but it is important to keep working at it. Offering coffee and snacks for teachers is a tried and true way to bring them in and get an opportunity to talk one-on-one. While sending regular reports to principals is necessary, also invite them in when kids are working on projects so they can see the work in action. Also, make sure to have some face-to-face time with your principal. Ask them for their opinion on where they want to see the library go. Be prepared to respond positively but provide data where necessary to correct any negative ideas.
  3. No One Succeeds Alone — Really – Draw on your PLN, your Professional Learning Network. Between the national and state library associations as well as the social network and people you follow, you have ample “partners” in creative ways to address your own wants and needs. Build your own support team so that when things become challenging, you have resources and places to go.
  4. Compromise Is Success — Truly – Important goals aren’t achieved quickly. Trust and relationships need time to build. Even if you have done all the proper preparation, you won’t likely get a complete acceptance of anything you propose. That’s where negation comes in. If you get a partial buy-in, it means they see things they like in what you are saying. Modify, tweak, or do whatever is appropriate for achieving your goal, and then come back. I had a superintendent who once told me her first answer was always, “No.” If someone came back, she could be sure they were serious. Keep looking for new avenues – break a project down into a several year plan, show short and long term benefits, offer ideas for modifications.

Brewer concludes by telling business people they are politicians. This is true for you, too. You have to meet the needs and wants of diverse groups. By using the skills of a politician, you and the library will grow and thrive.

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Quality Answers Require Quality Questions

Rhetorical questions are those with such obvious answers no one needs to respond. Simple questions get one word or even one syllable answers. If we want useful, useable answers, we need to ask better questions. Even if we fear a negative response. We cannot build the collaborative relationships we want or improve what we’re doing if we don’t ask questions that give us quality answers. Even if we don’t always like those answers.

Asking quality questions gives us information. “What would you want to do differently next time?” rather than “What did you think?”. If you’re in the midst of a project with students, ask “What was the hardest part of this so far?” In building a connection with your principal, ask, “What would you like to see changed about the library?” Here, you may want to get a little more specific based on your purpose is for this discussion.

In his article, Asking the right questions, Paul Thornton offers eight tips on how to ask questions that get quality answers. As he is addressing the business world, I will add my comments to show how to use the tips in our education world.

  1. Be clear about your purpose – Everyone, even students, are pressed for time and often under stress. Get to the point quickly. See the sample questions given above for suggestions on doing this.
  2. Prepare in advance – This is not the time for improvisation. Once you know the purpose you can decide what questions you plan to ask. In what order? Have them written down. Limit the number to no more than three and memorize them.
  3. Ask one question at a time – Whomever you are talking to needs time hear what you said and form an answer. And you need to be listening to each response. Your focus is on the information you are receiving, not rushing to ask your next question. Thornton reminds you not to ask rhetorical questions. You won’t get usable answers.
  4. Challenge assumptions – Whether you want students to think more critically, extend collaboration with a teacher, or enlighten a principal about how libraries have and need to change, we all carry a level of bias on what we think we know about the subject. Be clear about what you’re asking and don’t assume the basis/background of the answers you are being given.
  5. Connect ideas – Thornton says when asked properly and clearly, your questions will get your listener to gain new insights into whatever you are presenting. It will give them an opportunity. When it’s possible, connect the purpose of your questions (see the first item on the list) to your Mission Statement.
  6. Be comfortable with silence – If you want quality answers you need to allow people time to think. This goes back to Number Three. As you wait for the response, use the time to read body language to see where they are in the process. Giving people space and time to answer tells them you value their response.
  7. Encourage broad participation – With students, a pair/share exercise or having a group post their response on a whiteboard will allow you to see where the class is. With teachers, you might have them share several student projects in the library. A wider net gives you more answers and more information.
  8. Capture notes promptly – You want to have a record of what you were asking about and what the response was. Depending on whom you are talking to, it could be analog, digital, photo, or even a recording. In our fast-paced world, you could lose some information as you turn to the next thing. Give these answers the weight and time they deserve.

Improving the quality of your questions will help propel you forward in increasing the library’s value in the minds and behaviors of the populations you serve. What you learn in the process will be invaluable and further your growth as a leader.

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More Leadership Tips

Being a leader, as cliché as it might sound, is a journey, not a destination. Even though you already are a leader, there is always more to learn. As librarians, being lifelong learners comes naturally to us. However, we must always be on the lookout for new places and spaces to learn from.

In this blog, I frequently bring in leadership lessons from the business world. A few weeks ago, I even posted a reference to how Taylor Swift can be a leadership role model for us. Today, I’m returning to Smart Briefs and the article, “Adaptive leadership: How women can lead through uncertainty” from Maria Doughty who shares about leading when “life gets ambiguous.” Although the title says it’s targeted to women, men will find these suggestions equally helpful. You may be doing several of these, but there is always something new you can use.

Here are her eight tips along with my comments on how these relate to school librarianship.

  1. Define goals and stay focused – Just as it is in the business world, our priority is our Mission and Vision. By now you hopefully have both, but when whenever you are feeling uncertain, it’s a good time to review them and see if they need tweaking or expanding.
  2. Be nimble and be ready – Necessity has made us experts at pivoting. What worked yesterday, might not work tomorrow. Stay alert. Read professional journals. In addition to school library ones such as Knowledge Quest (KQ) from the American Association of School Librarians (AASL), your reading should include EL (Educational Leadership) from the Association of Supervisors and Curriculum Developers (ASCD). Keep current with what might be next in technology through ISTE (International Society of Technology in Education) starting with their numerous blog posts.
  3. Stay calm and lead with empathy – This can be challenging to do given the current political and politicized climate and how it impacts school libraries and librarians. But panic doesn’t lead to rational decisions. Breathe. Ask: Who in the school community is also stressed out? Your principal? Teachers? How can you support them? Then stop to consider who can support you? Parents are one important source, particularly if you prepared for this possibility by establishing communication channels with them. Teachers may be as well. Even older students have also proved they can be strong advocates for the school library and you.
  4. Project strength — and vulnerability – While sounding like opposites, they can work well together. Project strength by leaning into the areas where you feel confident. Draw on your values and how capable you are at teaching students what they need to know for today and tomorrow. Teachers are also feeling the effects of the political climate. Let them know you understand and what you are doing to not let it keep you from bringing your best. Share the resources from our national library professional associations and take the opportunity to learn from theirs.
  5. Stay curious and commit to learning – As I stated at the beginning, a commitment to learning is natural for us. Avoid getting so concerned about what is happening in your school that you don’t see the very big picture. Keep aware of what other industries are doing – schools, colleges, and beyond. Notice where you might be prone to tunnel vision about changes, such as AI. Look for where you can adapt and grow.
  6. Maintain inclusivity and engagement – Everyone is busy, but the more people work together – and with the library – the more interwoven you are with your audience. Consider hosting an after school coffee and chat (with snacks if possible!) for teachers to share ideas across disciplines with each other. Perhaps you can schedule something for parents such as students sharing their recent projects. This has the advantage of allowing students to show their growth as they discuss what was the toughest part of the project, what was the best part, and what did they learn.
  7. Take care of yourself – I can’t stress this often enough. These leadership tips take time and energy. Growing, learning and changing isn’t easy. You need TLC to keep going. Whatever relaxes you and/or gives you pleasure – make time for it!
  8. Find your tribe -As Doughty says, “you don’t need to have all the answers yourself.” This is where your Professional Learning Network (PLN) is a great resource. The hive mind invariably can give you the answer as well as new ideas to try. Ask the scary questions. You never know who else is having this challenge or who may have found a solution.

We are living in challenging times. Yes, that’s another cliché that is all too true. You can let it break you, or you can grow as a result of how you lead yourself and others through. Your growth sets an example for others. The future of our students depends on us rising to the challenge and being the leaders they and the rest of our school community need us to be.

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Thriving In Challenging Times

It feels like we have been living in challenging times for so long the phrase has become commonplace. Stress is so high, surviving might be the chief goal, making thriving seem like a fantasy. But we can’t afford that. If survival is the goal, we are likely to be swept away by the rising tide of our current political climate, and bad times don’t deserve our surrender.

Our students and teachers need more than our survival – and so do we.  Nina Snyder turns to a surprising role model to emulate in her blog post How to Run Your Business Like Taylor Swift. You are not running a business, but as my comments show, the five lessons work for us. And who couldn’t use a little more Taylor Swift in their lives:

Know your customer – Ours are the students, teachers, and the administrators. It’s also parents who are keeping an ever-watchful eye on school libraries, and the general public. What do they want?  What do they need? Students want to do well and not be bored or worried about grades. They need choice and voice. Teachers want relief. They need help as they are feeling overworked and overly scrutinized. Principals want to present a well-run, high achieving school. They need evidence that is happening.  Parents want their children to be successful. They need evidence to know the library is not harming them but rather preparing their children for today and tomorrow. The public wants a good school system because it makes for a desirable community that attracts people to the community.

 Pivot before it’s required – Times keep changing. New technologies emerge, as do new threats. In order to be ready to modify your strategy, you need to stay ahead of the game. Reading journals and articles you get as an ALA/AASL and AECT/ISTE member lets you know the latest in education, including what the administrators are thinking. Work with the public library. The youth services librarian may have a closer ear to the community than you do. Check in with your Professional Learning Network (PLN) for ideas and to learn what’s happening in other locations. It will give you a heads up. Reading the local newspaper or website for clues into what the community is thinking. Follow the towns social media. Shop occasionally in the town where you work so you can hear what customers are talking about.

Embrace authenticity – Be honest. Don’t abandon your core professional and personal values. That can be frightening today. Draw on the support offered by our professional associations. They offer resources to help in presenting what you stand for.  When you step away from what matters to you, you can’t be as confident about the work you do, and you don’t feel good about yourself.

Focus on your strengths – Most of you have strong tech skills. Use them to promote your program. Showcase student accomplishments, acknowledging the teachers involved on your library website. In addition to your regular reports to your principal, send photos and brief information after a successful project is completed. Consider writing a column for the local paper or school website on “Happenings in the School Library.”

Keep communicating – Most of the four ideas included communication. Misinformation abounds. We need to get in there first to share what is actually happening in the school library. Communication powers relationship. Relationship builds trust. Trust becomes advocacy. We need all the supporters we can get.

You can thrive even in challenging times. In fact, I believe this so much that my next book, (coming February 2026) https://www.routledge.com/The-Involved-School-Librarian-How-to-Increase-Your-Impact-and-Thrive/Weisburg/p/book/9781041088080, will support you in this endeavor. For now, some final advice from Taylor (the titles, not the lyrics): “You Need to Calm Down”, “Shake It Off” and be “Gorgeous!”

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Tips for Managing the Library Classroom

As every school librarian knows, managing the library classroom is not the same as managing a typical classroom. Not only do students not come to the library on a daily or even a weekly basis, in some cases, but you have to add in the fact that the kids don’t see you as their real teacher. You can see where it becomes challenging. Plus, you have the ongoing possibility of drop-ins.

What is needed is a Classroom Management plan that encompasses all that happens in the library, ties into your Mission and Vision, and is cognizant of unforeseen circumstances cropping up. You need to keep yourself centered to manage it and make it a vital part of the school community. A tall order.

In Confident Classroom Management. A. Keith Young offers four tips for the traditional classroom. I have adapted to make them work for you.

  1. Let Each Day Start Fresh – Focus on today. Yesterday is over. Take time to review why something went off track yesterday or why it worked. Next, come up with a strategy to keep it from happening again or find a way to repeat it. Once you have your positive mindset in place—especially important after a tough day—move forward. Greet students with a smile and welcoming comments, even the ones who caused a conflict of some type on their last visit. Reset the tone for today.
  2. Maintain Relationships Separate from Behavior – This is not easy. We have a tendency to be wary when a frequent troublemaker comes in. A focused positive comment is vital here. Choose an article of clothing, hairstyle or some other personal connection for your comment. It will signal to the student that you are not holding onto what happened last time. Talk to the person, not the action.
  3. Redirect with Calm, Neutral Phrases – When a student acts up, rather than telling them to stop, ask a question related to the topic at hand without indicating the student is off track and not behaving appropriately. Offer an approving comment when they respond positively. If the student continues to be disruptive you can hand them paper and pencil and suggest they write what is upsetting them. Or you can ask if they need time away from the group. Each of these give the student agency to resettle themselves and allows you to remain focused.
  4. Conduct Social Audits for Better Interactions – While much easier to do in a typical classroom, you can incorporate it into your strategy, particularly with students who repeatedly have problems in the library. Young suggests you “guide students through reviewing a situation that occurred, identifying missteps, and outlining future actions—(then) offers clear and precise empathetic direction.” You will likely not have time to do this while the class is in session. Instead, have step-by-step directions for them doing it. Tell them to ask you for help if they have difficulties answering the questions. Also, consult with the class teacher and the guidance counselor for advice on dealing with this student. Working together my have a much bigger impact

Incorporate these four steps into your personal lesson plans, different from what you might submit to your principal. The more frequently you put it this management into effect, the more natural it will become to you. As a leader and school librarian in difficult times, it’s more important than ever for your library not to become a problem for the administration or add to the challenges of teachers. Instead, demonstrate every day how the library contributes to the success of students and teachers.

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Four Lessons for Leaders

What have you learned as a leader? How have you grown from your first position, where you probably weren’t even thinking about leading, to the librarian you are today? And if you are in your first year, what steps in your leadership journey are you taking and looking forward to?

Because leadership is a journey, not a destination. Successes, setbacks, struggles. And we can learn from them all – especially the parts that didn’t go as planned. As the great pitcher, Christie Mathewson said, “You can little from victory. You can learn everything from defeat.”

As school years begin again, take some time to reflect on your leadership journey. What worked, what didn’t. What turned out even better than expected. What had hidden lessons. Fred Ende, director of curriculum and instructional Services for Putnam/Northern Westchester BOCES in Yorktown Heights, N.Y. did just that.  In is blog article, Lessons Learned After 25 Years as an Educator, these four are the result of his introspection—with my comments as usual.

Trust your intuition – This will likely be a challenge for the first year or two, but the longer you are a school librarian the more you learn. The experiences, good and bad, improve your instincts for understanding what the people you work with need and want; this includes students as well as teachers and administrators. Time helps you refine your ability to read communication clues including body language and tone.

Change won’t happen if it isn’t led – Being a leader means being willing to step out of your comfort zone and bringing new things to your school. You might launch a new program or incorporate and teach new technologies. You’ll step up and explain your idea or plan to your principal, introduce it to teachers and students, and integrate it into your program. Be mindful of teachers’ and administrators’ hesitancy or outright unwillingness and address it as part of the change. People like doing what they know. Change is scary. Show them the benefits and lead them there.

Give people the work they want to do – Ende is referring to what he learned as district administrator. You offer a different environment than the classroom. This gives you different options. With students it means you are mindful of different learning styles. Your give them voice and choice within a lesson. With teachers you manage collaborations so you do the heavy lifting, but they get to bring what they like to do. It might be introducing the lesson or designing its structure in a way that they like, while still incorporating choice and voice for students.

Let it go – When we believe we are right, we can waste time trying to convince someone else they are wrong. It doesn’t work that way. Truthfully, that doesn’t work at all and can even hurt the relationships we’re trying to build. As Ende says, “We can’t control everything, and why would we want to? In fact, we often learn even more from acceptance and then working to make less-than-ideal situations better for all involved. Since we only know our situations, we have to be willing to believe that everyone wants what is best for learners.”

So, take a moment and ask yourself what have you learned as a leader? Even if this was you first year, you have learned more than you might realize.  Make this a start and an end of the year practice. You will give yourself direction and then be surprised at how much you have grown – and be ready for the next school year.

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Listening as a Leadership Skill

When you think of the skills a leader needs, you are apt to identify vision, planning, and decision-making among a host of others. You not likely to mention listening, and yet it is one of the most important skills you need to have and keep developing. In my forthcoming book, The Involved School Librarian, listening is one of the final three “attributes” I say are necessary in order to be a fully involved school librarian. The three being Listener, Learner, and Leader.

 Listeners use a variety of channels as they learn what their communities want and need as well as what is new and forthcoming. What they learn they then apply in leading their library program so it becomes an ever-increasing value to those they serve. When people notice you listen, they are more likely to come to you for support.

In their article What Principals Can Learn From Pope Leo XIV’s Leadership Approach, Michael Nelson and Pete DeWitt present a five-part model for what it takes to be a great leader. Their ideas resonate with us since this article is from the EdWeek.org site, but I have added comments to address what school librarians need.

Listen, Understand, and Act – This gets to the heart of listening as a core leadership skill. If you make assumptions about what your community needs based on what you know, you are apt to overlook what teachers and students really want. According to the authors, research shows that when people feel you are listening to them, it builds relationships. And we always need to be relationship builders. Once you understand what your community really wants and needs you can act to bring your library forward.

Listening Is Strategic, Not Passive – We generally see listening as automatic and something we don’t need to think about, but studies have shown that when we use it actively, it’s more powerful. Be present, be aware. Then, what you have learned from listening gives you the knowledge to construct a strategic plan tied to your Vision and take more directed and connected steps to living your Mission.

Equity Begins With Who We Listen To – This was a new concept for me. Do you ignore criticisms from those you see as negative or with whom you don’t agree? You may be missing some key truths because of your (unintentional) bias. Are you ignoring students who say, “Why do we have to learn this?” or “This is stupid!” Just because you don’t like their complaint doesn’t mean they have a point. Listen to their reasons for saying this and you may learn something important.

From Listening to Collective Action and Joint Work – When you build relationships and trust, people (including students) are more likely to work with you. You can collaborate on curricular units and even build new programs together. And Collaborate is one of the Shared Foundations in AASL’s National School Library Standards.

Leading With Intention – As Nelson and DeWitt say, “Listening is the work. It is what allows leaders to act with intention.” Listening gives you important information that you can use to strengthen all aspects of your library, from collection choices to software needs to an advocacy committee.

Your skills as an active listener are central to your ability to be a great leader. Active listening is a skill you need to work on every day. I know I do. When we’re bursting with excitement about our latest idea, we don’t listen to the people we are speaking with. The better you get at listening the better leader you will be. And then you’ll have people as excited about your ideas as you are.

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Start at the End to Gain Support

TLDR. Have you come across this acronym? It stands for “too long; didn’t read.” It’s a warning given by the author, frequently followed by a summary, if they are concerned people might skip what was written. We are flooded with information without enough time to take it all in. You must have heard someone say, “Get to the point already?” Or said it yourself on occasion.

So what’s the solution?

Share your point – your end – at the beginning. When you make your point early, people know where you are heading and have a reason to focus quickly. We tend to build our argument to show why approving it is important and make the “ask” at the end. John Millen in his blog The Biggest Presentation Mistake Smart People Make explains why this approach rarely works and how to reverse the sequence of your requests.

These are his four steps with my usual connections to our school world:

  • Flip It: Start with the bottom line – Millen observes if you start at the end, even if people don’t have time to read the full message, they know what your point is. Think about wanting your principal to approve a project. You tend to build toward that idea, showing how well thought out your proposal is. Your principal is pressed for time. If you start at the end, letting them know what you want to accomplish, they are going to be listening for your arguments even if their first reaction is to reject it.
  • Executives think inductively – This is true for all decision makers. They are as much under stress as the rest of us, maybe more. But putting your ask first, your focus becomes: What I am proposing; three reasons why and how I will do it, and, finally, what questions do you have about it? Simple and fast. I have always recommended you keep meetings with your principal brief. This is how to do it.
  • Data builds credibility. Clarity builds influence. – We are so accustomed to “showing the data” we forget it needs to be put in an understandable context. Give the context – the result – first. Then share keep the data short and clear, using language that is understood by the listener. Millen recommends the order of information should be:
    • What’s the problem?
    • What’s your recommendation?
    • Why should they care?
  • A simple shift, a big payoff – Move more a deductive approach to giving information to an inductive approach. For example, instead of talking to you principal about genrefication like this: “I have been reading about the success many libraries have had by genrefying their fiction collection.” Use an inductive approach starts with showing a benefit to students and say, “I want to arrange the fiction collection by genres, allowing students to find books by subjects and focus rather than solely by author to help them get what they need quicker.” The difference is striking.

Millen concludes by reminding us to give listeners “the point, not the process.” Most recommendations and ideas are turned down because our audience got lost in all the information we offered, and they lost a connection to the outcome.

Don’t forget to try this with students, so they know from the beginning how your instruction will help them, and with teachers, so they immediately see the benefit of a collaboration. Even with presentations, if you give your audience the end results, they will remain more engaged in your topic to see how to get there. Start with the end in mind and you will lead your audience to the goal you’ve set.