Posted on by hildaweisburg

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.

Posted on by hildaweisburg

Stories Carry Your Message

We are constantly being told that data is important. It is.

We are told that decisions are made on data. They are. And they aren’t.

Studies have shown that we make 80% of our decisions using our emotions. We then use the remaining 20% to justify our decisions with logic. Businesses who want us to purchase their products know this and use it in commercials. You may buy a car because of its safety features, but no matter what you tell yourself, the reason you chose that brand has more to do with how you respond to it emotionally.

For years, we have had high-quality data showing the importance of school librarians to student learning. I applaud the researchers, many of whom are my friends. But districts are still not hiring librarians and claim it’s because we have been replaced by technology and are not necessary. Why is our message not getting through?

Perhaps it’s because we have too much data and not enough emotion. We have loads of stories about our students – and teachers – who have found success, learned, and grew because of the library. We need to tell our stories and tell them often.

Even if you are doing annual or and quarterly reports, start telling “snippets.” When a student has a great experience or breakthrough, send a quick email to your principal. One or more may strike a chord in your administrator. They might even include it in one of their reports to their superior. Make the story emotional – not only what was learned, but what was experienced.

Scott Van Voorhis says if you are Looking to Leave a Mark? Memorable Leaders Don’t Just Spout Statistics, They Tell Stories. He quotes research (Look! More data!) by Thomas Graeber that showed stories stick to our minds better than anything. Humans have always been telling stories. Our cave-dwelling ancestors told stories then illustrated them on the cave wall. Stories are how we communicate as human beings.

We have a lot of stories. Stories of triumphs and failures. Which should you tell and when? According to Graeber, if you want people to remember something for more than a day, “building a unique story around it is essential.”

Consider first the message you want to send. It’s best if it connects to your Mission. What happened in your library with a student that best illustrates the idea? Tell the story and then incorporate relevant data. Later, use the story as part of the requests you make.

For example, if you want to include more diversity in your collection, talk about how excited a student was to see themselves in a book. Perhaps one that was written by someone from his culture. Then point to the diversity audit you have conducted showing how few books represent all your students. You can then refer back to this story when you request funds for or order more diverse books.

While “eye-catching statistics” may work in business and help them move to immediate action, this is rarely an option in education. Statistics mixed with story can give you the longer lasting impact you want. For example, statistics on the difference between the performance of college freshmen who had a high school librarian and those who didn’t is powerful but coupled with stories from your school’s alumni—it’s lasting and shows the long-term benefit of the work you do.

I always use stories in my presentations and in my books (and frequently here in this blog). They strike emotional chords that readers and participants respond to. They form a connection between you and them. Data gets forgotten; stories get remembered. As librarians, we are not only good at telling stories, we understand the impact they make. Add this to your Leadership qualities and start telling them.

Posted on by hildaweisburg

ON LIBRARIES – Are You a People-Pleaser?

From https://livelearnwrite.com/2016/10/13/how-being-a-people-pleaser-can-effect-your-future/

Or do you please people?  There is a big difference between the two, and it’s not just semantics. The second is a successful leader. By contrast, it’s impossible to be a leader and a people-pleaser.  It may seem as though it’s the safest approach to ensure your position won’t be eliminated, but the opposite is more probable.

There are numerous websites on the characteristics, qualities, and results of people-pleasing. Most of us don’t fall into the full spectrum of people-pleasing as described by psychologists, but too many incorporate aspects of it into work behavior.  Reviewing what is discussed, look to see if you notice patterns that reflect some of your behaviors.

Jay Earley lists the following actions in The People-Pleasing Pattern:

  • I avoid getting angry.
  • I try to be nice rather than expressing how I really feel.
  • I want everyone to get along.

What’s wrong with avoiding being angry or wanting everyone to get along? Doesn’t it make for a better workplace environment? Isn’t that using your Emotional Intelligence? Not exactly.

Emotional Intelligence does require you to manage your emotions, which means getting to the reason for your anger and dealing with it to achieve your goals. Suppressing your feelings means you are making your emotions and yourself less important than those around you.  That is not leadership – or healthy.

The underlying truth to your behavior may be another of Earley’s characteristics—you are afraid to rock the boat, a fear frequently based on the concern that your job and program might be cut. However, you are most in danger of being eliminated if you don’t show your value and being a quiet doormat does not demonstrate value.

Consider what happens if your principal assigns you extra duties or you are told you will be responsible for two schools instead of one. What do you do?  Even though your principal might blame it on the budget situation, should you just accept it as is?

The people-pleasing response is to accept without any comment. This subtly sends the message that it’s no problem for you to take on the extra responsibility.  Which then suggests you have plenty of room in your schedule.  Taking that to the next stop, if you have plenty of room in your schedule, doesn’t that mean that your program doesn’t keep you busy?

If you responded this way, you are not alone.  Many librarians have done the same.  The simmering resentment can then affect how they do their job and their willingness/ability to build a relationship with their administration.  You don’t get to be a leader if that’s how you react.

I am not suggesting you get angry with your principal.  Obviously, you can’t ignore what you are being told to do.  But you can react in a way that will please people – including yourself.

Start by making a list of all your responsibilities.  Take some time to ensure you have identified almost all of them.  As much as possible, do a fair estimation of how much time you spend on each on a daily or weekly basis.   Star anything you definitely don’t want eliminated because it is at the core of your program. In addition, try to determine a fair estimate of the amount of time your additional assignment will take.

Next, set up a meeting with your principal seeking his/her advice and guidance. Explain you want to be sure the students and teachers will be getting the necessary literacy and 21st-century skills after the change in your schedule goes into effect.  Review your list of responsibilities, current and combined. Be clear that some things will have to be eliminated, and you want to have the principal’s agreement as to how to proceed. Also, realize you will have to go along with whatever the principal says you can stop doing.

Yes, you still have the change in your responsibilities, but recognize the difference in how they came about.  You didn’t quietly accept it.  You expressed your concerns, current program needs, and possible sacrifices to the person most able to support you (complaining to coworkers and spouses changes nothing). Your principal had to face the cost of your new assignment.  In the process, he/she was reminded of your value and contribution to the school program.  Managing the request this way will likely leave you with a much greater sense of satisfaction since you have not acted in a people-pleasing manner.

In your dealings with teachers and administrators, you don’t and shouldn’t quietly accept negation of your role while seething inside.  Leaders stand up for their worth.  They don’t do it aggressively.  That loses supporters.  They do it with calm confidence, offering alternatives. We teach people how to treat us.  If you say nothing in response to being minimized, you give that person the right to repeat that behavior.

One of my students in a summer course told me the principal had contacted her to say he was cutting her budget in half, and she needed to eliminate some purchase orders. He added, “I have always been good to you in the past.”  I told her, she could have said, “I saw it as being good for our students and our program, and then laughingly continued if you were being good to me, you would have given me a BMW.”

How have you handled being given additional long or short-term assignments or other changes which were given to you? Were you a people-pleaser or did you figure out a way to please people and show your leadership?

Posted on by hildaweisburg

ON LIBRARIES – To Be Valued and Valuable

the-future-starts-todayThe libraries, librarians, students and teachers of tomorrow — need you NOW.

I have been writing for school librarians since 1979.  I have been speaking and presenting to them for almost as long. Many would say those first years –1980’s and 1990’s – were a golden age for school librarians.  Certainly we weren’t seeing librarians being eliminated, but the times weren’t perfect and many of the seeds of today’s challenges were planted then.

While this look at the past may seem laden with doom and gloom, hang on.  There is light at the end of the tunnel.  You can and must be part of the change. Yes, you are part of that light.

Articles in the early issues of School Librarian’s Workshop dealt with budget constraints.  Libraries still got money, but it was often cut.  Principals saw that large chunk of funds as a source for some of their pet projects.  And how did the librarians respond?  They complained to their fellow librarians.  “Woe is me. My principal doesn’t see the importance of the library program.”library-closed

Sound familiar? I would give a workshop at a state conference—usually my home state—and invariably one or more librarians would tell me, “My principal has no idea what I do.”  There is a connection between an administrator having no idea of what you do and not recognizing the importance of the library program. But too many librarians didn’t want to undertake more work to change perceptions.

Time and again, I was told by elementary librarians, “I am needed because I provide teachers with their contractual duty-free period.” The unsaid message was, “my position is secure.”  I would respond that times change and so do contracts.  The answer mostly fell on deaf ears.  These same librarians would also complain that teachers dropped their class off and came back to pick students up without caring about what happened during the “library period.”  “They think of me as a babysitter.”  Yet, the librarians did nothing pro-active to raise teacher awareness.

perceptionAt the high school level, more librarians had staff and reasonable budgets, but these were cut on occasion as well.  Teachers who liked libraries and had a project would bring their classes in. Some of them worked with the librarian.  So in a typical high school, English and History classes were likely to be the only ones who ever used the library.

High school librarians had rules.  I know of one situation where the two librarians would not schedule all the sections a teacher had for the same day. Too much work.  They only permitted teachers who gave them a copy of the students’ assignment to be sure the period wouldn’t be used to give the teacher a break.  Students were allowed in the library at lunch only if they had work to do.

This is not what school libraries are like to today, but this is what they were like for a long time and what teachers saw.  Librarians had a cushy job. A number of those teachers went on to be administrators.  They took their perceptions of the librarian and the school library program with them.

In 1997, Gary Hartzell wrote a two-part article for School Library Journal on “The Invisible Librarian.”  He pointed to the omission of the role of librarians in teacher training, the absence of librarians in many professional organizations, and the difficulty in measuring the value of librarians contributions. There was general agreement with Hartzell’s views.  Librarians saw it as confirmation that they were ignored and one positive result emerged.  Library researchers began investigating the contributions of a library program and developed ways to measure them. Those studies continue being made today. steve-martin

Unfortunately, most administrators and lawmakers don’t seem to care—or even know about them. They remember the librarians from their early career.  Sure they would have continued library programs and kept librarians, but then the economic crisis hit.  School budgets were slashed.  Time to cut the expendable and not vital. Library programs were a logical place to begin.

In the slashing of programs, many wonderful librarians with outstanding programs were eliminated.  We are all still reeling from how quickly we lost so much.  But bemoaning the past doesn’t get us anywhere. We need to learn from it and use the current scene as an opportunity to emerge better than ever.

The big lesson is, if the school community doesn’t know who you are, what you do, and why it is unique, they won’t value you.  If your principal doesn’t know what you do, how can he or she be expected to see you as vital to student learning and helping teachers teach their students critical thinking and the host of other information literacy skills which are integral to what we do?  You must always find creative ways to let your administrators know about student projects and activities you developed in collaboration, cooperation, or conjunction with teachers.

because-of-youYou must make your presence known.  It’s imperative that you step out of your comfort zone and become a leader in your building.  By working with teachers, helping make their jobs easier, showing them how to integrate tech into their lessons, you become invaluable to them.  They know what you do and want more of it.

Serve on building and district communities to show how you contribute. And finally, you must help other librarians in your district be leaders as well.  The past has shown us it’s not enough for one of you to be great.  The broom sweeps out everything at once.

You must do whatever you can to build that advocacy program.  Get ideas from the AASL Health and Wellness Toolkit. Look for programs on leadership and advocacy at your state association’s conference.  Re-read the blog from two weeks ago on mentorship—and become one.

And if you need an incentive, think of Elizabeth Warren’s quote: “If you aren’t at the table, you are probably on the menu.”

How are you demonstrating leadership? How are you building more leaders? How are you contributing to the future of school libraries?