Kathleen Delong, Associate Director, University of Alberta Libraries spoke to the Education Institute about developing leaders, an important .. today.   She talked about the distinctive differencs of leadership (leaders producing change, adatption) and management which involves making things work and often are talked about in terms of order, consistency, and stability.   Kathleen referred to the book, Leadership Theory and Practice wich talks about theories as well as applications.  She talked about leadership traits, skills, and styles as well as followers and transformation leadership which has been popular for the last number of years.  An interesing model is shared leadership.  Kathleen talked about IBM’s internship program called Extreme Blue where recruits are immersed in a system which focuses on group cohesision over “me first glory” and when these people left the program for other parts of IBM they received a publication called “Staying Extreme with tips on leading, do’s and don’ts, and the style that was expected from them. 

Kathleen talked about the 8 R’s committee of CLA which published the Future of Human Resources in Canadian Libraries.  Started with retirement and recruitment and expanded to repatriation, and other R’s.  Most libraries  require the skills of leaderhip, management and business roles and many were having difficulty meeting their staffing requirements for these.

How do new professionals engage with leadership?  Kathleen has been doing research in this area looking at leadership engagement factors — interests in and willingness to take up leadership roles.   She has found that new professionals are interested in general opportunities for leadership and taking leadership roles in organizations, in having mentor opportunities, and participating in leadership develeopment programs.   However, there does seem to be differences between willingness and practice (or ability to participate in these programs).