Servant Leadership

"The highest type of ruler is one of whose existence the people are barely aware. Next comes one whom they love and praise. Next comes one whom they fear. Next comes one whom they despise and defy. When you are lacking in faith, Others will be unfaithful to you. The Sage is self-effacing and scanty of words. When his task is accomplished and things have been completed, All the people say, ‘We ourselves have achieved it!’[6]  Lao Tsu -Tao Te Ching

I have always maintained that librarianship is an amazing field because you can essentially help everyone for free. Now it is not strictly true as libraries are supported by taxes and other revenues but for the people who come in to the library, perhaps after a long and stressful day (or life!) they can be greeted by a friendly person who is there totally to help them get their information needs, entertainment needs, school needs and a host of other needs met. Ideally. One leadership model that is in total congruence with this idea is the Servant Leader model.

What I have found
In a position of leadership I have always maintained two things. 1. That you never ask your staff to do something that you wouldn't do. 2. You can accomplish anything if you do not care whose name is signed to it. The tenets of servant leadership support both of these principals. 

Servant leaders are characterized by:

• Being visionaries
• Having high ethical standards
• Doing things with excellence
• Being persuasive
• Rational thinking
• Being prophetic [futuristic] imaginative
• Ordinariness
• Comfortable with paradox
• Being a good listener
• Accomplishing transformative actions

In this day and age I would also throw in " being comfortable around the concept of disruptive technology," an omnipresent issue, particularly in libraries.

While in the business world this model is most prevalent in organizations like Starbucks, Zappos, and AT&T there is the great potential for using this as a model for library management. Many of us are already there.

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