Dana Beach - Learning Retrospective

During the lead the change session I learned a lot about my leadership style and ways to bridge the community with our library. We were given a personal action planner to write notes and steps we plan to take to meet our objectives. So here is my personal action planner summarized.

My Objective:

Develop as a leader/mentor to help move my library into an even better place in our community and help foster change in meaningful ways.

Part One: Know Yourself

During this part of the session we talked about how important knowing yourself is important so you can become the leader others probably already see you as. Before the class we were asked to think hard about our core values, why we do what we do, and find out our Meyers-briggs type. We shared these in the session.

 Some other key thoughts I walked away with are as follows.

• Great people make great libraries
• It’s not an accident, it’s an opportunity – We’re never an accidental leader, manager, or mentor. It’s always an opportunity to do better.
• Spend more time building strengths than worrying about weaknesses. Good leaders are able to identify theirs and others’ strengths and build on them.
• Be your best, use your skills, and do what matters most to you!

Action steps for reaching my objective:

• Look for opportunities to lead in our system.
• Identify my strengths with the strength finder test.  - I did this and my strengths are:
  
  • Maximizer - People who are especially talented in the Maximizer theme focus on strengths as a way to stimulate personal and group excellence. They seek to transform something strong into something superb.
  • Adaptability - People who are especially talented in the Adaptability theme prefer to “go with the flow.” They tend to be “now” people who take things as they come and discover the future one day at a time.
  • Positivity - People who are especially talented in the Positivity theme have an enthusiasm that is contagious. They are upbeat and can get others excited about what they are going to do.
  • Input - People who are especially talented in the Input theme have a craving to know more. Often they like to collect and archive all kinds of information.
  • Developer - People who are especially talented in the Developer theme recognize and cultivate the potential in others. They spot the signs of each small improvement and derive satisfaction from these improvements
  • Three of these five are Relationship Building strengths and show that I’m the glue that holds a team together.

Part Two: Grow Yourself

During this part of the session we talked about how we could grow as leaders. One key thought I took away was that you don’t have to have a leadership title to be a leader. Smart managers don’t try to do it alone and need strong leaders to help back them up. However, smart libraries find and groom people who are both good managers and strong leaders.

• Emergent leaders take chances. The motivate others and are passionate and involved. When they have a smart idea they raise their hand!
• Speak up and share your passion and feelings
• Observe the community in the community, not in the library. You already have those customers! Talk to people. Don’t make assumptions about what people in the community want or need, ask them.
• Stop applying yesterday’s solutions to today’s problems -  True strategic thinkers interpret situations from many angles.

Action steps for reaching my objective:

• Since I’m dreadfully shy I think my main step here is to not be afraid to speak up and share ideas.
• Try to get out in the community more often; observing and talking to people.

Part Three: Be Your Best Self

In order to be your best self we talked about Boyatzis’ “intentional change theory” from Becoming a Resonant Leader.

1. Identify your best self
2. Identify real self
3. Create a learning agenda
4. Practice new behaviors
5. Cultivate resonant relationships

They also had us take the Library Journal Movers and Shakers Competency survey and went over our answers and the national answers with us.

My highest 3 competencies are building relationships (funny I did that quiz before the strengths finder!), innovation, and knowledge.

The 3 competencies I would like to develop more are community engagement, taking initiative, and strategic planning.

                Action steps for reaching my objective:

• Finish the personal action planner
• Find opportunities and tools to develop the competencies of community engagement, taking initiative, and strategic planning. Since the new SOaP is in its feedback stage, this is a great opportunity for me.

Part Four: Take Your Library With You

For this section we were asked to fill out the following spectrum and talked about ways to involve the community into library programming and services.

Other notes:

• Be a facilitator not just a person at the reference desk
• Connect with the community – Have a seat at the table – find those community meetings and find a way to be present at them.
• Find people/organizations in the community who are already doing certain things and connect with them in a partnership or have them as a place to send people – Don’t reinvent the wheel.
• Ask the community “What kind of community do you want to be and how can we help?” If someone else can fill that need, let them. We don’t have to do everything.

Action steps for reaching my objective:

• Find at least one new way for the library to be a presence in the community this year.

During the lead the change session I learned a lot about my leadership style and ways to bridge the community with our library. We were given a personal action planner to write notes and steps we plan to take to meet our objectives. So here is my personal action planner summarized.

My Objective:

Develop as a leader/mentor to help move my library into an even better place in our community and help foster change in meaningful ways.

Part One: Know Yourself

During this part of the session we talked about how important knowing yourself is important so you can become the leader others probably already see you as. Before the class we were asked to think hard about our core values, why we do what we do, and find out our Meyers-briggs type. We shared these in the session.

 Some other key thoughts I walked away with are as follows.

• Great people make great libraries
• It’s not an accident, it’s an opportunity – We’re never an accidental leader, manager, or mentor. It’s always an opportunity to do better.
• Spend more time building strengths than worrying about weaknesses. Good leaders are able to identify theirs and others’ strengths and build on them.
• Be your best, use your skills, and do what matters most to you!

Action steps for reaching my objective:

• Look for opportunities to lead in our system.
• Identify my strengths with the strength finder test.  - I did this and my strengths are:
  
  • Maximizer - People who are especially talented in the Maximizer theme focus on strengths as a way to stimulate personal and group excellence. They seek to transform something strong into something superb.
  • Adaptability - People who are especially talented in the Adaptability theme prefer to “go with the flow.” They tend to be “now” people who take things as they come and discover the future one day at a time.
  • Positivity - People who are especially talented in the Positivity theme have an enthusiasm that is contagious. They are upbeat and can get others excited about what they are going to do.
  • Input - People who are especially talented in the Input theme have a craving to know more. Often they like to collect and archive all kinds of information.
  • Developer - People who are especially talented in the Developer theme recognize and cultivate the potential in others. They spot the signs of each small improvement and derive satisfaction from these improvements
  • Three of these five are Relationship Building strengths and show that I’m the glue that holds a team together.

Part Two: Grow Yourself

During this part of the session we talked about how we could grow as leaders. One key thought I took away was that you don’t have to have a leadership title to be a leader. Smart managers don’t try to do it alone and need strong leaders to help back them up. However, smart libraries find and groom people who are both good managers and strong leaders.

• Emergent leaders take chances. The motivate others and are passionate and involved. When they have a smart idea they raise their hand!
• Speak up and share your passion and feelings
• Observe the community in the community, not in the library. You already have those customers! Talk to people. Don’t make assumptions about what people in the community want or need, ask them.
• Stop applying yesterday’s solutions to today’s problems -  True strategic thinkers interpret situations from many angles.

Action steps for reaching my objective:

• Since I’m dreadfully shy I think my main step here is to not be afraid to speak up and share ideas.
• Try to get out in the community more often; observing and talking to people.

Part Three: Be Your Best Self

In order to be your best self we talked about Boyatzis’ “intentional change theory” from Becoming a Resonant Leader.

1. Identify your best self
2. Identify real self
3. Create a learning agenda
4. Practice new behaviors
5. Cultivate resonant relationships

They also had us take the Library Journal Movers and Shakers Competency survey and went over our answers and the national answers with us.

My highest 3 competencies are building relationships (funny I did that quiz before the strengths finder!), innovation, and knowledge.

The 3 competencies I would like to develop more are community engagement, taking initiative, and strategic planning.

                Action steps for reaching my objective:

• Finish the personal action planner
• Find opportunities and tools to develop the competencies of community engagement, taking initiative, and strategic planning. Since the new SOaP is in its feedback stage, this is a great opportunity for me.

Part Four: Take Your Library With You

For this section we were asked to fill out the following spectrum and talked about ways to involve the community into library programming and services.

Other notes:

• Be a facilitator not just a person at the reference desk
• Connect with the community – Have a seat at the table – find those community meetings and find a way to be present at them.
• Find people/organizations in the community who are already doing certain things and connect with them in a partnership or have them as a place to send people – Don’t reinvent the wheel.
• Ask the community “What kind of community do you want to be and how can we help?” If someone else can fill that need, let them. We don’t have to do everything.

Action steps for reaching my objective:

• Find at least one new way for the library to be a presence in the community this year.