Welcome back to Linking Our Libraries! This week we are going to talk about maturity: a competency leaders need to be successful in their work.

Check out our full shownotes page here, including information and links to  to the books we read this week!

Maturity is such a valuable skill for successful leaders! If you think about mangers and politicians you see on TV and social media who behave badly, you can see how they are not respected as real leaders. They have the job title, but no one mistakes them for leaders who inspire others to follow them. A good leader builds a coalition of people, she makes people feel good about the project they are doing, and she inspires everyone to hope for the future. Good leaders demonstrate maturity by working to make things good for everyone – not just a few special people. That includes staff, patrons, community members – everyone.

It’s hard to do!! But you can see leaders who do exhibit Maturity in their work, and it’s impressive.

So, what do we mean by Maturity anyway? It could mean all kinds of things in different situations, but for us it means someone who shows they are calm and in control, demonstrates emotional intelligence, and that they think of others first.

Check out this episode!

Check out our full shownotes page here!

Welcome back to Linking Our Libraries! This week we are going to talk about an exciting leadership competency: Risk Taking!

Your first thought when listening to this topic might be surprise. Hasn’t everything we’ve talked about this season implied that leaders need to be reliable, steady, and predictable?

Yes. All of that is true. These are important qualities for leaders.

But you can’t just take the safe course all the time. Sometimes you need to take a chance, try something new, to boldly go where no librarian has gone before!

Good risk taking skills will help to propel you and your organization forward. So let’s talk about risk taking, and strategies for minimizing risk and maximizing your chances for success!

What do we mean by risk taking? Different people may think of this in different ways, but we mean not taking the easy way; taking a chance of failure; bold or courageous action.

Check out this episode!