AtoZ Blogging Challenge – Inclusive

During the month of April, I’ll be participating in the 2017 Blogging from A to Z Challenge. For this year’s theme, I chose to look at leadership qualities as I’ve just recently (within the past 6 months) become the director of my public library. We have about 50 staff members, most of whom are part-time employees serving a 30,000 resident community by providing high-quality programs and resources. Each day, I’ll look at one trait and how it’s helped me to become a better director.

Granted, not all decisions can be made with 50 different opinions being taken into account, but for projects like a strategic plan, being inclusive is helpful. I may have mentioned this before, we’re working on a strategic plan this year. And when I started this project I wrote a letter to the staff about the process, what to expect and what results I was looking for at the end of the project.

I welcomed input from all the staff, including absolutely everyone from Department Heads to high school pages. But at the same time, I also didn’t make it a requirement of staff to participate, so that staff didn’t feel obligated to participate if they didn’t want to. My goal was to create a library whose staff had a strong bond and believed in our brand for the next few years. I also didn’t want to hear from staff at the end of this process that their thoughts and feelings were ignored or that no one had asked for their opinion. I hope that by getting their feedback, they feel more strongly to incorporate this new brand and communicate it well to the community.