ILLINOI S UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN PRODUCTION NOTE University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library Large-scale Digitization Project, 2007. CRITICAL ISSUES INLBRARYi MANAGEMENT Organizing for Leadership and Decision-Making Papers from the Thirty-Fifth Allerton Institute Edited by Bryce L.Allen and T'rry L. Weech © 1995 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois Manufactured in the United States of America Printed on acid-free paper OCCASIONAL PAPERS deal with any aspect oflibrarianship and consist of papers that are too long or too detailed for publication in a periodical or that are of specialized or temporary interest. Manuscripts for inclusion in this series are invited and should be sent to: OCCASIONAL PAPERS, Graduate School of Library and Information Science, The Publications Office, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 501 E. Daniel Street, Champaign, Illinois 61820. Papers in this series are issued irregularly, and no more often than monthly. Individual copies may be ordered; back issues are available. Please check with the publisher. All ordersmust be accompaniedby payment. Standing orders may also be established. Send orders to: OCCASIONAL PAPERS, The Publications Office, Graduate School of Library and Information Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 501 E. Daniel Street, Champaign, Illinois 61820. Telephone 217-333-1359. Make checks payable to University of Illinois. Visa and Mastercard accepted. PUBLICATIONS COMMITTEE Leigh Estabrook, F. Wilfred Lancaster, Roger Sutton Terry Weech, Robert Wedgeworth Introduction 1 Bryce L.Allen and Terry L. Weech Learning about Leadership: What Works in Moder Organizations 3 BarbaraB. Moran The Leader as Decision-Maker: When Centralized Decisions Become Imperative 19 HerbertS.White Staff as Decision-Makers: The Merits of Decentralized Decision-Making 29 MauriceR Marchant Making Human Resource Decisions 37 RichardE.Rubin The Role of Leadership in Planning: A Frank and Candid Anaysis of the Realities of Planning in the Public Sector 57 NancyBolt Remembrances ofThings Past 73 7bmEadie INTRODUCTION The title of this Occasional Paper, "Critical Issues in Library Manage- ment: Organizing for Leadership and Decision-Making," implies that somewhere in any library's organization there must be someone or some group to provide leadership, and someone or some group to make deci- sions. The library that lacks leadership lacks the vision necessary to trans- form itself. Without leadership, it is likely to subside into "business as usual" that becomes increasing irrelevant as the world changes around it. The library that lacks decision-making cannot deal with any of the important day-to-day decisions that define the character of the library. So both are needed. Yet, somehow, leadership and decision-making seem to require different approaches. Many librarians have been convinced of the value of participative decision-making, but are they equally con- vinced of the value of participative leadership? Does that idea even make sense? On the other hand, a strong leader with a vision for the future of the library may be reluctant to have the implementation of that vision bogged down in the endless committee meetings that seem the hall- mark of participative decision-making. This, then, is the conundrum addressed by the papers* which were pre- sented at the Thirty-Fifth Allerton Park Conference (October 24-26, 1993) sponsored by the Graduate School of Library and Information Science of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign: how can libraries suc- cessfully combine leadership and decision-making in their organizations? This discussion has a number of components. Barbara Moran's keynote address provides a pathway through the voluminous literature on lead- ership and discusses current concepts relevant to those seeking to pro- vide leadership in libraries. The papers by Herb White and Mike Marchant present different viewpoints on decision-making, and so set the stage for a wide-ranging discussion of how leadership and decision- making can co-exist within an organization. This discussion then branches out into a number of specific areas of decision-making. Rick Rubin, and Nancy Bolt, discuss different focuses for leadership and decision-making in libraries. How can librarians provide leadership, and engage in appropriate decision- making, in personnel matters, and in long-range planning? Finally, the paper by Tom Eadie addresses the environment in which leadership and decision-making occur. Labor management relations 2 INTRODUCTION and collegiality both constrain the choices we can make in organizing for leadership and decision-making. Similarly, leadership and decision- making frequently occur in a collaborative environment, in which the preferences of one organization must be weighed against those of another. There are no simple answers to the issues raised here. If there were, we could have published the answers in a how-to-do-it manual rather than bringing together the participants to debate the issues. It is our hope that the discussion will lead the reader to think deeply and creatively about how their libraries are organized, and that this process will lead to more effective types of library organization that will facilitate the leader- ship and decision-making so desperately needed by libraries. BryceL. Allen TernyL. Weech Editors *In addition to the papers presented in this volume, the conference included a session byJ. Brett Sutton, Assistant Professor, GSLIS, University of Illinois, Urbana- Champaign, andJoseph F. Porac, Associate Professor, College of Commerce and Business Administration, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign on "New Technology and Change in Organizations." Robert Wedgeworth, University Librarian, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, also presented a session on "Collaborative Decision-Making on National Library and Information Issues." The contributions of these individuals to the conference is gratefully acknowledged by the editors. LEARNING ABOUT LEADERSHIP: WHAT WORKS IN MODERN ORGANIZATIONS Barbara B. Moran INTRODUCTION Of all the hazy and confounding areas in social psychology, leadership theory undoubtedly contends for top nomination. And, ironically, probably more has been written and less is known about leadership than about any other topic in the behavioral sciences. Always, it seems, the concept of leadership eludes us or turns up in another form to taunt us again with its slipperiness and complexity. (Bennis, 1959, pp. 259-260) It is commonly believed that we are suffering from a "leadership crisis" in our society. We are dissatisfied with our leaders and confused about the type of leadership we want. In sectors as diverse as the federal gov- ernment, higher education, and librarianship, the questions are the same. Where are the leaders we need, and why do so many promising individu- als fail to live up to our expectations once they assume leadership posi- tions? James MacGregor Burns (1984), one of this country's most astute schol- ars of leadership, begins his book, The Power to Lead, with a description of the inauguration of a new president: After years of witnessing government in the hands often of well- intentioned mediocrities or outright scoundrels, here was a man of fine ethical standards, with a kind of sunny morality. After years of drift and deadlock and delay in government, here was a man of proved competence, tough, demanding, clearheaded ... who had come from "nowhere" to win the Democratic presidential nomination and then knock off an incumbent President. (p. 25) Burns (1984), of course, was writing about President Jimmy Carter, a leader who initially was viewed with immense expectations but who, four years later, left office "amid almost universal judgment that his Adminis- tration had been largely a failure" (p. 28). It is discouraging to see the same pattern seemingly repeating itself with President Clinton, whose entrance into office was accompanied by such high hopes on the part of many citizens, but whose tenure thus far has not lived up to the, perhaps unrealistic, expectations associated with it. Frank Rich (1993) recently described our country's "disillusioned mood as it lowers its expectations BarbaraB. Moran for a golden boy who did become President. America, so maniacally high with hope in the weeks surrounding the Inauguration, has since suffered its own psychic crash landing" (p. 42). Those "crash landings" occur too frequently today. It is puzzling, be- cause as a nation we profess to be seeking leadership, but almost as soon as someone assumes a leadership position, once the leader is anointed, we begin to look for evidence that he or she is failing. At times, it seems as though we delight in tearing down our leaders, in exposing the clay feet. We look for faults and question the individual's judgments and ac- tions. Small wonder then that we are quickly disillusioned. There are few national leaders who inspire us anymore. In fact, there are probably more that offend us than excite us. And, even more dis- tressing, there are a growing number of Americans who look up to no one, who doubt that leadership can exist. They are the extreme cynics- the ones who have bumper stickers reading, "Don't Vote-It Will Only Encourage Them" (Bennis, 1989, p. xi). Never before does it seem that leaders have been held in lower regard. We often blame the media for destroying our faith in leadership, but regardless of the cause, people in leadership positions today are viewed with great