The Coaching Librarian
Every other week, I share tips to help leaders build more empowered teams by developing a coaching approach to leadership. I'm a leadership & career development coach with a dozen years experience as an academic librarian, so the examples come from library work, but you don't have to be a librarian to learn something valuable!
Knock me down 9 times but I get up 10
Yes, yes I am starting today with an early Cardi B reference 😂 The hardest part of developing a coaching approach to leadership is that you're going to feel knocked down over and over, but you just have to keep resetting your intentions to try again tomorrow. One of the major challenges is that you can't expect everyone to just magically open up and engage in the way you're hoping for them to respond. You'll probably get at least some resistance from employees who have good reasons to not...
How can you use a coaching approach to make sure everyone on your team feels supported?
One of the big stories in the onslaught of bad news coming out of the US lately has been the systematic dismantling of DEIA. So we're no longer allowed to openly talk about equity and inclusion. OK. I've been in this long enough to remember when we discussed many of the targeted policy measures under the label of "affirmative action." The words we use change and our understanding of the scope of the work has expanded. But the fundamental work to move toward treating everyone more fairly...
How setting intentions can help you practice your coaching approach
Happy New Year! January always feels like a new beginning for me. When I was an academic librarian, this time of year meant starting a fresh new semester. And it meant starting to think about the annual self-evaluation I had to write as part of the regular review process - which included setting goals for the upcoming year. Now, it’s more about natural cycles for me. We just came out of the darkest days of the year, and every day is bringing a little more light into each day. Back in...
Using the Year Compass to chart your path forward
As the year draws to a close, I’m looking forward to some rest and rejuvenation. Whatever your plans are, I hope you have gentle holidays and space for reflection. In the last issue, I talked about reflecting on your accomplishments over the past year and setting meaningful goals. Today, I have another totally free tool to share with you: the Year Compass. You can download a fillable pdf to complete digitally or a version that’s formatted to print. This workbook includes questions to guide...
Reflecting on your accomplishments and setting meaningful goals
For many people, December is a time for wrapping up projects and reflecting on accomplishments. That reflection can help you identify what matters most to you. And you can use that clarity to shape your goals for the upcoming year. If you’re still in the thick of things and won’t be able to think about reflections until after the end of finals week, flag this email to come back to it later this month! Around this time last year, I was working with a coaching client who was in a bit of a...
How can coaching skills help you navigate holiday gatherings?
My regular every-two-weeks schedule says that I should be sending out a newsletter today, but this Thursday is Thanksgiving in the US. When I worked as a librarian in the US, I was either out-of-office or just mentally checked out for this whole week! So I'm "officially" skipping this week. I’ll be back next week with my regular content focused on applying a coaching approach to leading your team. But, I don't want to leave you hanging if you are paying attention! This week, my mind is on how...
How can you use coaching to help your team avoid burnout?
Burnout is on my mind this week. I tuned into the latest episode of the Surviving the Stacks podcast, and a lot of the conversation connected with the reasons I'm so invested in helping library leaders develop coaching skills. They discussed three key issues that influence workplace burnout, based on the scholarly literature: competence, relatedness, and autonomy. You can help your team with all three of these by developing a coaching approach. The way they use competence is more complex than...
How do you show up with a coaching mindset even when you're frustrated?
In case you missed it: be sure to grab 7 ways you can use coaching to build a more inclusive culture with your team (even in areas that are hostile to DEI efforts)! Maintaining a coaching mindset - being open, curious, and flexible - is the foundation for using a coaching approach to leadership. To be able to effectively help your team members find the useful lessons they can take away from a mistake or figure out some productive next steps in a tricky situation, you need to be able to tap...
How can Slow Librarianship help you build a coaching culture?
Have you heard about Slow Librarianship yet? I’ve come across it a few times over the past couple of months, and I’m thrilled to see this becoming a wider discussion in libraries. If you’re not already familiar with it, Slow Librarianship is an approach to library work that draws inspiration from the Slow Food movement, emphasizing thoughtful, deliberate, and human-centered practices in contrast to the fast-paced, “do more with less” norms that are all too common in libraries these days. Slow...
What should I do next?
This past Friday, 15 Aug, I celebrated the first anniversary of my last day as an academic librarian! 🎉 https://www.pexels.com/photo/cupcake-with-chocolate-icing-and-sparkler-2190381/ I’d like to invite you to celebrate with me - I'm offering a free coaching session to the first 5 people who reply to this email (limited to those who haven't had a free session before)! That’s not a sneaky way to get you on a video chat for a sales pitch… At least not directly! The best way to understand the...
Every other week, I share tips to help leaders build more empowered teams by developing a coaching approach to leadership. I'm a leadership & career development coach with a dozen years experience as an academic librarian, so the examples come from library work, but you don't have to be a librarian to learn something valuable!