Taking leadership development into your own hands: A perspective for academic librarians

As information professionals, all academic librarians are leaders. Besides official decision-makers at executive positions in libraries, librarians at all levels lead in a wide range of contexts to accomplish their professional goals and duties. Developing librarians' capacity to lead is crucial for libraries that direly need a competent workforce. For librarians as individuals, it is also of utmost significance; developing one's leadership capability can improve work performance, make one's career more fulfilling, and facilitate career advancement. However, it is not clear how academic librarians grow into effective leaders, and what librarians can do to drive themselves forward. This paper proposes three areas in which librarians should take action in order actively to develop their own leadership abilities: understanding leadership capacity, capturing workplace opportunities, seeking training and self-learning. Based on the findings of doctoral research, the author argues that these actions are essential if librarians want to take leadership development in their own hands through their lifelong career.