Leadership: the Challenge for the Information Profession

There is an increasing interest in leadership in the library and information profession. During the last couple of years, there has been published several books on the topic in the USA, Great Britain and in Scandinavia. The authors characterise this book as a companion to their book Managing Information Services from 2004.

Each chapter states learning objectives and has a summary. There is a distribution of reflections points through the text and there are also ample review questions. Each chapter also has a list of challenges. The chapters also include case cameos based on interviews and finally, each chapter has references and lists for additional reading. The book also includes a useful index.

An indication of the content of the book emerges from the eight chapters' headlines:

1. 1.

   Context and challenges in leadership.

2. 2.

   Knowing yourself as a leader.

3. 3.

   Leadership in context.

4. 4.

   Change and innovation.

5. 5.

   Leading people.

6. 6.

   Setting direction and strategy.

7. 7.

   Leadership development.

8. 8.

   Influential leadership.

Chapter 1 sets the scene both as an introduction to the topics in the book and to the general leadership situation in a societal context. The chapter also presents some main results from previous research into leadership in the library and information profession.

In the second chapter, the authors discuss personality, types of personality, emotional intelligence and leadership styles.and the relationship between these. It is a huge topic and it is impossible to treat it in any detail in a chapter but the authors succeed to raise both pertinent questions concerning relationships and background and they also stimulate the readers' interest to follow up some of the literature mentioned. The chapter is a good introduction to the role of personality in an organisational context. However, it would have been beneficial with a discussion about the relationship between the different types of psychometric tests like preference tests, personality tests of emotional intelligence as it would have been beneficial with a discussion of the possible shortcomings of using the broad second‐factor tests like the “the big five” instead of discussing leadership in relation to the underlying traits, facets and other forms of detailed information contained in many of the tests.

The third chapter discusses some of the more prominent leadership models like contingent leadership, transformational versus transactional leadership and the leadership experience. One of the important points in the text is to get the leader, manager or leader to be to reflect on style, role and situation in context with tasks and staff related issues and the message comes very clear through. Leadership models offer an opportunity to contemplate role and style in context and this relationship can offer a very useful and practical insight for a manager or leader.

Change and innovation are hot topics. One of the many strengths of the fourth chapter is that the authors differentiate very clearly between the many forms of change and innovation. In the chapter, the main points from the previous chapters for example leadership styles and situational factors are integrated very cleverly in the typology of change processes. The chapter also deals with staff resistance. Although the organisational culture is mentioned as an important factor in relation to innovation and change it is unfortunately not an issue the authors had decided to explore further in this chapter.

The fifth chapter deals with leading people, probably the most important and difficult element in leadership practice. The chapter builds on the newest research in relationship building and it emphasise the importance of significance, community and excitement. It is very much about trust and recognition. Obviously, the chapter also deals with different aspects of motivation theories and the exercise of it in a practical context. Coaching, mentoring and facilitating are also included together with an emphasis on teams and team leadership. It is a very well – rounded chapter that introduces nearly all the important elements in a very engaging manner. The reviewer would have liked to see more reflections on the special topic about leading knowledge workers or professionals. It would have been interesting with a paragraph that emphasised the problems about leading people deeply rooted in professional traditions and norms having at least the same amount of intellectual background as their leaders.

The chapter on leading people is naturally followed by one concerned with strategy and direction. The focus is not on the planning process but on the process of getting things in motion and in the right direction. This implies that mission statements, values and visions are central in the chapter together we the organisational culture and the value system. As part of this work, the importance of the leader's ability to scan or conduct environmental scanning is emphasised in the text. Considering corporate images and reputation is also a central part of the strategic work. The complexities of these problems in terms of definitions and research orientations are clearly laid out and discussed. In this chapter, organisational culture is also discussed.

The seventh chapter on leadership development focuses on learning, learning styles and the learning organisation. It also highlights some leadership development programs from UK. It is a fruitful approach to start with the notion that people have very different learning styles and preferences. This applies to both managers and staff and it is a very useful reminder implementing CPD – programmes in the organisation.

The last chapter deals with the problem about getting things through internally and externally. It has a good summary of power, power bases, influence and helpful taxonomy concerning power and influence. In relation to power and influence, the authors are clearly of the sensible opinion that insight into the nature of it can help leaders to employ it in a situational and proper context.

It is not possible to grasp all topics and theoretical perspectives in a book this size. The choice of topics is relevant. One could argue that there are some omissions in the discussion of theoretical perspectives. These omissions are a result of the authors' approaches to organisations and management processes as mainly rational in character. It has the obvious consequence that research based on social constructionist approaches does not have a central place in the book. However, the layout of the book makes it easy to integrate these perspectives in a discussion if someone wants that.

Overall, it is a satisfying book. It does what is sets out to do, It is not a how to do it book. It is more concerned with reflections, perspectives and a presentation of different approaches to the research but especially to its potential usefulness in management and leadership. There is no right solutions presented in the text but different perspectives and approaches. This will make it a very good text in a module or course. The points for reflections throughout the text are good and the authors obviously have put a lot of thought into the whole lay out and idea of the book. Most of the case cameo do the job and illustrate many of the more theoretical perspectives in an engaging matter. The book is highly recommended.