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3/29/2007

Leadership Skills: Moving beyond Management

The parallels between libraries and newsrooms are many. This preview (on PressThink) of a new book from Michelle McLellan and Tim Porter, News, Improved: How America’s Newsrooms are Learning to Change, offers up some great thoughts on leadership, culture and change.

Here's short list of key skills shared by successful leaders:
  • Developing vision: Setting a course for the newsroom and keeping it on track (or, changing course as internal and external conditions change.)
  • Communication: Reinforcing direction through continual conversation. Saying over and over and over - in as many ways as possible - “this is where we’re going.”
  • Putting muscle behind the mouth: Backing up vision and communication with resources; putting enough money and enough bodies in place to give goals a fair chance of being achieved.
  • Letting go: Empowering staff, involving them in both strategic and operational decisions, such as setting direction, providing training, and implementing innovation.

Yup, this title is definitely going on my must read list.

4 comments:

www.yestoknow.com said...

What each of these skills have entwined in them implicitly is the energy/idea of ACTION. Yes, action! It (whatever "it" is) is happening NOW...what is needed to catch it, building upon it, borrow from it--is purely getting off of the let's-make-an-implemenation-plan-to-study-our-moves-before-we-make-them grid and ACT with what is moving around or attempting to move with us.
Here's to ACTION!
T. Tallent

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