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.