Second, perhaps less subtly, the OLMS will soon have a new director to lead it into the next era. During the last few years, many ARL libraries have asked us to assist them in moving into shared leadership environments. In some cases the library itself expresses this need directly, and in others the need becomes apparent through work such as organizational renewal, visioning, new decision-making systems, role definition, and other organizational development work. At the same time, libraries have fewer resources, both fiscal and human, to meet the new and increased needs. The pressures to innovate, to find better ways of doing things, and to deliver services that connect with user needs are all pointing to the need to redefine and expand the traditional roles of library staff members.
Shared leadership fosters an environment that responds in agile ways to newness.
It promotes a greater degree of creative and rational thought at the levels where it is needed. It enables all individuals in the organization to test their own assumptions and those of others rather than waiting for the ideas and decisions to be handed down through the hierarchy. True shared leadership can happen anywhere in an organization. What shared leadership means is that the organization places a higher degree of importance on the roles people assume than on the positions they hold. For example, whereas my position may tell me that I manage the circulation department, my role tells me that I am there to make sure that users are satisfied.