Tag Archives: inclusion

Inclusion is a VERB

4 Aug

What a couple of weeks it’s been! The Leadership Institute for Academic Librarians (LIAL) at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education was a learning experience the likes of which I’ve not encountered in some time. Gallos & Bolman’s Four Frames of Leadership, Immunity Mapping, Stakeholder Mapping, case studies galore, deep discussions on authentic leadership, organizational cultures that foster inclusion and engagement, culturally responsive leadership, decoding bias… and so much more. I had an amazing discussion group throughout the week that helped me work through my case study that I brought with me. I met colleagues from all over the world. I had instructors with such passion for teaching. It was such an amazing time. I left feeling more energized and enthusiastic for my work than I can remember.

THEN I had three fantastic days this week attending a workshop at FSCI 2023 on logic models. I came away from this experience with the beginnings of a plan for my department to help the university be prepared for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy 2022 memorandum “Ensuring Free, Immediate, and Equitable Access to Federally Funded Research”, aka The Nelson Memo. And I learned about the cool tool Easy Retro. I think my team is going to love using it in our department planning!

And today I returned to my normal programming and spent a good part of the day engaged in a very interesting request from our Vice Provost for Research. I was stumped on part of it, but thanks to the community brain trust that is the Medical Library Association Scholarly Communications Caucus, I got a few great tips – one in particular that proved very helpful. So I learned something new today even without taking a class. Hah!

As I mentioned in the first paragraph, inclusion was a big theme at LIAL. It’s a big theme in libraries, in academia, in society right now, as it should be. We are very much focused on purposefully creating places and organizations where everyone feels a part, where everyone feels valued. I like to think I operate in this manner most of the time, but I learned tools and tricks to help me continue the work to be better here, because we all can always be better.

But here is where I’m frustrated. In a couple of my work roles (meaning my job roles and professional organization roles), I continue to hear the call for inclusion. People are still feeling left out. And so changes are made in how we do things and how we engage others. We reduce the barriers to make it easier for voices to be heard. We communicate in lots of different ways so that people won’t miss out. We say, “Please be a part of ___.” And crickets. Crickets, I tell you. I’m frustrated when we work so hard to be inclusive and yet no one seems to want to participate. Not even those who have been (again, rightly) calling for us to be inclusive. I am stumped by this.

And so I’ve come to believe that inclusion is a verb. It requires action by everyone. It requires accountability by all. If you want a seat at the table, a voice in the conversation, recognition for your work, or acknowledgement of your history, you need to take ownership of it and bring it on. When the welcoming table is set, it’s an invitation to join in. Please do.

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Back to School

14 Jul

A week from Sunday, I’m off to attend the Leadership Institute for Academic Librarians at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education. It’s been a minute since I’ve immersed myself in such intense thinking and learning. The pre-program work alone has my mind racing with ideas. Others I know who’ve attended have found it worthwhile and I’m really looking forward to the experience.

One of those pre-program assignments is to write my leadership story. The framework for this story is “embodied authentic leadership practice”, in particular how this leadership theory fits with my own understanding and beliefs of leadership in academic libraries. I’ll fully admit that all I know of authentic leadership practice so far is what I took from the assigned readings (see bibliography). I don’t doubt that I’ll learn more during the week of the in-person Institute, but for now, here’s where and how I think it fits for me:

It’s an interesting assignment in that I don’t particularly embrace the idea of embodied authentic leadership. In our pre-readings, I resonated with the thoughts and arguments of Mats Alvesson and Katja Einola in their discourse with William Gardner and Elizabeth Karam (Authentic leadership theory: The case for and against). I found it quite telling of myself and my beliefs that before I read the article I noted where the authors were each from and thought to myself, “Hmm, Texas and Sweden.” This immediately made me wonder about a North American bias to the concept of embodied authentic leadership and I was pleasantly surprised when this idea was indeed presented by the authors in the “against” column.

No doubt my beliefs and feelings on the topic arise from my background. Associating authentic leadership with the concepts of “servant leadership” and spiritual leadership (Ladkin & Taylor) takes me back to my first semester of seminary in 1986 when I read Henri Nouwen’s “The Wounded Healer”, a book that at the time was already 15+ years old. I get a bit put off by theorists who imply that there is something new about expressing one’s true self in leadership. The idea has been around for centuries. But more, I don’t believe that it fits as a theory or construct, per se, for how to practice leadership. At least not in libraries. In my opinion, having a vocational calling in the spiritual sense is altogether different than assuming a leadership role in a library. The former certainly comes with the expectation of giving all of oneself to that “higher calling”, the latter, I argue, not so much.

I do believe the proponents of authentic leadership are correct in stating that it is a journey, something one aspires towards, to put in the hard work that’s needed to really come to know and accept and utilize one’s “true self” in leadership. It seems to me that the goal of authentic leadership that’s proposed is merging work selves and non-work selves (and any other selves) into one “Self” – this one truly authentic expression of who you are. I find such to be wholly appropriate in psychology, in therapy, in practices that are rooted in helping an individual develop in a positive manner (as they have defined it). But the troubles with bringing these ideas to the practice of leadership, in my opinion, are multiple.

First, the expectation exists that everyone in leadership will wish to be on this journey, that they’ll want to put in the work, that it’s some innate aspect of effective leaders that they’ve bought into this. And I don’t. I believe more in the philosophy of Annie Savoy in the film, Bull Durham, i.e., “The world is made for people who aren’t cursed with self-awareness.” It’s a nice idea – a nice ideal – to believe that the world is bent towards those who think deeply, who dig deeply into themselves and others, always seeking something abstractly defined as “the best.” But reality seems more like Annie’s world, to me. By and large, I believe people seem fairly happy not knowing themselves at that level. Maybe that’s a bit cynical on my part, but I feel it’s much more rooted in the reality of human nature and less in what strikes me as akin to pop psychology.

Secondly, authentic leadership seems to assume morality – a system of judging what’s right and wrong when it comes to authentic. “Authentic” is implied as better. As pointed out in the readings and in any observation of life, the world is full of some authentic bad apples. But claiming someone is a “bad apple” is, in and of itself, a judgement. I could be an authentic jerk (as noted in one reading). If I lead out of this authentic self, is that best? 

Finally, I am not trained as a therapist. At least not when it comes to being a library leader. I fear that espousing the authentic self, as I understand it from the readings, steps on what can become some treacherous ground. I do not always want those that I lead to see me in such a vulnerable state, NOT because I don’t mind being vulnerable but because it opens up the idea that it’s okay to be fully open and honest – to be one’s full self – at all times at work. I do not believe this is best, nor do I wish to work in such a setting. I don’t particularly care for the blurring of all lines. I prefer boundaries. And I know from experience that my staff appreciate boundaries, too. I have respect for that.

(As an aside, I think the idea of Hillary Clinton’s tears making her authentic is really a glaring example of sexism in our society, particularly as it relates to women in leadership. Ladkin & Taylor article.)

In reflecting on how COVID reshaped work, I feel there are many positives that DO align with some of what’s sought in the authentic leadership model. I think we recognize and value flexibility more than ever before. I think we have greater trust in one another, at least in the sense that we are accountable without always being physically seen as much. I know that working in a medical school, I have a greater understanding of health disparities, thanks to the experience of watching library workers be among the last on campus to get vaccinated. Each of these have made me more patient, more aware, and more empathetic. (Though in all honesty, I like to believe I’ve always been a pretty empathetic person, hence that career as a clergyperson.)

Last thoughts regarding inclusive leadership: I believe that everyone has a voice and that everyone has an expectation to share their voice, if they wish to fully partake in a community, in this case a library staff. I believe it is upon the leadership to ensure that we develop, maintain, and promote an environment in which everyone feels safe to use their voice. To be included. That said, I believe their also needs to be an understanding and awareness that everyone’s voice is not always equal. I think it’s the tension that rises from this last point that we struggle with most as we work towards building inclusive workplaces. There is a hierarchy in an academic library and in a medical school. It’s naïve to operate as if there isn’t. The fact that we can be heard while also accepting that being heard won’t always mean we get our way … that’s something we all must work through. And it doesn’t necessarily mean that a workplace isn’t inclusive, just because it doesn’t work the way we wish that it would.

One last, unrelated (but not) aspect about me that I’m sure informs my beliefs and actions regarding diversity, equity, and inclusion is that I grew up in an integrated south in the 1960s and 70s. I had teachers of color throughout elementary school, junior high, high school. I had principals – people in leadership roles, people of authority – who were black and brown. I played sports and participated in clubs side-by-side with white and black and brown classmates. I was not blind to aspects of segregation that were in my town (swim clubs, neighborhoods, churches), but my experiences in school heightened my awareness – more my questioning – of why things were the way they were. It never made sense. I struggle with this still today. I truly struggle with wondering how we seem to have gone so far backwards – moving ever faster in that direction today when it comes to women’s’ rights and the LGBTQ community. I know that all of this filters into how I choose to lead and how I think about leadership, not only at work but in other areas of my life.

I appreciated this assignment very much and I look forward to learning more soon.

Bibliography

Boekhorst, J. A. (2015). The Role of Authentic Leadership in Fostering Workplace Inclusion: A Social Information Processing Perspective. Human Resources Management, 54(2), 241-264. https://doi.org/10.1002/hrm.21669 

Gardner, W. L., Karam, E. P., Alvesson, M., & Einola, K. (2021). Authentic leadership theory: The case for and against. The Leadership Quarterly, 32(6), 1-25. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2021.101495

Ladkin, D., & Taylor, S. (2010). Enacting the ‘true self’: Towards a theory of embodied authentic leadership. The Leadership Quarterly, 21(1), 64-74. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2009.10.005

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What Goes Around, Comes Around…

13 Oct

At this time last year, meaning the month of October, I was feeling like a real world traveler, spanning the globe from Massachusetts to DC to Edinburgh and Stirling, Scotland, taking in a trio of really thought-provoking meetings in some wonderful venues. It was something and I vowed to myself that I would do my best to do the same, i.e. travel to an international conference, every year for the rest of my professional days. Taking part in conferences and meetings with people from other parts of the world opened my eyes – and my mind – to a whole host of new perspectives. I was inspired.

Well, here we are, a year later – surely one of the strangest years I could imagine – and the same conferences are all taking place. They’re still international in scope and the content is terrific, but alas, like everything else these days, I’m attending them via a screen; zooming in from my home or my office. And like everything else these days, it’s just missing something for me.

All that said, I’m grateful to be well, grateful to be working, and grateful that I have the means to keep on going. I know that too many people all over the world lack this good fortune right now.

But back to conferencing, one thing I enjoy most about attending a conference is feeling that charge of excitement and enthusiasm that comes with hearing intellectually stimulating stuff. I find myself writing down a dozen ideas for research studies. I come away with a stack of readings. I think, “Why the heck didn’t I get that PhD?”

Well, I didn’t because I thought that, at 39, I was too old to pursue such. I talked myself out of it. And let’s just say that coming up on 20 years hence, I’m not talking myself into it now. BUT, reflecting on a number of the talks and and research presentations that I’ve taken in over last week (NIH Bibliometrics and Assessment Symposium) and this (Transforming Research 2020), I realized something fascinating. At least to me. I realized that way back in 2002, when I had a question about a certain pattern that I observed in exercise physiology research and publications, and I followed it up with an independent study … by golly, I was doing bibliometric analysis!

I’ve always tied this experience to ending up earning a library science degree and pursuing my current career, but only within the past couple of weeks have I put together the pieces and seen (1) how much they truly were aligned and (2) how research continues on in the area. So here’s what happened:

As a grad student at Ithaca College, working on my MS in exercise physiology, I attended a regional meeting of the American College of Sports Medicine. At the meeting, a grad student (female) presented her research that observed the affect of a particular supplement on a group of subjects performing a particular physical training task. After she finished, an established faculty member (older, white, male) asked her about the subjects of her study. In short, her subject pool had consisted of only females. He questioned her on the legitimacy of generalizing any findings of a study that had not included males and said any study using women needed to specifically state that it was a study on women.

Next up, a grad student (male) presented his research that observed the affect of a particular supplement on a group of subjects performing a particular physical training task. His subject pool contained only males. I bet you’re ahead of me in guessing that, well, he didn’t get the same question regarding the generalization of his findings, nor how he titled his research.

And this happened again. And again. I looked through the program and took note of this oddity, and first chance I got, I asked my mentor, “What the hell is up with that?!” Thus was the seed for my independent study, “Current trends in exercise science research: A feminist cultural studies analysis.” I went to the library, went to the stacks, pulled 20 years worth of volumes of several prominent exercise science journals off the shelves, and began taking note of every title of every study looking at the affects of some intervention on training outcomes. (No Scopus or Web of Science, friends. I’m talking bound journals, paper, and pencil. This took awhile!)

[As an aside, my thesis topic also looked at sex differences, but related to factors of muscle fatigue, not words.]

Fast forward 20 years and I’m sitting in conferences attended by biomedical researchers, publishers, bibliometrics and research assessment practitioners, and librarians and here are some of the titles of studies authored and/or cited by the speakers so far:

Plus, the topic of the affects on COVID-19 on the female workforce in research and medicine, well that’s already targeted for study. Stay tuned for the many studies that will surely be published on this.

So what does all of this mean? Well, personally, I find it really interesting that a little spark that I noticed so long ago, didn’t just find only me. I think had I followed it up with that doctorate, I’d likely be doing this very research today with some of these same people. And honestly, I had no idea that was a possibility. It’s nice to know people are still studying and writing about the topic. It’s also frustrating and infuriating that it goes on, but… that’s another post.

All in all, the topic of diversity, equity, and inclusion is being discussed an awful lot today (rightly so), but it’s been a topic for a long, long time. As one speaker said, “We know a lot about what we know. But where is the change?” That’s the real question, isn’t it? And it’s where the real work is. Time to get busy.

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