Dr. Albrecht Library 2.0 Blog: "Best Boss-Worst Boss Exercise" | "Team Success" Webinar

We've posted a new blog post from Dr. Steve Albrecht in our "Library Service, Safety, & Security" section of Library 2.0:

"The "Best Boss – Worst Boss" Exercise: Assessing Yourself as a Library Leader"

One way to think about how to be a better library leader is to think about who was a good leader for you. A useful exercise in improving your leadership skills... is to take a pen and a pad and make a list of the traits, behaviors, characteristics, and even eccentricities of the best bosses you ever worked for....

When I use this "Best Boss-Worst Boss" exercise in the basic HR/supervision classes I teach, I get quite a range of interesting replies. On the Best Boss list, the participants write traits like: great listener, mentored me, treated everyone fairly, used lots of praise, kept the group informed about issues, went to bat for us with senior management, gave out assignments fairly, taught me how to do my job better, gave me the freedom to learn and make mistakes, caught me doing things right, and was always available but didn’t micromanage me.

On the Worst Boss list, I often see comments like: alcoholic, liar, screamer, slept at his desk, stole money from me, timed my bathroom breaks, took credit for my ideas, couldn’t or didn’t want to communicate, was never satisfied with my work, never praised me or anyone else, never taught me anything, seemed bothered when I asked questions, didn’t make eye contact with me, threw us all down and blamed us in front of senior management, gone all the time, micromanaged me.

Read the rest here.

Dr. Albrecht's recent blog posts are available here, including: "Developing Financial Knowledge and Budget Skills: What Every Library Supervisor Needs to Know," "Puzzled About the Police Response in Your Library? Perhaps a Better Understanding of Their Unique Culture Will Help," "Safety and Security at the Jacksonville (FL) Library" (a 40-minute video interview with Chet Price, the Safety and Security Manager at the Jacksonville (FL) Library), Solving Conflicts Between Library Employees: A Tool For Getting Along When No One Wants to Get Along," "Is There Hidden Bias at Your Library?," "The Hidden Power of the Pages (Our Employees, Not Our Books)," "Forgiveness: How Libraries Can Host Programs on Restorative Practices - An Interview with Azim Khamisa," "Do Your Library Employees Have the “Spirit of Service?,” and "Library Civility: A Code for How We Treat Each Other." 

His recent podcasts episodes include "Are We Making It Too Hard to Hire Qualified Library People?," "Tools and Tips for Library Supervisors: Parts 1 & 2," "Stop Saying Calm Down," Spirit of Service," "Library Civility: A Code for How We Treat Each Other," "The Code of Quality Service," and "The Power of Surveys." You can listen directly on the site or you should also be able to access the podcast in SoundCloud here or in your own podcast app using the RSS feed here. Click here to let us know what topics you'd be particularly interested in having us cover in the Library 2.0 webinars, blog posts, and podcast series.  His 

While Dr. Albrecht's twice-monthly podcast and blog posts are available for free, as are our regular mini-conferences and all the conference recordings, we also offer a series of paid webinars and recordings with Dr. Albrecht which are available for individual or group viewing. More information is available here.

Coming up on Friday, October 29th:

Recordings Available:

DR. STEVE ALBRECHT

Since 2000, Dr. Steve Albrecht has trained thousands of library employees in 25+ states, live and online, in service, safety, and security. His programs are fast, entertaining, and provide tools that can be put to use immediately in the library workspace with all types of patrons. In 2015, the ALA published his book, Library Security: Better Communication, Safer Facilities. He is currently writing the sequel, The Safe Library: Keeping Staff and Patrons Secure in a Changing World.

Steve holds a doctoral degree in Business Administration (D.B.A.), an M.A. in Security Management, a B.A. in English, and a B.S. in Psychology. He is board-certified in HR, security management, employee coaching, and threat assessment.

He has written 24 books on business, security, and leadership topics. He lives with seven dogs, two cats, and three chickens.