Why Library Managers Suck

Photo by Icons8 Team on Unsplash

from Facebook:

Why is it that so many librarians get into management positions who happen to have horrible communication skills, who really shouldn’t be in management positions? I truly don’t get why there are just so many passive aggressive people with absolutely garbage people skills get to become managers, program coordinators, branch coordinators, etc. Why don’t more nice kind people who care about employee well being, diversity and inclusion rise the ranks? These are somewhat rhetorical questions but I just felt like posing these questions in here as I’m here reflecting about how many seriously bad managers I’ve had in library land.

Well, that’s a good question with a couple easy answers and then a correct answer.

Easy Answer 1: Peter Principle

First off, let’s do this one, which I hate. Not because of what it is, but because of its naming convention is a slap in the face of those of us named Peter. Seriously, I was the “Karen” of 1969 when the book explaining this whole thing came out.

In basic form, The Peter Principle says that people do a good job, get promoted, do a good job, get promoted, and what happens is, everyone gets promoted until they hit a point where they suck at their job. Then they don’t get promoted further. So what you end up with is an entire crew where everyone is one step above where they really should be, the point they were at when they stopped doing a good job.

This is an easy answer, but I don’t think it applies so much. In 1969, sure, but today it’s pretty uncommon to rise through the ranks via promotion, and instead you have to work towards the spot where you want to be, right? It’s not like the person sweeping the library floor today is going to be an executive in 15 years if he works hard enough. No, he’ll still be sweeping the floor unless he gets an advanced degree, probably some experience at another library, etc.

So while there’s seeming logic to the Peter Principle, it’s probably not relevant to today’s work environment, and we should come up with a new Peter Principle: Frustrated employees will write industry newsletters.

ahem.

Easy Answer 2: Only Assholes Become Managers

I mean, what are you, 5, you’re thinking this way? Gimme a break.

I guess it’s possible that some folks out there are power tripping on being a library manager, I’m sure those folks are out there. But I don’t think that’s the real problem, that handful of nutbars who are library managers for the prestige.

Real Answer: The Flawed Library Org Chart

Once you’re a librarian, you can’t really get “promoted” in most systems. They may have something like a “Librarian II” or other such thing, and 9 times out of 10, that’s a librarian job with some supervision thrown on top.

And there’s your answer: the only way to move up from most librarian jobs is to become a supervisor. Therefore, people who spent a lot of time building librarians skills and doing librarian duties, end up in positions that have NOTHING to do with their training and experience, other than it happens in the same sort of building.

Which is, honestly, incredibly stupid of us.

It’d be like working for a big company, you’re an accountant, and after being an accountant, you’re looking to move up. And the only way to do that is to become a member of the marketing department. You need a completely different set of skills, your job duties are wildly different, but for whatever reason, your company figures that if you’ve put in some time in the accounting department, you’re ready to be a marketer.

Doesn’t that sound stupid?

Just in case it doesn’t, let me lay out why it is:

• Talented marketers would have to go through years of accounting, which they might hate or suck at, and they may never become marketers as a result of not being very good at accounting.

• Your best accountants would move into marketing, which would mean your accounting department was always losing its best, most-experienced people, and those people who moved over may not like the job at all.

• Your assumption, that accounting skills are transferable to marketing, is really dumb.

The library system works the same way:

• Your best managers would have to go through years of librarianship, which they might not be great at or enjoy on any level, meaning they don’t succeed, meaning they never become managers.

• Your best librarians move into management, which means you’re losing your best, most experienced people to a different area, one that those librarians may not enjoy.

• Your assumption, that good librarians make good managers, is really dumb.

How Can This Be Fixed?

It can’t, not without all of us changing a little. But if I can change, you can change. Everybody can change!

Library People: We need to be open to people without as much library experience becoming library managers. We need to accept that a great manager can be a great manager in a variety of scenarios, it’s a transferable skill, and someone who did a damn good job managing a for-profit business might be an awesome library manager as well. I mean, we’ve seen cases of library people being terrible managers, so there’s no reason to think that good library skills are required to be a good manager. A good first step is separating out what librarians should do and what supervisors should do, and then passing those duties to the appropriate parties. This should leave everyone with PLENTY to do.

Library Admin: There need to be opportunities to advance and grow, opportunities for promotion, that involve librarians doing librarian shit, not becoming supervisors. Library pay is garbage, and it’s not right to make people choose whether to be able to afford to send their kids to college or to be in a role they’re well-suited to. When you force people to make that choice, they’ll pick their families every time, and I can’t blame them for planning to white-knuckle it for 10 years or so in order to provide.

HR: You need to make a good interview/screening process that ensures non-library folks who are applying for positions are well-suited to making the switch to the non-profit, library environment. You also need continuing ed or training that helps those folks better fit with the library environment. It can’t just be about making these outside hires, you have to help them after they’re in the door.

Library Systems: You need to be a little more flexible. You need to be open to, say, letting someone manage an internship program, a summer high school intern, or something on that level, give them a small bump in pay while they do so, and let them get a taste of supervision. Let them find out whether it’s for them. If your system is so rigid that people can’t get supervisory experience without being a full-time, dedicated supervisor, then you’re setting your supervisors up to suck.

Employees: Okay, harsh truth time: we need to be good at remembering that managers are also human people. They are often frustrated by some of the same things we are. They are often less powerful than we think. Sometimes, it’s frustrating because we bring something to a manager, and they don’t tell us what we want to hear or don’t proceed with things the way we’d like. And we have to accept that. I’m of course not talking about a patron spitting blood on you and then jamming out on a guitar shaped like a dead body (I guess your library has GWAR for patrons) and your manager shrugging and moving on, but minor grievances, that stuff of “So-and-So is screwing around at the desk instead of working full steam” stuff, some of that you have to let them deal with their way.

And sometimes, you have to pay attention to your manager doing a good job. Because they will do a good job sometimes, and it’s good to keep an eye out for that and build a realistic ratio in your head: for how many decisions my manager made that were terrible, how many good ones did they make?