Core beliefs of extraordinary bosses

It's been so long since I've worked for a bad boss that I tend not to think a lot about what makes someone a good person for whom to work. (Although I hear plenty of complaints from family members about their own supervisors, so bad bosses do exist.)

My guess is that most of us have learned how to boss other people by experiencing being bossed ourselves - for good or for ill. (The term "boss" has such a perjorative slant - couldn't we use supervisor, manager, team leader???.)

Anyway this online article caught my eye: 8 Core Beliefs of Extraordinary Bosses by Geoffrey James, Inc. April 23, 2012 (via Stephen's Lighthouse). While James is writing about the business world, these beliefs seem especially applicable to school library and technology departments. James's words are in bold; mine aren't. Extraordinary bosses believe:

1. Business is an ecosystem, not a battlefield. Library and technology leaders understand this. Our departments support teachers, administrators, and students. Our own success can only be measured by how successful we make others. We need to be fighting for those we serve, not against other departments.
2. A company is a community, not a machine. Again our success is dependent on the relationships we build with others. Whether it is with our knowledgeable and skilled technicians or our teaching staff or administrators in other departments, our codependency makes us a community. And while we would like to operate sometimes with machine-like rules for everyone, education seems to be a place where effectiveness lies in making exceptions.
3. Management is service, not control. This is tough for many of us technology folks whose primary goals are security, adequacy, and reliablity. The more control we have over our applications, networks, and equipment, the better we seem to meet these goals. But we too often lose sight that security, adequacy, and reliability are simply a means to providing good service - and too much control can be counterproductive if the technology is not easy-to-use, convenient, and available.
4. My employees are my peers, not my children. There are two ways of looking at treating people like children. Of course, treating anyone "like a child" is demeaning (even to children). But as more and more of the people who work for me are of my own children's ages, I often think about how I would like my own children treated by their bosses. I hope they have supervisors who help them grow, support their learning, enable their advancement, encourage them to tackle ever bigger responsibilities, and to find ways to make a difference. How much does a good mentor really differ from a good parent?
5. Motivation comes from vision, not from fear. For those of us in libraries and educational technology, this one is pretty easy. The vision has to be no more complex than remembering what we do is always centered on helping kids learn. Period. As much as I would like to put the fear of god into a couple of people around here now and then, I have no clue about how to be scary.
6. Change equals growth, not pain. Change has been constant and unavoidable in both libraries and technology for twenty years. If the new is painful to you and the members of your department instead of it being exciting, you are all a bunch of masochists and  have stayed in the field too long. Go work at Wal-mart.
7. Technology offers empowerment, not automation. Good managers understand that making decisions makes a job interesting and fulfilling. All technologies ought to help people solve problems and make good decisions and then carry them out. (Librarians, this is why information literacy skills are the most important things that technology can help teach!) If a computer can do your job - it should.
8. Work should be fun, not mere toil. If the boss doesn't look forward to coming to work everyday (and I mean every day), how one expect others in the department to look forward to heading to the office? 

Core beliefs or attributes you appreciate in extraordinary bosses?

 

Related posts:

• What tech skills does a school CTO need?
• Changing role of the CTO
• The secret to successful supervision

The final TOC for Indispensable Librarian 2nd Ed

The manuscript goes in tomorrow. All 104,236 words, 16 images, and 310 pages, the first draft of The Indispensable Librarian, 2nd edition is done - on deadline. Whew. Here is the final Table of Contents. I'm afraid at this point I have no idea of the publishing timeline, only that it will be an ABC/CLIO imprint.

Thank you, readers, for your comments and suggestions as bits and piece appear on the blog. 

Now what will I do with all my spare time?

Indispensable Librarian, 2nd edition

Table of Contents 

Author biography

Acknowledgements and dedication

Foreword: You have to be mad by Joyce Kasman Valenza

Introduction to the second edition

Chapter One: The Roles and Missions of the Librarian

• The Virtual Librarian
• What are the challenges facing our profession?
• Seven ways for librarians remain relevant in a ubiquitous information environment full of NetGen learners
• Do school librarians have "enduring values?"
• Sample mission statement and the elevator speech
• Why are you in the profession anyway?
• Sidebar: The Mankato Transition: A case study

Chapter Two: Program Assessment

• Creating long-term change
• How will you show your program is impacting student achievement?
• Why assess your program?
• The formal library assessment
• On-going assessments
• Context and focus
• A 12 point library program checklist for principals
• Sidebar: Linking libraries and reading achievement

Chapter Three: Planning

• Critical elements of a library/technology plan
• The planning process
• Using goal setting to help in professional evaluations
• Sidebar: Twenty plus years of working with advisory groups - what I've learned.

Chapter Four: Communications and Advocacy

• What are the components of an effective communications program?
• Speaking where people are listening
• Can a good library program be a marketing tool for your school?
• What are the basic rules of effective advocacy?
• Sidebar: What is transparency and why is it critical to the librarian’s success?

Chapter Five: Managing Others and Collaboration

• Working with the library support staff.
• Working with the technology department
• Working with the teaching staff: the fundamentals of successful collaboration
• Sidebar: What is the secret to successful supervision?

Chapter Six: Managing Digital Resources

• You know you are a 21^st century librarian when…
• How has the library’s role changed regarding with information and books going digital?
• What is cloud computing and how can librarians take advantage of it?
• Sidebar: E-books and libraries

Chapter Seven: Curriculum

• What is the library program’s role in developing “21^st century skills?”
• What are the best student skill standards? What do they have in common?
• What are the components of a meaningful information literacy and technology curriculum?
• Building an information/technology literacy curriculum
• Elements of projects that motivate
• What new skills are needed to survive the information jungle?
• How can librarians support the development of “right brain” skills?
• Sidebar: What does a library for a postliterate society look like?

Chapter Eight: Budget

• Budgeting as a library ethic
• Ten strategies of effective library budgeters
• Good purchasing strategies
• Sidebar: Weed

Chapter Nine: Facilities

• Why should I go to the library when the library will come to me?
• The fundamentals of good school library design and why they are still important
• 10 common design pitfalls and how to avoid them
• Sidebar: Are there schools that don’t need a library?

Chapter Ten: Digital Intellectual Freedom

• Freedom to learn
• Maintaining intellectual freedom in a filtered world
•  Best practices for meeting CIPA requirements
• Seven myths about Internet filters
• Sidebar: Getting websites unblocked

Chapter Eleven: The Library’s Role in Ethics

• How has technology impacted ethical behavior?
• Knowing right from wrong in the digital age
• Sidebar: Guidelines for educators using social and educational networking sites 

Chapter Twelve: Copyright and Creative Commons

• Make a copyright u-turn and other audacious statements about copyright
• Creative Commons and why it should be more commonly understood
• Sidebar: Why students (and adults) satisfice

Chapter Thirteen: Staff Development

• The why, what, and who of staff development in technology and librarian’s role 
• Just in case, just in time, just in part - differentiated instruction in technology for teachers
• Sidebar: Top ten ways to increase your technology skills and knowledge (and the secret to being perceived as a technology guru)

Chapter Fourteen: Surviving Professional Transitions

• You know you’re a 21st century librarian when…
• Personal Learning Networks – why you can’t afford to wait for the next conference
• Finding the time
• When your job is on the line...
• Sidebar: Prevention

Chapter Fifteen: Libraries and the Future

• A mindset list for librarians
• Miles’s library: A vision for school libraries
• Sidebar: Prognostications

Afterword: A Day of Ordinary Library Miracles

BFTP: The engagement filter

A weekend Blue Skunk "feature" will be a revision of an old post. I'm calling this BFTP: Blast from the Past. Original post June 28, 2007. We've been fighting the social networking battle for five years now? Good grief. 

From exhibit booth 3516 (If I remember) at NECC ISTE:

The Engagement Filter - NEW from RATFInc. 
(Reasonably Accurate Technology Filtering Incorporated)

Tired of your students learning rather than paying attention to you, the teacher?

Then get your school to install the Engagement Filter, guaranteed to take enough enjoyment out of online activities that students will no longer be tempted to use the school's computers or network.

You can block categories by the "types" below:

Our company updates its black list on a daily basis, identifying those sites that are shown to be more interactive than the adults in your school. 

Delay complete irrelevance before it is too late.

Act today and we'll throw in two tech categories of guaranteed student interest that have not yet been invented!

 I'm getting me one of these! I wonder if I install it at home, the LWW will pay more attention to me too?

My only concern is that some sites kids like will not be blocked. Any suggestion for things that need to be added to the filtered list?

What am I to do with kids who have phones with 3G or 4G access? Any way to filter the interesting stuff on those too?