Ten Things a Good Boss Knows

By Sally Decker Smith, Independent Library Consultant

Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this article previously appeared in the Illinois Library Association’s newsletter, ILA Reporter.

Once in a great while, if we’re lucky, we have time to lift our heads from the zillions of things that are competing for our time and attention RIGHT NOW, persistent and exhausting as 3 year olds, and actually think beyond the present moment to some of the larger issues in our libraries. Such a moment happened to me recently and led to a wonderful and far-ranging conversation with several people about being a good boss, regardless of whether you boss a handful of pages, a department or an entire library. We also pondered whether the same things apply outside the library world, but we decided it didn’t matter, because this is the world we’re in. Based on that conversation, I offer you:

Ten things a good boss knows:

1. That people are watching and listening. Your boss (or if you’re the Director, your Board, who is, after all, the boss of you), your staff, your customers—all are paying attention. The boss sets the tone for whatever piece of the organization they boss. How you dress, how you talk about your patrons or staff when they’re not around, how you talk about YOUR boss and your library’s policies and practices—it all gets noticed. So a good boss models excellent library deportment as often as is humanly possible. And vents at home.
2. That staff doesn’t have to love a boss, but they have to respect him or her. As a boss, you need to be respectable. Tell the truth. Keep your word. Follow the rules everyone else follows. Do your job, and be seen to do it.
3. How to motivate people—individually. The best boss/mentor I ever had, Elaine Burke, said that the essence of good management is making people feel good about what they’re doing. How to do that varies from person to person. Some people love public praise—others hate it. Some like new challenges as a reward—others would feel punished by getting a new project. Most library people are fond of chocolate, but not all. Very few staff members’ motivators will match the boss’, and that is not a character flaw. A good boss makes a point of learning who responds best to what encouragement, and provides as much of it as possible.
4. That the vast majority of people WANT to do a good job, whatever their job is. So if a staff member isn’t doing a good job, a good boss finds out why. Is it a training issue? Outside stressors? The first sign of a morale problem you didn’t realize you had? A good boss finds out what’s going on, and helps improve things if possible.
5. That performance evaluations should never be a surprise. It goes without saying that almost everyone hates performance evaluations, and is convinced that their library has the worst possible tool for doing them. But if do them you must, waiting for an annual appraisal to tell someone that their arriving late at the desk for the past 6 months has been an issue for the rest of the department is a bad idea. It deprives them of the opportunity to correct their behavior quickly, and makes the boss look ineffective to the rest of the department, who likely expected the problem to be dealt with as soon as it arose. Similarly, waiting 6 months for appraisal day to acknowledge a project well done isn’t very motivating. A good boss engages in ongoing conversations with her/his entire staff, and deals with the high and low points of staff behavior as they occur. Then the good stuff becomes part of the written evaluation, and the quickly resolved bad stuff doesn’t—because a good boss would never feel a need to document the fact that a staff member was late for her desk shift twice last July.
6. That staff members are people. A good boss gets to know staff personally – not in an intrusive way, and certainly not in ways that violate federal laws like HIPAA. Photos on desks can be a great indicator of what’s important to staff members besides their jobs. Who has 5 cats, or 9 grandchildren, or has been to the Alps, does not directly relate to anyone’s job—but it does connect boss and staff in their individual realities and provide an excellent starting point for a human-to-human relationship. Because odds are that sooner or later individual realities are going to intrude in the workplace (if your boss knows you have kids or your staff knows you have an elderly parent, the shock when one of them gets sick and you have to flee is much less), and a good boss wants to be supportive.
7. That sometimes being the boss means doing stuff you hate. Few people enjoy confrontation. But a boss who can’t discipline staff, or avoids going toe-to-toe with abusive patrons or hostile sales reps, is not doing what s/he was hired to do and is demonstrating a potentially exploitable weakness. (See item #1.) Nobody loves attending funerals, but a good boss does when appropriate. A good boss does the job, even the unpleasant parts.
8. Not to play favorites. We’re all human, and all humans are going to like some people better than others. Good bosses remember that this is the workplace, and favoritism has no place in it. (See item #1, again). Good bosses can find common ground with every staff member, regardless of employees’ hometowns, ethnicities, ages and sports affiliations.
9. What library policies are—or finds out quickly when something comes up. Does your sick leave policy allow staff to take a sick day to care for a family member? What if the family member who was sick was a cat? If your library reimburses mileage, what are the rules? If a staff member files a charge of racial harassment, what do you do? A good boss knows that policies are there to help everyone, and makes use of them for everyone.
10. That the boss is not always the smartest person in the room. Most library people are pretty smart. But nobody in the world is smart about everything. Depending on the topic or problem at hand, the person with the best idea for solving it could be the boss—but it just as easily could be a page who’s been with the library for fifteen years who has been paying attention, or a new hire in any position who sees things with fresh eyes. So a good boss listens to everyone’s input. And a corollary is that a good boss understands that people who are DOING a job often have a clearer view than the boss of what precisely the job entails. A good boss listens.

So there are ten things. Really there probably are a billion, but these will get you started, and perhaps will motivate you to begin an interesting conversation of your own.

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