volunteering | David Lee King

For the last 5 months, I’ve been part of a really cool local community leadership training program called Leadership Greater Topeka. And I just graduated!

What is Leadership Greater Topeka? Here’s a blurb from their website:

“The goals are to challenge and motivate traditional and non-traditional leaders by teaching adaptive leadership competencies through information, dialogue and hands-on experience, so participants are better prepared to strengthen and transform our community.”

So what did we do?

We met twice a month for full-day sessions. During those sessions, we learned about different leadership styles – both formal leadership and grassroots, community, volunteer-led leadership.

And we experienced Topeka. We visited a variety of organizations, including: Brown vs. the Board of Education, the county correctional facility, an architectural design firm, the local homeless shelter, the state capitol, the local public housing authority, a private jet company … and the library (’cause we are awesome that way).

We also heard from a variety of Topekans: entrepreneurs – really successful ones, and young entrepreneurs just starting out. We heard from lobbyists. We talked to prisoners and CEOs. We heard from a lot of people living in different parts of Topeka about how to make Topeka a better place.

I also met a bunch of really cool people (my 30-some classmates), took a strengths finder assessment, and discovered a lot about where I live that I didn’t know much about.

Because of this class, I have a better appreciation for Topeka, and have an understanding of ways I can help make it better. And learned some leadership skills that I can use at work and in my community.

So – very successful program!

If your community has a similar local leadership program … by all means, see how you can participate! It’s a great way to learn more about where you live, and how – especially for librarians – we can reach outside of our walls to help improve our community.

Nothing wrong with that!

OK – first for the apology. Some of you have told me I was dismissive in my last three post, especially when I used phrases like “up in your grill.”

I apologize for that. I really didn’t mean to sound dismissive – it was an attempt at humor while talking about a difficult subject. Honestly, it usually works – but it’s also not usually about such a sensitive issue. In this case, I failed miserably, and for that, I definitely apologize.

Now on to the next part of the post – While my views on names and pics on websites haven’t really changed, it does bring up an interesting issue I’m seeing. With the name/pic thing, some of you have asked for what you would see as a more reasonable “opt in” approach. Here’s where I fall on that – opt in/volunteering usually doesn’t work to it’s full potential. In Topeka, it’s either someone’s job or it isn’t – we’re not fans of the opt-in approach.

That said, of course we get staff buy-in for new projects first, which makes the whole “this is now part of your job” thing much easier.

But this opt-in idea … in many libraries, it’s not just for whatever personal info goes on the library’s website. It’s also for other job duties, even for services of the library, like programming, teaching classes, or IM reference. I’ve seen volunteering for posting to a blog or for maintaining the library’s Facebook presence.

I think a much better way to do things is for the library to set strategic goals, with staff input into those goals. After that, it’s management’s job to change/adapt the work to be done to meet those organizational priorities. There’s really no room for opt-in there.

See where I’m going with that? And I know – some of you strongly disagree with me about the name thing – I get that. But isn’t an opt-in approach in disagreeing, you’re also asking for a sort of wishy-washy implementation, from an organizational perspective?

Isn’t it better to have an either do it or don’t do it approach?