- Email: [email protected]
Leading from the Middle of the Organization: An Examination of Shared Leadership in Academic Libraries
Leading from the Middle of the Organization: An Examination of Shared Leadership in Academic Libraries by Jon E. Cawthorne Available online 27 January 2010
Shared leadership theory recognizes leader influence throughout the organization, not just from the top down. This study explores how middle managers from 22 academic libraries in the Pacific West perceive their own agreement, participation and recognition of shared leadership. This survey and framework is the first to examine the extent shared leadership exists in academic libraries.
E
ffective leaders who manage complex organizations often rely on the skills and abilities of subordinates at all levels in making and carrying out decisions.1 By encouraging the involvement of subordinates in decision making, senior or top leaders practice shared leadership; such leadership is defined as the dynamic, interactive influence process involving more than just the downward influence on subordinates.2 Shared leadership is broadly distributed among a group of individuals instead of centralized in a single individual (e.g., the library director).3 Middle managers, those who work in the middle tier of management,4 are positioned to influence decision making. Unlike top leaders, they are close to individuals who perform technical and subject specialists' work. They report back to senior management about staff questions and concerns, as well as on the progress of frontline staff on the implementation of key strategic and organizational goals. This frontline empowerment also has the potential to enhance communication, coordination, and accountability through the middle of the organization; such empowerment often makes the difference in how well the desired change is achieved.5 Through the dynamic exchange between top leaders and middle managers, shared leadership can shape organizational culture and the extent to which organizations effectively accomplish their missions. It is also critical for those libraries that view themselves as team-based learning organizations and that “pursue service excellence at all levels and strive to nurture both a shared vision and set of values among staff that define the way we work together.”6 Shared leadership theory recognizes that as organizations change, individuals must also change if they are to understand and fulfill their role within libraries and to sustain the organizational progress in meeting its mission. Clearly, it is critical that libraries meet the key individual developmental challenges such as recognizing that middle managers are in positions of leadership in academic libraries.
PROBLEM STATEMENT
Jon E. Cawthorne, Interim Dean, San Diego State University, Library and Information Access and doctoral student, Managerial Leadership in the Information Professions, Simmons College, Boston, MA, USA.
Whether the libraries operate in a team-based or hierarchical topdown management environment, middle managers receive information from both top leaders and staff who report through them. Despite their involvement in key decisions that set policy or chart future directions, no study has investigated the extent to which middle managers participate in shared leadership and to which their libraries practice shared leadership. As academic libraries address change management through team building and strategic planning, there is a need to understand the extent to which middle managers believe they share decision making as leaders who implement the vision set by senior management.
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LITERATURE REVIEW The Emergence of Shared Leadership As shown in Appendix 1, the roots of shared leadership are evident in the so-called law of the situation.7 The exchange and sharing characteristics of shared leadership are also related to human relations and social systems.8 It was not until the 1950s that Peter F. Drucker described management in terms of participatory goal setting, which previews subordinates and superiors as jointly creating performance expectations, and which involves subordinates in the creation of organizational goals.9 For many years, leadership theorists and researchers focused primarily on the downward influence on subordinates by chief executive officers. By the mid-1990s, however, shared leadership began to appear in the literature as more theorists departed from merely viewing leadership as something imparted to followers by a leader from above. At the same time, authors developed models for shared leadership, and researchers began to test both the theory and the models as they stressed that leadership occurs at all levels of an organization.10,11 Theories related to shared leadership exist. These include coleadership, which concerns the division of leadership between two people, primarily between the mentor and protégé;12 emergent leadership, which focuses on how a group member emerges and maintains a leadership position;13 mutual leadership, which explains how leadership surfaces from peers;14 and self-leadership, which asserts that given certain conditions employees can lead themselves.15 To the extent that subordinates are knowledgeable about organizational goals and have appropriate skill levels and motivation to engage in productive activity, self-leadership might alleviate the need for close supervision, direction, and control.16 Self-leadership is an extremely important component of shared leadership because it recognizes that such leadership becomes a substitute for downward, hierarchical leadership. Self-leadership lays the foundations for a focus on theories and qualities related to followership. “Good followers,” according to Kelly, “are people who have the vision to see both the forest and the trees, the social capacity to work well with others, the strength of character to flourish without heroic status, the moral and psychological balance to pursue personal and corporate goals at no cost to either, and, above all, the desire to participate in a team effort for the accomplishment of some greater purpose.”17 Jay A. Conger and Rabindra N. Kanungo build on the concept of good followers by examining empowerment.18 With its emphasis on the decentralization of power away from the top of the organization, the theory of empowerment is a major step in the development of shared leadership because it acknowledges a real departure from the focus on the top leader within a hierarchical organizational structure. The rationale behind empowering individual line workers is that they become positioned to make decisions that affect their work.19 Self-leadership and followership are about empowering leadership at all levels of the organization. Both shared cognition20,21,22 and connective leadership23 further the concept of empowerment. Shared cognition examines how members of a team think similarly about internal and external organizational issues, whereas connective leadership examines how well leaders make connections to others both inside and outside the team.24 Both self and empowering leadership theories contribute to shared leadership. Appendix 2 indicates the differences between shared leadership and individual/command control forms of leadership. Where shared leadership provides for lateral, decentralized decision making, individual command and control leaders are distinguished by hierarchical centralized top-down approaches to decision making. Shared leadership emphasizes the participation of individuals at all levels of the organization no matter the organizational structure. As top leaders develop ways to share and distribute decision making, organizational structures change.25 As many organizations reduce the number of levels of hierarchical
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structures, shared leadership has the potential to expand traditional models of leadership to create consensus-driven decision making.
“As many organizations reduce the number of levels of hierarchical structures, shared leadership has the potential to expand traditional models of leadership to create consensus-driven decision making.”
Relevant Research Shared leadership has been studied in various settings, including an administrative team and governance models in churches;26,27 a defense contracting organization,28 a nonprofit,29 self-managed,30 and social networks among teams,31 higher education,32,33 technology companies,34 and government.35 Dennis M. Cashman examines how transformational vertical leadership affects shared leadership within group dynamics in technology organizations.36 Michael Shane Wood examined how empowered team behaviors result in the likely participation of shared leadership.37 Troy V. Mumford, Michael A. Campion, and Frederick P. Morgeson define skills through a shared leadership strataplex, which details skill requirements for people throughout levels of the organization.38 The focus on skills for each level of organizations leads to a more specific examination of concepts related to middle managers. Sandra Jackson provides a framework for shared leadership that depicts the skills and abilities of shared leaders and the level of shared participation in decision making.39 Shared leadership, as she shows, consists of four components, each of which contains subcomponents: (1) Accountability, which consists of owning the consequences that are inherent in one's role, internally defined, and cannot be delegated. (2) Equity, which includes mutual recognition of the unique contribution of each individual. (3) Partnership, which involves a mutually respectful and trusting relationship among individuals who share a common goal. Partnership is based on honest communication. (4) Ownership, which centers on a personal commitment that an individual makes to work outcomes of their work and to the mission of the organization.40 Using these four components, Jackson views effective shared leadership from both managerial and staff perspectives. Complementing her research, the scholarly literature of the social sciences identifies a number of structural and political characteristics that may comprise barriers to shared leadership. These include team attitudes, turf battles, individual career goals, manager versus leader roles, corporate culture, change quotient, risk, current and future performance, and current and future external environment.41 The literature of library and information science (LIS) suggests that academic libraries build empowerment, accountability, and a decisionmaking partnership among staff at all levels.42 Internationally, Jenny Raubenheimer and Helene Müller tested the attitudes of staff in an academic library in Pretoria, South Africa.43 They found that, when staff were involved in planning, they were more likely to engage in secondary leadership roles that supported the work performed and organizational change than were staff who were not involved in that role.
METHODOLOGY The study population consists of the twenty-two academic libraries situated in four-year public master's-level institutions44 within the
Pacific West, which the U.S. Bureau of the Census defines as including the states of Alaska, California, Hawaii, Oregon, and Washington (http://www.census.gov/geo/www/us_regdiv.pdf; see Appendix 3 for a list of the institutions selected). To locate middle manager in those libraries, the investigator checked their Web sites for contact information. When those Web sites did not provide the necessary information, he called the administrative office. This process produced the names of 145 middle managers. In October 2007, he contacted the director of each library as well as attended a Council of Library Director's (COLD) meeting in Palm Springs, CA;45 the purpose of both efforts was to confirm or correct the names of potential participants, as well as to explain the project. The initial pool of 145 was thereby reduced to 115. Each middle manager was contacted via e-mail and informed about the research project. That e-mail message began with the subject line, “participation request for shared leadership survey,” and followed the procedures that Lars Kaczmirek lays out.46 That message contained a formal letter inviting participation in the survey.47 That letter was linked to a Webbased survey. The survey, developed using SurveyMonkey.com, was divided into three distinctive parts. First, ten statements covered the extent to which shared leadership exists within academic libraries. Participants were asked to indicate their agreement to these statements on an eight-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 (strongly agree) to 7 (strongly disagree); 8 refers to a response of no opinion. Second, the next set of questions follow the same scale and deal with the extent to which shared leadership exists in their libraries. In the second set of questions, participants respond to Jackson's framework. Lastly, the final section asks middle managers for their own definition of shared leadership. Following the last part of the survey, participants elect to identify their institution. The survey was subjected to a three-part pretest. First, members of the investigator's doctoral student cohort reviewed the questions and ensured that the survey sufficiently addressed the research questions and Jackson framework. Second, two members of the Council of Library Directors reviewed the survey for questions, organization and clarity of the entire survey. Based on their comments, the instrument was modified. Lastly, computing professionals at San Diego State University (SDSU) advised how to reduce the numbers of survey requests sent directly to e-mail junk folders. In other words, by distributing the survey in random groups smaller than thirty, the email messages passed through campus spam blocker programs. Finally, to ensure informed consent and protect individual privacy and confidentiality applied, the research gained approval from the institutional review boards (IRB) at Simmons College and SDSU's Graduate and Research Affairs. The IRB at SDSU raised several
questions about survey design. After approval was granted, the investigator began contacting the participants in November 2007. Three e-mail reminders were sent between December 2007 and January 2008. Several of the early responders contacted the investigator directly and asked to be removed from future reminder e-mails. The investigator also contacted library directors at non-responding institutions to gain wider participation. A final e-mail requesting participation was sent in April 2008 to remaining participants.
FINDINGS Of the 115 middle managers invited to participate, 77 completed the survey for a response rate of 66.9%. Three participants elected not to identify their institution, and four middle managers did not respond to the questions about the Jackson framework. The participation rate per institution did not follow any particular pattern based on the size of the institution. The two smallest institutions (California State University [CSU], East Bay; and Western Oregon University) accounted for 10.8% and 8.1%, respectively, of the total responses. Middle managers from four institutions (CSU, Sonoma; San Jose State University; CSU, Sacramento; and Eastern Washington) each participated at 6.8%. Participants from another five institutions (University of Alaska, Anchorage; Southern Oregon University; Western Washington University; CSU, Fresno; and CSU, Dominguez Hills) each comprise 5.4% of all respondents.48 In summary, the response distribution pattern from these eleven libraries accounted for half of the responses. The other libraries, some included very larger academic libraries, provided responses from anywhere between one to three participants.
“Among the first set of statements, which all respondents answered, there is the highest level of agreement—the most occurrence of strongly agree—for “accountable for the decision within the scope of my responsibilities” (mean,1.52), followed by “share information with senior library administration” (mean, 1.71).”
Shared Leadership within Academic Libraries Among the first set of statements, which all respondents answered, there is the highest level of agreement–the most occurrence of strongly agree–for “accountable for the decision within
Figure 1 Sharing Information Between Middle Managers and Top Leaders (mean score).
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the scope of my responsibilities” (mean, 1.52), followed by “share information with senior library administration” (mean, 1.71). The statement about “Ideas presented at all levels of staff in the library are equally considered” generates the highest mean (3.65), which means that there was more disagreement about the extent to which middle managers perceive it to exist. The statements in Fig. 1 investigate whether or not information was shared between middle managers and top leaders. In the third statement, the mean (1.71) indicates respondents agree they share information with library administration. Responses to the final statement, receiving information from senior library administration, reflect a mean of 2.25, which shows middle managers agree, but not strongly so, they receive information from top leaders. The next statement, which addresses how middle managers perceive their involvement in hiring decisions, has a mean of 3.00. The first statement covered in the figure about how library resources are allocated has a higher mean (3.31); responses cover the entire range of choices in the Likert scale. Turning to Fig. 2, a shared leadership environment relies on accepting ideas from all levels of the organization. Respondents mostly strongly agree (65%) that they are accountable within the scope of their responsibilities. There is almost equal agreement between middle managers who influence decisions outside of their area of responsibility agreement.
The statement about “ideas presented at all levels of staff are equally considered” received more responses in the somewhat agree and agree category (25% and 22%) which indicates that middle managers tend not to agree with this statement. Fig. 2a further breaks down this singular statement. Looking at Fig. 3, respondants rate their engagement with diagnosing the problems in the library at a mean of 2.60. In the next statement, “Opinions of library employees count regarding a strategic direction for the library,” they indicate a mean of 2.95. The definition of shared leadership as “an influence process that includes people at all levels of the organization instead of just focusing on the top-leader and communication downward” receives a mean of 3.25. Respondents perceive the extent to which their libraries practice shared leadership at a mean of 3.25; although slightly more than one-quarter of respondents strongly agree, this mean represents a spread distribution across the Likert scale.
Jackson's Framework Jackson's framework describes how shared leadership exists in four areas: accountability, equity, partnership, and ownership (see Fig. 4). Ownership receives the lowest mean (2.62), which reflects some disagreement. The respondents see ownership as a personal commitment that an individual makes to meeting work outcomes and achieving the mission of the organization. Regarding equity, the mean
Figure 2 Sharing Information, Accountability, Influence, and Collaboration (Percentages in agreement; n = number of responses).
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Figure 3 Participation in Strategic Planning, Problem Solving, and Shared Leadership (mean scores).
is 2.68. Forty-four (59.4) percent of the respondents either strongly agree or agree that equity plays a role in shared leadership. The remaining 26 middle managers are somewhat less certain about equity. For the concept of partnership, the mean is also 2.68. A substantial number of respondents (21 = 28.4%) disagree with Jackson's definition of partnership. On accountability, the mean is 2.77. Part of shared leadership is associated with owning up to the consequences inherent in one's role; middle managers (40 = 54%) either strongly agree or agree that this is a part of accountability. The other respondents either have no opinion or somewhat agree.
Respondent Characterization of Shared Leadership When asked if other concepts come to mind when they envision shared leadership, nine respondents (12%) answered in the affirmative. They mostly link shared leadership to communication, learning, and collaboration. One respondent notes, “I would emphasize open and effective communications more than the [survey] statements do.” The importance of communication among all levels of the organization is mentioned in five of the nine comments. A second respondent says, “Shared leadership requires continual communication among participants, yet this is a very difficult aspect of that governance;” and a third comments that, even in the context of shared leadership, the top leader already made a decision: “In general, there is little correlation between
what we say we want to do and what we actually do. Also, when we meet to make decisions, sometimes the dean has already made one (the decision) and he sees our job as that of supporting his decision, no matter how much it diverges from our mission, stated goals, previous plans, or benefit to the patron.
DISCUSSION Middle managers agree on some elements of shared leadership more than others. They strongly believe that they share information with top leaders and that they are accountable for their decisions. To a lesser degree, they believe they receive information from top leaders. Despite receiving less information than they give, there is a sense of accountability for the decisions that fall within their scope of responsibilities. Middle managers make decisions and influence the work that subordinates perform even when they lack communication from top leaders. Clearly, maintaining effective communication is important in a shared leadership environment and in an environment of effective decision making and implementation of those decisions. The existence of shared leadership also requires the realization that senior leaders may not possess sufficient and relevant information to make highly effective decisions in a fast-changing and complex world. In reality, middle managers may be more highly informed and in far better position to provide leadership and influence the accomplishment of organizational goals.49
Figure 4 Jackson's Shared Leadership Framework (mean scores).
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There is disagreement that middle managers are fully engaged in the problems that the library faces and that the opinions of library employees count in setting and implementing the overall strategic direction of the library. As well, senior management may believe that the library practices shared leadership and more than half of the middle managers agree; however, a number of middle managers disagree. These findings suggest potential challenges to the dynamic exchange of information that is characteristic of shared leadership.
Future Research Since shared leadership deals with the dynamics of influence within levels of an organization, future research might examine the extent to which individuals (and teams) and their ideas influence the setting and implementation of organizational goals. Future research might investigate how staff at levels below middle management perceives their involvement in making and implementing key decisions, as well as the linkage between shared leadership and followership. Nonetheless, equal influence among organization members is not necessarily desirable even if it could be attained. Thus, the question arises: does (and should) shared leadership lend itself to equal influence among all levels of an academic library? This study reveals a perception among middle managers in academic libraries that not all ideas for change are treated equally. Yet as higher education and academic libraries continue to function in an environment of fast paced change, shared leadership theory suggests that organizations cannot wait for leadership decisions to be pushed up to the top for action. Future research may investigate the sense of ownership defined by Jackson as the personal commitment an individual makes to the outcomes of their work and to the mission of the organization. Another factor related to ideas for change may require deeper investigation into the communication between the all levels of the organization.
“as higher education and academic libraries continue to function in an environment of fast paced change, shared leadership theory suggests that organizations cannot wait for leadership decisions to be pushed up to the top for action.”
Finally, two areas of research relate to the dynamics of communication between levels of the organization and accountability. Such research may illuminate the extent to which top and middle managers capture and use the best ideas from all levels of the organization. If ideas that come from all levels of the organization are not considered equally, then to what extent are all decisions credible to bring about change in academic libraries? Additional research can illuminate the relationship between shared leadership and accountability at different levels of the organization. Matching Jackson's framework to the first part of the survey indicates that the mean scores for the Jackson's four components tend to be higher than the means for the statements in the first part. In fact, there might not be that much disagreement among respondents; the problem may be in the definitions presented for the framework. For instance, respondents react differently to “I am accountable for the decisions within the scope of my responsibility” (see Fig. 2) as opposed to accountability “consisting of owning the consequences inherent on one's role, internally defined and cannot be delegated” (Jackson's framework). Clearly, both parts of the survey should be better aligned for reliability purposes and to probe more fully the application of Jackson's framework.
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CONCLUSION As academic libraries move into the future, embracing shared leadership may better position middle managers to influence strategic planning and prepare them for new and more challenging leadership positions. As academic libraries change, they need to foster a new, more flexible, inclusive leadership approaches that recognizes ideas and leadership ability of staff at all levels. Allowing more people to bring their expertise within a shared leadership process becomes important in a world in which organizations change from hierarchical models to team work and knowledge work. No matter how the academic library is organized in the future, examining middle manager's perceptions of shared leadership lays the ground work for a deeper understanding of the dynamics and possibilities for organizational leadership direction and capacity.
APPENDIX A. SUPPLEMENTARY DATA Supplementary data associated with this article can be found, in the online version, at doi:10.1016/j.acalib.2010.01.006.
NOTES
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REFERENCES
1. Debora G. Ancona, Thomas W. Malone, Wanda J. Orlikowski, & Peter M. Senge, “In praise of the incomplete leader,” Harvard Business Review 85 (2) (2007): 92–100. 2. Craig L. Pearce & Jay A. Conger, Shared Leadership: Reframing the Hows and Whys of Leadership Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2003. 3. Ibid, p. 3. 4. Middle managers an in include lower executives and employees who manage supervisors overseeing day-to-day operations. 5. Jonathan F. Cox, Craig L. Pearce, and Monica L. Perry, “Toward a Model of Shared Leadership and Distributed Influence in the Innovation Process: How Shared Leadership Can Enhance New Product Development, Team Dynamics, and Effectiveness,” In Shared Leadership, pp. 48-68. 6. Sue Baughman, Johnnie Love, and Maggie Saponaro, “Shared Leadership Development in the UM Libraries (Working Paper 7, 2005). Available at http://www.lib.umd.edu/groups/learning/ WP7.html (accessed November 29, 2008). 7. Mary Parker Follett, Creative Experience (New York: Longmans, Green, 1924). 8. Chester I. Barnard, The Functions of the Executive (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1938). 9. Peter F. Drucker, The Essential Drucker New York: Harper-ollins, 2001. 10. Bruce Avolio, Nagaraj Sivasubramaniam, William D. Murray, Don Jung, and John Garger, “Assessing Shared Leadership: Development and Preliminary Validation of a Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire,” in Shared Leadership, pp. 143-72. 11. Pearce, and Conger, Shared Leadership. 12. A. Solomon, F.J. Loeffer, & G.H. Frank, “An Analysis of Co-therapist Interaction in Group Psychotherapy,” International Journal of Group Psychotherapy 3 (1953): 171–180. 13. Edwin Paul Hollander, “Some Effects of Perceived Status on Responses to Innovative Behavior,” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 63 (1961): 247–250. 14. David G. Bowers & Stanley E. Seashore, “Predicting Organizational Effectiveness with a Four Factor Theory of Leadership,” Administrative Science Quarterly 11 (1966): 238–263. 15. Charles C. Manz & Henry P. Sims, “Self-management as a Substitute for Leadership: A Social Learning Perspective,” Academy of Management Review 5 (1980): 361–367. 16. Pearce and Conger, Shared Leadership. 17. Robert E. Kelly, “In Praise of Followers,” Harvard Business Review 66 (6) (1988): 141–148.
18. Jay A. Conger & Rabindra N. Kanungo, “The Empowerment Process: Integrating Theory and Practice,” The Academy of Management Review 13 (1988): 639–652. 19. Pearce, and Conger, Shared Leadership. 20. Janis A. Cannon-Bowers, Eduardo Salas, & Sharolyn Converse, “Shared Mental Models in Expert Team Decision Making,” in: N.J. Castellan Jr. (Ed.), “Individual and Group Decision Making,” Erlbaum, Hillside, NJ, 1993, pp. 221–243. 21. Michael D. Ensley & Craig L. Pearce, “Shared Cognition in Top Management Teams: Implications for New Venture Performance,” Journal of Organizational Behavior 22 (2001): 145–160. 22. Richard Klimoski & Susan Mohammed, “Team Mental Model: Construct or Metaphor,” Journal of Management 20 (1994): 404–437. 23. Jean Lipman-Blumen, The Connective Edge (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1966). 24. Pearce, and Conger, Shared leadership. 25. Michelle C. Bligh, Craig L. Pearce, & Jeffery C. Kohles, “The Importance of Self- and Shared Leadership in Team Based Knowledge Work,” Journal of Managerial Psychology 21 (2006): 296–318. 26. Elizabeth Ann Broyles, Resistance to Change in Conservative, Hierarchical Religious Organizations: A Study of Roman Catholic Parishes Shifting from a Top-down to a Shared Leadership Governance Model. Ed.D. diss. (University of La Verne, 2007). Available from Dissertations & Theses: Full Text database (AAT 3290066). 27. Michael Shane Wood, The Effects of Shared Leadership on the Stress and Satisfaction Outcomes of Church Management Team Members. Ph.D. diss. (Regent University, 2005). Available from Dissertations & Theses: Full Text database (AAT 3162680). 28. Tova Olson Sanders, Collectivity and Influence: The Nature of Shared Leadership and Its Relationship with Team Learning Orientation, Vertical Leadership and Team Effectiveness. Ed.D. diss. (The George Washington University, 2006). Available from Dissertations & Theses: Full Text database (AAT 3237041). 29. Margaret Grogan, Developing Shared Leadership through Community Conversation. M.A. diss. (Royal Roads University, 2008). Available from Dissertations & Theses: Full Text database (AAT MR35551). 30. Joaquin Manuel Angles, The Impact of Shared Leadership on the Effectiveness of Self-managed Work Teams: A Phenomenological Study. D.M. diss. (University of Phoenix, 2007). Available from Dissertations & Theses: Full Text database (AAT 3277198). 31. Erika Engel Small, Shared Leadership: A Social Network Analysis. Ph. D. diss. (The University of Tennessee, 2007). Available from Dissertations & Theses: Full Text database (AAT 3286953). 32. H. J. Thompson, An Exploration of the Relationship between the Practice of Shared Leadership and Board Effectiveness within the Rural Boards of the Public Colleges of Alberta. Ed.D. diss. (University of Calgary, 2008). Available from Dissertations & Theses: Full Text database (AAT NR38047). 33. Christopher Stephen Elliott, Leadership without Bosses: Shared Leadership in a Mmulti Organizational Context. Ph.D. diss. (University of Alberta (Canada), 1993). Available from Dissertations & Theses: Full Text database (AAT NN88327).
34. Dennis M. Cashman, The Effects of Vertical Leadership, Team Demographics, and Group Potency upon Shared Leadership Emergence within Technical Organizations. Ph.D. diss. (Capella University, 2008). Available from Dissertations & Theses: Full Text database (AAT 3320543). 35. Sanghan Choi, A Conceptual Model of the Emergence of Shared Leadership: The Effects of Organizational Structure, Culture, and Context Variables on Public Employee Perceptions of Leadership. Ph. D. diss. (Florida Atlantic University, 2006). Available from Dissertations & Theses: Full Text database (AAT 3222084). 36. Cashman, The Effects of Vertical Leadership, Team Demographics, and Group Potency upon Shared Leadership Emergence within Technical Organizations. 37. Michael Shane Wood, The Effects of Shared Leadership on the Stress and Satisfaction Outcomes of Church Management Team Members, Ph.D. diss. (Regent University, 2005). Available from Dissertations & Theses: Full Text database (AAT 3162680). 38. Troy V. Mumford, Michael A. Campion, & Frederick P. Morgeson, “The Leadership Skills Strataplex: Leadership Skill Requirements Across Organizational Levels,” Leadership Quarterly 18 (2007): 154–166. 39. Sandra Jackson, “A Qualitative Evaluation of the Shared Leadership Barriers, Drivers and Recommendations,” Journal of Management in Medicine 14 (3-4) (2000): 166–178. 40. Ibid, p. 169. 41. Timothy Porter-O'Grady, Marylin A. Hawkins, & Marsha L. Parker, Whole-systems Shared Governance (Gaithersburg, MD: Aspen, 1997). 42. Brinley Franklin, “Beyond Shared Leadership: The Importance of Learning in a Shared Leadership Model,” College & Research Libraries News 60 (1999): 22–23. 43. Jenny Raubenheimer and Helene Müller, “Rethinking Leadership Roles for the Academic Library: The Attitudes of Library Staff towards a Leadership-driven Academic Information Service Enterprise” (2006). Available at http://etd.unisa.ac.za/ETD-db/theses/available/etd-04052005-111943/unrestricted/Thesis.PDF (accessed October 28, 2008). 44. According to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, these are institutions that award fifty master's degrees and fewer than twenty doctoral degrees per year. 45. COLD serves as advisory group to the Associate Vice Provost for Information and Technology within the California State University (CSU) Chancellor's office. Sixteen of the twenty-two institutions are members of the CSU System. 46. Lars Kaczmirek, Web Surveys: A Brief Guide on Usability and Implementation Issues (2005). Available at http://www.websm. org (accessed September 30, 2007). 47. With the proliferation of spam e-mails, the subject line text turned out to influence whether or not participants ultimately received the e-mail. 48. At least one person from each institution completed the survey. 49. Pearce, and Conger, Shared Leadership.
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Shared leadership theory recognizes leader influence throughout the organization, not just from the top down. This study explores how middle managers from 22 academic libraries in the Pacific West perceive their own agreement, participation and recognition of shared leadership. This survey and framework is the first to examine the extent shared leadership exists in academic libraries.
E
ffective leaders who manage complex organizations often rely on the skills and abilities of subordinates at all levels in making and carrying out decisions.1 By encouraging the involvement of subordinates in decision making, senior or top leaders practice shared leadership; such leadership is defined as the dynamic, interactive influence process involving more than just the downward influence on subordinates.2 Shared leadership is broadly distributed among a group of individuals instead of centralized in a single individual (e.g., the library director).3 Middle managers, those who work in the middle tier of management,4 are positioned to influence decision making. Unlike top leaders, they are close to individuals who perform technical and subject specialists' work. They report back to senior management about staff questions and concerns, as well as on the progress of frontline staff on the implementation of key strategic and organizational goals. This frontline empowerment also has the potential to enhance communication, coordination, and accountability through the middle of the organization; such empowerment often makes the difference in how well the desired change is achieved.5 Through the dynamic exchange between top leaders and middle managers, shared leadership can shape organizational culture and the extent to which organizations effectively accomplish their missions. It is also critical for those libraries that view themselves as team-based learning organizations and that “pursue service excellence at all levels and strive to nurture both a shared vision and set of values among staff that define the way we work together.”6 Shared leadership theory recognizes that as organizations change, individuals must also change if they are to understand and fulfill their role within libraries and to sustain the organizational progress in meeting its mission. Clearly, it is critical that libraries meet the key individual developmental challenges such as recognizing that middle managers are in positions of leadership in academic libraries.
PROBLEM STATEMENT
Jon E. Cawthorne, Interim Dean, San Diego State University, Library and Information Access and doctoral student, Managerial Leadership in the Information Professions, Simmons College, Boston, MA, USA
Whether the libraries operate in a team-based or hierarchical topdown management environment, middle managers receive information from both top leaders and staff who report through them. Despite their involvement in key decisions that set policy or chart future directions, no study has investigated the extent to which middle managers participate in shared leadership and to which their libraries practice shared leadership. As academic libraries address change management through team building and strategic planning, there is a need to understand the extent to which middle managers believe they share decision making as leaders who implement the vision set by senior management.
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LITERATURE REVIEW The Emergence of Shared Leadership As shown in Appendix 1, the roots of shared leadership are evident in the so-called law of the situation.7 The exchange and sharing characteristics of shared leadership are also related to human relations and social systems.8 It was not until the 1950s that Peter F. Drucker described management in terms of participatory goal setting, which previews subordinates and superiors as jointly creating performance expectations, and which involves subordinates in the creation of organizational goals.9 For many years, leadership theorists and researchers focused primarily on the downward influence on subordinates by chief executive officers. By the mid-1990s, however, shared leadership began to appear in the literature as more theorists departed from merely viewing leadership as something imparted to followers by a leader from above. At the same time, authors developed models for shared leadership, and researchers began to test both the theory and the models as they stressed that leadership occurs at all levels of an organization.10,11 Theories related to shared leadership exist. These include coleadership, which concerns the division of leadership between two people, primarily between the mentor and protégé;12 emergent leadership, which focuses on how a group member emerges and maintains a leadership position;13 mutual leadership, which explains how leadership surfaces from peers;14 and self-leadership, which asserts that given certain conditions employees can lead themselves.15 To the extent that subordinates are knowledgeable about organizational goals and have appropriate skill levels and motivation to engage in productive activity, self-leadership might alleviate the need for close supervision, direction, and control.16 Self-leadership is an extremely important component of shared leadership because it recognizes that such leadership becomes a substitute for downward, hierarchical leadership. Self-leadership lays the foundations for a focus on theories and qualities related to followership. “Good followers,” according to Kelly, “are people who have the vision to see both the forest and the trees, the social capacity to work well with others, the strength of character to flourish without heroic status, the moral and psychological balance to pursue personal and corporate goals at no cost to either, and, above all, the desire to participate in a team effort for the accomplishment of some greater purpose.”17 Jay A. Conger and Rabindra N. Kanungo build on the concept of good followers by examining empowerment.18 With its emphasis on the decentralization of power away from the top of the organization, the theory of empowerment is a major step in the development of shared leadership because it acknowledges a real departure from the focus on the top leader within a hierarchical organizational structure. The rationale behind empowering individual line workers is that they become positioned to make decisions that affect their work.19 Self-leadership and followership are about empowering leadership at all levels of the organization. Both shared cognition20,21,22 and connective leadership23 further the concept of empowerment. Shared cognition examines how members of a team think similarly about internal and external organizational issues, whereas connective leadership examines how well leaders make connections to others both inside and outside the team.24 Both self and empowering leadership theories contribute to shared leadership. Appendix 2 indicates the differences between shared leadership and individual/command control forms of leadership. Where shared leadership provides for lateral, decentralized decision making, individual command and control leaders are distinguished by hierarchical centralized top-down approaches to decision making. Shared leadership emphasizes the participation of individuals at all levels of the organization no matter the organizational structure. As top leaders develop ways to share and distribute decision making, organizational structures change.25 As many organizations reduce the number of levels of hierarchical
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structures, shared leadership has the potential to expand traditional models of leadership to create consensus-driven decision making.
“As many organizations reduce the number of levels of hierarchical structures, shared leadership has the potential to expand traditional models of leadership to create consensus-driven decision making.”
Relevant Research Shared leadership has been studied in various settings, including an administrative team and governance models in churches;26,27 a defense contracting organization,28 a nonprofit,29 self-managed,30 and social networks among teams,31 higher education,32,33 technology companies,34 and government.35 Dennis M. Cashman examines how transformational vertical leadership affects shared leadership within group dynamics in technology organizations.36 Michael Shane Wood examined how empowered team behaviors result in the likely participation of shared leadership.37 Troy V. Mumford, Michael A. Campion, and Frederick P. Morgeson define skills through a shared leadership strataplex, which details skill requirements for people throughout levels of the organization.38 The focus on skills for each level of organizations leads to a more specific examination of concepts related to middle managers. Sandra Jackson provides a framework for shared leadership that depicts the skills and abilities of shared leaders and the level of shared participation in decision making.39 Shared leadership, as she shows, consists of four components, each of which contains subcomponents: (1) Accountability, which consists of owning the consequences that are inherent in one's role, internally defined, and cannot be delegated. (2) Equity, which includes mutual recognition of the unique contribution of each individual. (3) Partnership, which involves a mutually respectful and trusting relationship among individuals who share a common goal. Partnership is based on honest communication. (4) Ownership, which centers on a personal commitment that an individual makes to work outcomes of their work and to the mission of the organization.40 Using these four components, Jackson views effective shared leadership from both managerial and staff perspectives. Complementing her research, the scholarly literature of the social sciences identifies a number of structural and political characteristics that may comprise barriers to shared leadership. These include team attitudes, turf battles, individual career goals, manager versus leader roles, corporate culture, change quotient, risk, current and future performance, and current and future external environment.41 The literature of library and information science (LIS) suggests that academic libraries build empowerment, accountability, and a decisionmaking partnership among staff at all levels.42 Internationally, Jenny Raubenheimer and Helene Müller tested the attitudes of staff in an academic library in Pretoria, South Africa.43 They found that, when staff were involved in planning, they were more likely to engage in secondary leadership roles that supported the work performed and organizational change than were staff who were not involved in that role.
METHODOLOGY The study population consists of the twenty-two academic libraries situated in four-year public master's-level institutions44 within the
Pacific West, which the U.S. Bureau of the Census defines as including the states of Alaska, California, Hawaii, Oregon, and Washington (http://www.census.gov/geo/www/us_regdiv.pdf; see Appendix 3 for a list of the institutions selected). To locate middle manager in those libraries, the investigator checked their Web sites for contact information. When those Web sites did not provide the necessary information, he called the administrative office. This process produced the names of 145 middle managers. In October 2007, he contacted the director of each library as well as attended a Council of Library Director's (COLD) meeting in Palm Springs, CA;45 the purpose of both efforts was to confirm or correct the names of potential participants, as well as to explain the project. The initial pool of 145 was thereby reduced to 115. Each middle manager was contacted via e-mail and informed about the research project. That e-mail message began with the subject line, “participation request for shared leadership survey,” and followed the procedures that Lars Kaczmirek lays out.46 That message contained a formal letter inviting participation in the survey.47 That letter was linked to a Webbased survey. The survey, developed using SurveyMonkey.com, was divided into three distinctive parts. First, ten statements covered the extent to which shared leadership exists within academic libraries. Participants were asked to indicate their agreement to these statements on an eight-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 (strongly agree) to 7 (strongly disagree); 8 refers to a response of no opinion. Second, the next set of questions follow the same scale and deal with the extent to which shared leadership exists in their libraries. In the second set of questions, participants respond to Jackson's framework. Lastly, the final section asks middle managers for their own definition of shared leadership. Following the last part of the survey, participants elect to identify their institution. The survey was subjected to a three-part pretest. First, members of the investigator's doctoral student cohort reviewed the questions and ensured that the survey sufficiently addressed the research questions and Jackson framework. Second, two members of the Council of Library Directors reviewed the survey for questions, organization and clarity of the entire survey. Based on their comments, the instrument was modified. Lastly, computing professionals at San Diego State University (SDSU) advised how to reduce the numbers of survey requests sent directly to e-mail junk folders. In other words, by distributing the survey in random groups smaller than thirty, the email messages passed through campus spam blocker programs. Finally, to ensure informed consent and protect individual privacy and confidentiality applied, the research gained approval from the institutional review boards (IRB) at Simmons College and SDSU's Graduate and Research Affairs. The IRB at SDSU raised several
questions about survey design. After approval was granted, the investigator began contacting the participants in November 2007. Three e-mail reminders were sent between December 2007 and January 2008. Several of the early responders contacted the investigator directly and asked to be removed from future reminder e-mails. The investigator also contacted library directors at non-responding institutions to gain wider participation. A final e-mail requesting participation was sent in April 2008 to remaining participants.
FINDINGS Of the 115 middle managers invited to participate, 77 completed the survey for a response rate of 66.9%. Three participants elected not to identify their institution, and four middle managers did not respond to the questions about the Jackson framework. The participation rate per institution did not follow any particular pattern based on the size of the institution. The two smallest institutions (California State University [CSU], East Bay; and Western Oregon University) accounted for 10.8% and 8.1%, respectively, of the total responses. Middle managers from four institutions (CSU, Sonoma; San Jose State University; CSU, Sacramento; and Eastern Washington) each participated at 6.8%. Participants from another five institutions (University of Alaska, Anchorage; Southern Oregon University; Western Washington University; CSU, Fresno; and CSU, Dominguez Hills) each comprise 5.4% of all respondents.48 In summary, the response distribution pattern from these eleven libraries accounted for half of the responses. The other libraries, some included very larger academic libraries, provided responses from anywhere between one to three participants.
“Among the first set of statements, which all respondents answered, there is the highest level of agreement—the most occurrence of strongly agree—for “accountable for the decision within the scope of my responsibilities” (mean,1.52), followed by “share information with senior library administration” (mean, 1.71).”
Shared Leadership within Academic Libraries Among the first set of statements, which all respondents answered, there is the highest level of agreement–the most occurrence of strongly agree–for “accountable for the decision within
Figure 1 Sharing Information Between Middle Managers and Top Leaders (mean score).
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the scope of my responsibilities” (mean, 1.52), followed by “share information with senior library administration” (mean, 1.71). The statement about “Ideas presented at all levels of staff in the library are equally considered” generates the highest mean (3.65), which means that there was more disagreement about the extent to which middle managers perceive it to exist. The statements in Fig. 1 investigate whether or not information was shared between middle managers and top leaders. In the third statement, the mean (1.71) indicates respondents agree they share information with library administration. Responses to the final statement, receiving information from senior library administration, reflect a mean of 2.25, which shows middle managers agree, but not strongly so, they receive information from top leaders. The next statement, which addresses how middle managers perceive their involvement in hiring decisions, has a mean of 3.00. The first statement covered in the figure about how library resources are allocated has a higher mean (3.31); responses cover the entire range of choices in the Likert scale. Turning to Fig. 2, a shared leadership environment relies on accepting ideas from all levels of the organization. Respondents mostly strongly agree (65%) that they are accountable within the scope of their responsibilities. There is almost equal agreement between middle managers who influence decisions outside of their area of responsibility agreement.
The statement about “ideas presented at all levels of staff are equally considered” received more responses in the somewhat agree and agree category (25% and 22%) which indicates that middle managers tend not to agree with this statement. Fig. 2a further breaks down this singular statement. Looking at Fig. 3, respondants rate their engagement with diagnosing the problems in the library at a mean of 2.60. In the next statement, “Opinions of library employees count regarding a strategic direction for the library,” they indicate a mean of 2.95. The definition of shared leadership as “an influence process that includes people at all levels of the organization instead of just focusing on the top-leader and communication downward” receives a mean of 3.25. Respondents perceive the extent to which their libraries practice shared leadership at a mean of 3.25; although slightly more than one-quarter of respondents strongly agree, this mean represents a spread distribution across the Likert scale.
Jackson's Framework Jackson's framework describes how shared leadership exists in four areas: accountability, equity, partnership, and ownership (see Fig. 4). Ownership receives the lowest mean (2.62), which reflects some disagreement. The respondents see ownership as a personal commitment that an individual makes to meeting work outcomes and achieving the mission of the organization. Regarding equity, the mean
Figure 2 Sharing Information, Accountability, Influence, and Collaboration (Percentages in agreement; n = number of responses).
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Figure 3 Participation in Strategic Planning, Problem Solving, and Shared Leadership (mean scores).
is 2.68. Forty-four (59.4) percent of the respondents either strongly agree or agree that equity plays a role in shared leadership. The remaining 26 middle managers are somewhat less certain about equity. For the concept of partnership, the mean is also 2.68. A substantial number of respondents (21 = 28.4%) disagree with Jackson's definition of partnership. On accountability, the mean is 2.77. Part of shared leadership is associated with owning up to the consequences inherent in one's role; middle managers (40 = 54%) either strongly agree or agree that this is a part of accountability. The other respondents either have no opinion or somewhat agree.
Respondent Characterization of Shared Leadership When asked if other concepts come to mind when they envision shared leadership, nine respondents (12%) answered in the affirmative. They mostly link shared leadership to communication, learning, and collaboration. One respondent notes, “I would emphasize open and effective communications more than the [survey] statements do.” The importance of communication among all levels of the organization is mentioned in five of the nine comments. A second respondent says, “Shared leadership requires continual communication among participants, yet this is a very difficult aspect of that governance;” and a third comments that, even in the context of shared leadership, the top leader already made a decision: “In general, there is little correlation between
what we say we want to do and what we actually do. Also, when we meet to make decisions, sometimes the dean has already made one (the decision) and he sees our job as that of supporting his decision, no matter how much it diverges from our mission, stated goals, previous plans, or benefit to the patron.
DISCUSSION Middle managers agree on some elements of shared leadership more than others. They strongly believe that they share information with top leaders and that they are accountable for their decisions. To a lesser degree, they believe they receive information from top leaders. Despite receiving less information than they give, there is a sense of accountability for the decisions that fall within their scope of responsibilities. Middle managers make decisions and influence the work that subordinates perform even when they lack communication from top leaders. Clearly, maintaining effective communication is important in a shared leadership environment and in an environment of effective decision making and implementation of those decisions. The existence of shared leadership also requires the realization that senior leaders may not possess sufficient and relevant information to make highly effective decisions in a fast-changing and complex world. In reality, middle managers may be more highly informed and in far better position to provide leadership and influence the accomplishment of organizational goals.49
Figure 4 Jackson's Shared Leadership Framework (mean scores).
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There is disagreement that middle managers are fully engaged in the problems that the library faces and that the opinions of library employees count in setting and implementing the overall strategic direction of the library. As well, senior management may believe that the library practices shared leadership and more than half of the middle managers agree; however, a number of middle managers disagree. These findings suggest potential challenges to the dynamic exchange of information that is characteristic of shared leadership.
Future Research Since shared leadership deals with the dynamics of influence within levels of an organization, future research might examine the extent to which individuals (and teams) and their ideas influence the setting and implementation of organizational goals. Future research might investigate how staff at levels below middle management perceives their involvement in making and implementing key decisions, as well as the linkage between shared leadership and followership. Nonetheless, equal influence among organization members is not necessarily desirable even if it could be attained. Thus, the question arises: does (and should) shared leadership lend itself to equal influence among all levels of an academic library? This study reveals a perception among middle managers in academic libraries that not all ideas for change are treated equally. Yet as higher education and academic libraries continue to function in an environment of fast paced change, shared leadership theory suggests that organizations cannot wait for leadership decisions to be pushed up to the top for action. Future research may investigate the sense of ownership defined by Jackson as the personal commitment an individual makes to the outcomes of their work and to the mission of the organization. Another factor related to ideas for change may require deeper investigation into the communication between the all levels of the organization.
“as higher education and academic libraries continue to function in an environment of fast paced change, shared leadership theory suggests that organizations cannot wait for leadership decisions to be pushed up to the top for action.”
Finally, two areas of research relate to the dynamics of communication between levels of the organization and accountability. Such research may illuminate the extent to which top and middle managers capture and use the best ideas from all levels of the organization. If ideas that come from all levels of the organization are not considered equally, then to what extent are all decisions credible to bring about change in academic libraries? Additional research can illuminate the relationship between shared leadership and accountability at different levels of the organization. Matching Jackson's framework to the first part of the survey indicates that the mean scores for the Jackson's four components tend to be higher than the means for the statements in the first part. In fact, there might not be that much disagreement among respondents; the problem may be in the definitions presented for the framework. For instance, respondents react differently to “I am accountable for the decisions within the scope of my responsibility” (see Fig. 2) as opposed to accountability “consisting of owning the consequences inherent on one's role, internally defined and cannot be delegated” (Jackson's framework). Clearly, both parts of the survey should be better aligned for reliability purposes and to probe more fully the application of Jackson's framework.
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CONCLUSION As academic libraries move into the future, embracing shared leadership may better position middle managers to influence strategic planning and prepare them for new and more challenging leadership positions. As academic libraries change, they need to foster a new, more flexible, inclusive leadership approaches that recognizes ideas and leadership ability of staff at all levels. Allowing more people to bring their expertise within a shared leadership process becomes important in a world in which organizations change from hierarchical models to team work and knowledge work. No matter how the academic library is organized in the future, examining middle manager's perceptions of shared leadership lays the ground work for a deeper understanding of the dynamics and possibilities for organizational leadership direction and capacity.
APPENDIX A. SUPPLEMENTARY DATA Supplementary data associated with this article can be found, in the online version, at doi:10.1016/j.acalib.2010.01.006.
NOTES
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