New Public Leadership

Making a Difference from Where We Sit

Douglas F. Morgan, Marcus D. Ingle, Craig W. Shinn

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9780429832918
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Most leadership literature stems from and focuses on the private sector, emphasizing personal qualities that bind leaders and followers to a shared purpose. As the authors of New Public Leadership argue, if these shared purposes do not build trust and legitimacy in public institutions, such traditional leadership tropes fall short of the standard demanded by contemporary public servants. For twenty years the authors have been developing a leadership education and training framework specifically designed to encourage public service professionals to 'lead from where they sit.' This book presents that comprehensive, integrated, and practical leadership framework, grounded in the uniqueness of public legal missions, culture, history and values.

The authors explore three key elements of leadership success: 1) an understanding of our public service context, including the history, the values and the institutions that comprise our leadership setting, 2) a set of tools designed to help leaders initiate collective action in wicked challenge settings, and 3) tools to support sound judgment, enabling leaders to do the right thing in the right circumstances for the right reasons. The authors further provide readers with a basic understanding of democratic institutions, encouraging them to work within and across multiple vertical and horizontal systems of authority. The book is organized into four sections, each of which is accompanied by a Master Case that provides the reader with an opportunity to apply the principles and leadership tools discussed in the text to practice. To further reinforce the practice-centered approach to leadership knowledge and skills, the authors have developed an accompanying EMERGE Leadership Handbook, complete with exercises, available online. Written specifically with the practicing public manager in mind, this book arms public servants with a large repertoire of leadership skills, designed to accommodate changing public values and conflicting priorities at all levels of our public organizations.

Part I

Foundations of Public Service Leadership

Master Case: The Angry Library Patron

Cheryl Miller was quietly working on her monthly administrative report to her supervisor as she was doing double duty at the library circulation desk when she was suddenly confronted by an angry father dragging a six-year-old child by the hand.

“Why is this kind of book on the children’s bookshelves? It clearly is unfit reading and should be removed immediately to another section of the library.”

This is not what you, the children’s librarian at a local branch library, need to hear at this time of day. Two of your clerks failed to appear for work today because of icy road conditions. That did not seem to stop the hoards of school kids who flocked to the library to pass the time of day. As a result of having to work without a break checking out books all day at the circulation desk, you will have to spend the evening completing your budget request for the next fiscal year in order to meet the 8:00 a.m. deadline set by your library director. As a professional children’s librarian, you deeply resent the endless administrative work that takes you away from what you most enjoy and have been best prepared to carry out: selecting and recommending good literature to children and their parents. You’ve been having second thoughts about whether you are really cut out for your current position. There is just too much time spent on keeping track of time cards, doing budget preparation, undertaking personnel evaluations and responding to patrons’ complaints. As you think about what it might be like to work in a larger library system where you could make more use of the knowledge and skills for which you have been trained, you are suddenly jolted into the reality of this training by a distraught parent who insists that he, not you, should make the choices about the suitability of children’s library selections.

You notice that the book in question is a copy of Maurice Sendak’s In the Night Kitchen, one of the most popular children’s stories of the past four decades and a 1971 Caldecott Honor Book. You’ve dealt with this kind of situation before, so you politely give your standardized response:

“We encourage parents to help their children select material that is appropriate to their interests and level of reading skill. Could I help you find a more suitable book?”

“That’s not the point. Both the nudity and bizarre images in this book make it unsuitable reading for any kids under 10. I want it removed from the children’s section of the collection to the juvenile section.”

As the line of patrons waiting to check out books begins to build, you see that your efforts are not going to prevail. So you resort to another technique that has usually worked in the past. You give the angry patron a form to put his objections in writing, which usually ends the matter.

That did not happen in this case. The following week the director of the library hands you the following letter from the angry patron, Charles Jones, with a request to draft a response that can be sent out under the library director’s signature. She gives you a sample letter that was mailed last week to another library patron who had a complaint about the appropriateness of having the The Joy of Gay Sex in the library collection.

Case Supporting Materials

Patron’s Complaint Form for Library Materials

Your Name: Charles Jones

Your Address: 2004 SW Happy Lane

Title: In the Night Kitchen

Author: Maurice Sendak

1 What do you find objectionable about the material? (Please be specific and cite pages, etc.)

Specifically, the nudity of male genitals and the fanciful and unrealistic images.

2 Why do you object to the material?

The nudity is not suitable for young children who will have access to this material in the library, especially when reading books unsupervised after school or on weekends.

Many of the images frighten young children and encourage an unhealthy attitude toward the unreal and supernatural.

3 Did you read the material in its entirety? Yes.

4 What do you believe is the theme of the material?

Magic is responsible for producing the things we most like in life, i.e., cake.

5 Do you think that people who want to read this material should be able to find it in the Library?

Not paid for by public tax dollars.

6 Do you think groups or other members of the community should have the right to keep you from having access to materials you want if they disapprove of your viewpoint?

Yes, especially when books like this are harmful to others.

7 Do you believe that parents have the right and responsibility for guiding their own children’s reading and deciding what limits, if any, they place upon it?

Yes, of course, but they need the help of professionals and adults; especially when they cannot be supervised by their parents.

8 Do you think other people should be able to tell you what you or your children should or should not read?

Yes. This happens all the time. Schools and libraries don’t have money to buy everything. They have to make choices. This is what we pay our professional librarians and teachers to do. Some parents either do not pay attention to what their children are reading or do not understand the kind of harm that some books can have on the development of their children. That is why we trust professionals like you to assist us.

9 Are you usually able to find what you want in the Library? If not, what materials would you like to be able to find in the Library collection?

Yes.

Date: June 26, 2002

Signature: Charles Jones

Happy Valley Regional Library

2404 Happy Valley Road

Happy Valley

LIBRARIES to be proud of!

Draft Letter to Library Patron

June 9, 1991

Dear ____________:

Thank you for expressing your opinion of the book The Joy of Gay Sex by Dr. Charles Silverstein and Edmund White. The Library’s Selection Review Committee has reviewed the material and the issues you have raised.

As you have noted, the book is an illustrated manual on adult male homosexual practices. You have asked that the book be removed from the collection because it provides information on sexual practices that may result in the transmission of the AIDS virus.

The Joy of Gay Sex was published prior to the identification of the AIDS virus and, therefore, does not mention it specifically. However, it does include a section on the dangers of sexually transmitted diseases and the importance of practicing “safe sex”. It also recommends frequent medical examinations. Finally, when discussing potentially dangerous sexual practices, the authors provide explicit information on possible harm.

The Joy of Gay Sex has been in the library’s collection for over ten years. It has been useful to a variety of people in our community. It continues to be an important book for male homosexuals. They recommend that it be read along with more recently published materials on the prevention of AIDS.

In addition, this book has frequently been used by people seeking information on male homosexual lifestyles. A recent article published in both the Conservative Review (February 1990) and the Journal of the American Family Association (April 1990) offers an example of how this book has been used by people who are not homosexuals. Writing in opposition to the homosexual rights movement, the author, Gary Bullert, highly recommends The Joy of Gay Sex as one of the two best sources on homosexual lifestyles.

American democracy is dependent upon a free flow of ideas, many of which conflict with each other. The library’s responsibility is to provide information on as many points of view as possible. For example, we believe that those groups who strongly oppose homosexuality, like the American Family Association, as well as practicing male homosexuals and people who wish to inform themselves in order to make up their own minds should all have access to information about homosexual lifestyles and practices in their public library: The Joy of Gay Sex continues to fill this need. We have, therefore, decided to retain it in the collection.

The Happy Valley Regional Library, which serves three counties and 13 cities, has a number of books on AIDS and we will continue to add new titles as they become available. If there are titles you would like to recommend, we will be happy to consider them for inclusion in the collection.

We appreciate the concern that prompted you to express your opinion. The issues you raised are serious.

We are pleased that you usually find what you want in the library.

Sincerely,

Constance Harmony

Library Director

Happy Valley Regional Library

2404 Happy Valley Road

Happy Valley

LIBRARIES to be proud of!

Case Analysis

What should Cheryl Miller do under the circumstances described above? She clearly has a variety of leadership opportunities, but which path she takes depends on how she “sizes up” and balances her multiple and maybe conflicting responsibilities. There is first her responsibility to ensure the efficient and effective delivery of the services outlined in the Happy Valley Regional Library’s organizational mission. Second, there are her personal values and an assessment of the degree to which they are in alignment with the mission of the organization and/or the application of that mission to the circumstances at hand. Third, she is a trained professional librarian with a specialized body of knowledge and skills. Additionally, in this case, there is a fourth responsibility: to act in a manner that is consistent with the larger structure of constitutional procedures and values within which one works.

As a member of a hierarchical organization Cheryl must necessarily consider the impact of her response on other standard operating procedures and on the efficiency of the organization as a whole. How can she write a response that can be used in other similar circumstances? How might her response encourage or discourage other similar communications from angry parents? How much time and energy should be spent on this assignment at the expense of other activities that will improve the quality and amount of service to patrons in the local community? Is Mr. Jones’s letter part of an organized campaign by a local organization to obtain greater community control over the purchase of and access to library materials? The kinds of questions that Cheryl raises, and how such questions are answered, are influenced first by what will best contribute to the efficient and effective running of the organization, and second by the understanding she has of her personal, professional and larger stewardship roles.

Cheryl has previously found herself in an uncomfortable position responding to teenage requests for appropriate reading material on birth control. Her personal religious views are very much opposed to making this material available, especially when the parents are not involved in the process. However, since the library has a policy of allowing children and teenagers to check out materials without the consent of their parents, her personal views have not had an opportunity to influence the administration of policy. In the case at hand, her personal views very much have an opportunity to shape the tone and structure of her response to Mr. Jones, the angry parent.

In some ways this may be the perfect opportunity for Cheryl to use her discretionary leadership authority to encourage the library staff and governing board to revisit the library’s existing policy. The patron’s complaint can serve as a foil for her own personal views. However, she is given pause in taking this course of action because of the duty she has to the library profession whose code of ethics commits its members to “resist all efforts to censor library resources,” to “distinguish between our personal convictions and professional duties and … not allow our personal beliefs to interfere with fair representation of the aims of our institutions or the provision of access to their information resources.”

In the final analysis, this case also implicates larger values of the American constitutional system of government. There is, first of all, some requirement to be responsive to the needs of those you serve. But what does responsiveness require in this case? What are the terms upon which discourse between Cheryl Miller and Charles Jones should take place? The complaint provides a unique educational opportunity for members of the library staff to engage citizens on issues that go to the very heart of our democratic system of government. Where should we draw the line between parental authority and public organizational responsibility? Yes, parents need the help of public organizations in carrying out their parental roles, but how far should this help go? Should it stop with the advice from professional librarians about the contents of a given book and the appropriateness of that content to the intellectual and social maturity of the potential reader? Even to be this minimally responsive requires an intimate knowledge of each individual client. In this respect, librarians must function as teachers, psychologists, members of the clergy, therapists and others who administer to the needs of the public. But this kind of intimate familiarity with those being served is neither necessary nor possible.

It is not possible because organizations are constructed around abstractions. Cheryl functions in an organizational environment that has some notion of the average child, the typical parent, the presumed standards of acceptability within the local community, and so on. Books are purchased, collections are developed and levels of service are defined based on considerations that abstract from the needs of this or that particular patron or client. This necessity for abstraction is made into a virtue, especially in the public sector, where organizations like libraries are purposely created to meet the needs of citizens, not simply individuals. Thus, by starting with the need for a librarian to be responsive opens up larger questions about the nature of the community and the relationship of the library to its citizens.

These larger questions are troublesome for Cheryl Miller. She has thought about the possibility of other groups and individuals objecting to the choices the library has made about its collection and the access to it. She has wondered what might happen if the appointed library board is pulled into the debate by Mr. Jones. Given the existing membership on the board, Cheryl believes this would likely lead to a change in the existing library policy, making access more restrictive than it has been in the past. While this would bring the world more into conformance with her personal views, would it be a good thing for the library, for the community? Since the members of the Regional Library Board are appointed by the County Board of Commissioners in three separate counties, how adequately do the appointed Board members reflect the sentiment of the community? Even if they did, to what extent shoul...