SQ1: Please describe your management style.
LA1: It is difficult to apply one management style to all people because different people have different personalities and talents so you have to be flexible, to treat them in different ways in order to maximize their potentials. Thus, I would say I do not have a specific type of management style.
However, the management style I commonly used when managing a secondary school library would be coaching and democratic. Coaching means to help the library staff to improve or polish their skills so they can work efficiently. For example, new student librarians can shadow senior student librarians to take part in library duty. I would regularly observe their performance and give feedback such as the techniques for efficient and correct shelving. When interns have finished cataloging some books, I would review their work and give them …show more content…
LA4: The most challenging part is time management. People seldom notice that school library actually has a tight schedule, just like any other managers in the business world. It is always a challenge to finish tasks on time with good quality. Time management is especially essential when carrying out library projects such as holding “Library Week” in each school year. I had to make sure every teammate is working on schedule efficiently. For example, I need to constantly monitor activates held by students librarians in “Library Week” to make sure they can make it on time.
It is challenging for managers to handle school’s opinion. Some schools focus mainly on reading quantity over reading quality so they would ask library to shift their strategies priority from developing reading culture into increasing the number of books students read per school year or to implant policy or strategy that only focus on reading quantity. It is always a challenge to negotiate with school to find the win-win