Best of Core at ALA Annual Conference: The Marvelous Middle; Finding Ways to Grow and Thrive in Middle Management

Description: Do you ever feel stuck in the middle? You might have manager in your title, but it has assistant before it, and often you can’t actually make decisions. Many people dread middle management. Instead of just surviving being a middle manager learn how to grow, thrive, and spread influence in your role. Come for a candid discussion with three middle managers while they discuss their roles, their struggles, and strategies they use to develop staff and gain influence in their organization. Our panel features three middle managers with different titles, responsibilities, experience and time on the job. We will discuss ways we have worked to improve our own organizations as well as other opportunities we created as middle managers.

Learning Outcomes: 

At the end of this webinar, the attendees will be able to:

• Compare and contrast different middle management styles and their effectiveness in different organizations. 
• Identify and create opportunities to develop their own management skills in their current position.  
• Able to utilize a variety of strategies to develop the skills and abilities of their own staff while also developing their own management skills.

Who Should Attend: Library workers considering management roles and current middle managers. Management and director-level library workers may also find this session helpful and engaging in learning how to better support middle managers they supervise.
 

Presenters:

Cyndi Hamann is the newest middle manager on our panel, she was promoted to Collection Supervisor in 2020. She was an Emerging Leader in 2019. She also provides perspective from a technical services background on how management can look different in that department. She co-leads the Supervisor and Manager planning/training team at Arlington Heights Memorial Library.

Heather Love Beverley has been an assistant youth manager for 10+ years and was named an Emerging Leader in 2012 and a Mover & Shaker in 2019. In her time as Assistant Manager, she has assisted her department in navigating multiple leadership structural changes, a major library renovation, strategic plans, and a pandemic. 

Molly D. Scheibler is the Deputy Director of Schaumburg Township District Library. Previously, she was the Assistant Youth Manager and then Youth Manager at another library. During her time as an assistant manager she created a successful regional networking group of assistant managers, called the AM’s. The group focuses on helping to develop middle managers and often averaged 30 plus attendees.

Tech Requirements

Core Webinars are held in Zoom. Speakers or a headset for listening to the presentation are required. You may interact with the presenter and ask questions through text-based chat. Closed captioning is available in the Zoom platform. The webcast will be recorded and the link to the recording shared with registrants shortly after the live event.

CALL Training Partner for this Event: American Library Association