Academic Librarians as Emotionally Intelligent Leaders

Book Description
Emotional intelligence (EI), as based on the work of Daniel Goleman and his colleagues, has received a lot of attention in the Harvard Business Review and elsewhere as a leadership theory. It is composed of five domains: Knowing your emotions, Managing your emotions, Motivating yourself, Recognizing and understanding other people's emotions, and Managing relationships (managing the emotions of others). Its practitioners become particularly adept at managing the mood and performance of both their organizations and themselves. In Academic Librarians as Emotionally Intelligent Leaders, Hernon and company present a solid overview of EI, its connection to other leadership theories, and its particular application to academic librarianship. By moving beyond basic "people skills," they claim, library leaders can come to appreciate not only the unique challenges of personal and organizational growth, but how their own reactions and feelings are perceived by others. Particularly noteworthy is a strong focus on issues of diversity, including a chapter on how librarians of color regularly engage in self-renewal and restoration.

About the Author
PETER HERNON is a professor at Simmons College, Graduate School of Library and Information Science. He has authored 7 previous titles for Libraries Unlimited. JOAN GIESECKE is the Dean of Libraries, University of Nebraska-Lincoln. CAMILA A. ALIRE is Dean of University Libraries at the University of New Mexico.