2012 Best Practices for Government Libraries

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BEST PRACTICES 2012
Gaining Management Skills through Professional Association Leadership
By Kim Schultz, Marketing Research Analyst, Affinion Loyalty Group; 2012 Government
Information Division Chair, Special Libraries Association
When SLA members say that volunteering will help you gain leadership skills you can
apply through the course of your work life, do not doubt it, they are absolutely right! I'll
admit I was skeptical at first that volunteering for a professional association would offer
the opportunity to hone honest to goodness leadership skills; that is until I became a
division chair this year. Here are some of the skills I’m learning as an SLA division chair:
event planning
marketing
budgeting
managing competing priorities
managing a diverse group of volunteers
As an early career professional I have not yet gained direct management experience that
comes with leading and motivating groups of employees towards accomplishing workplace
goals. While I have experience working with teams, I currently find myself in a solo
information professional role that requires me to manage my own time and priorities
based upon the work assignments at hand. I pursued a leadership role within SLA in
order to gain management experience in the safe and supportive environment of a
volunteer association.
Becoming a division chair within SLA has allowed me to gain solid management
experience that I can take with me throughout my career. How does taking on a
leadership role teach one management skills for the workplace? As a division leader, I
find myself responsible for creating, managing, and executing a slate of programs for the
annual conference. In order to accomplish this I have to learn and use a variety of
management skills including: understanding the information industry, leveraging a
professional network, managing volunteers, a stream of detailed and changing
information, and a budgeting and fundraising process.
So, what does it take to create conference programming and how can you bring those
management skills back to the workplace? First, I’ll provide an example as it relates to
conference planning as a division chair, followed by how skills learned via SLA apply to my
current position as a solo competitive intelligence researcher.
As a Leader…
1. You have to be tuned into your industry...what is going on? What are the emerging
trends? What are the pain points and hot button issues?
SLA: I follow industry blogs and news to understand issues and concerns
regarding government information and information professionals, in order to
provide relevant conference speakers and programming.