THE EMPOWERING AND PARTICIPATIVE MANAGER

G.E. Gorman, Regional Editor, Library Link

In 'the old days' (sometime before 1990 or thereabouts), librarians managed libraries and information managers managed information services. 'Management' meant managing an organisation - being in charge of staff, finance, services, facilities. In library schools we taught students about organisational behaviour and organisational management. Then life began to develop greater complexity, and the librarian as manager started to evolve from a professional defined by organisational affiliation to a multi-faceted individual with psychological, social, interpersonal and cultural attributes that needed to be harnessed in the interests of better management.

Complexity became a principal characteristic of management, and the complexities of management emerged as key focal points in LIS education. Lofti Zadeh, the originator of fuzzy logic, framed the Law of Incompatibility, which states that 'as complexity rises, precise statements lose meaning and meaningful statements lose precision'. This law highlights a common feature of complex disciplines (including, in our view, management) - they are replete with complex concepts.

Today when we speak of managing library or information services, what precisely do we mean? How complex is management in the information professions, and what characterises the information manager? And once we have answered these questions, how are the answers reflected in the education of information professionals? These are significant issues not only for experienced practitioners and trainers, but also for those just coming into the profession - if I am becoming an information manager, what are the professional norms that apply to me? How am I expected to fulfil my professional obligations as a manager? What should I be learning in the classroom as preparation for my managerial obligations?

There is, one suspects, an evolving menu of options from which one can choose a type of management, a management style, and this menu is constantly growing. Indeed, a casual scan of the recent MCB literature on the management of library and information services suggests that there are 20 or more approaches to effective management in information organisations. Some of these are mere variations on a theme, and with careful manipulation the approaches can be condensed into a small number of more manageable models or types. Of this handful of types, two stand out as both the most frequently discussed and the most useful - empowering management and participative management.

Empowering management is probably the most widely discussed approach of recent years. Also called 'transformational management', it assumes that the central focus of leadership ought to be the individual and collective commitment and capacity of individuals in the organisation. It also assumes that the higher the level of personal commitment to organisational goals and the greater the capacity to accomplish these goals, the greater the productivity from members of the organisation. Authority and influence in this model do not necessarily reside with those in senior management positions; rather, power is attributed by staff to whomever is able to inspire their commitment to collective aspirations and the desire for mastery of the capacities needed to achieve these aspirations.

In general empowering management in the information sector seems to be conceptualised along several dimensions: building an institutional vision, establishing institutional goals, providing professional stimulation, offering individual support, demonstrating high performance expectations, creating a productive institutional culture and developing structures to foster participation in decision-making. Each of these dimensions is contextual, and none of them can be taught meaningfully in the classroom, which suggests that in-house experience is the only way for a manager to become an empowering leader.

Participative management assumes that the decision-making processes of the group ought to be the central focus for information/library managers. Such participation can be viewed as A Good Thing on the grounds that it enhances organisational effectiveness, or that it is in line with the democratic principles of modern society. At a practical level, participative management is associated with enhanced organisational effectiveness. That is, if a manager is able to develop mutually beneficial relationships with all significant groups of internal and external stakeholders through forms of shared leadership, then that manager is more likely to achieve organisational goals more quickly and more effectively. Forms of leadership that are more consultative, more open and democratic - that is, more participative - seem to be able to deal more effectively with the complexity, uncertainty, ambiguity and increased expectations of the modern information organisation. As in the case of empowering management, it is not possible to 'teach' participative management in the classroom - it is only learned by doing in the 'real world'.

We tell our managers that they need to be empowering and participative, yet we do not - indeed, cannot - teach them how to empower or how to be participative. The empowering manager exercises influence through motivational processes that elevate staff aspirations for their work and inspire higher levels of commitment to the organisation. This simply cannot be learned outside the workplace or apart from the example of other empowering managers. The participative manager ensures that mutual influence flows from structured opportunities for staff to interact around issues important to the organisation. Again, this cannot be learned in a situation that is remote from the workplace, and without benefit of a participative role model.

The new manager goes into the workplace, then, at a considerable disadvantage: institutional cultures demand empowerment and participation from managers, but new employees lack these abilities for the most part. Employees, at least the employees-who-would-be-managers, need to be aware of this expectation and of the gap in their preparation. They need to compensate for this gap by being open to the ways of model managers and willing to learn from reflective mentors. They need to be willing to open themselves to growth, to being moulded by the culture of their organisation, and to have the maturity to accept empowering and participative attitudes as essential in the model manager for the 21st century.

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