Emotional Intelligence and Critical Thinking for Library Leaders by Shaffer Gary L.;

Author:Shaffer, Gary L.; [Shaffer, Gary L.;]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Emerald Publishing Limited
Published: 2020-02-26T08:00:00+00:00

Seek disconfirming evidence.

There is a pervasive bias to seek information that confirms what one believes to be true. Make a conscious effort to identify contrary information.

Be aware of the effects of memory on decisions.

Individuals generate alternatives and decisions that she or he can easily recall. One should seek a variety of input.

CRITICAL DECISION-MAKING IN CASE STUDY #1

In Case Study #1 in Appendix A, the Southeast Library Director and his leadership team used many of the skills outlined above to make decisions when they found themselves presented with a financial crisis and a greatly reduced budget. In their situation, a Mayor had been swept to victory on the promise of cutting taxes. Once elected, the Mayor set his sight on the library and what he felt were overflowing coffers. The library leadership team that was faced with an extraordinary budget cut generated many alternatives to cutting costs and evaluated the expected consequences. Surely some of their decisions in retrospect were not the best, but they were made with the best intentions and with all the evidence available at the time. Whether or not decision-making worksheets were used, there is evidence they avoided entrapment bias. They left behind circulation and attendance as measures of success. These were most certainly deterred by the lack of open hours. Leaving preconceived notions behind, the leadership team sought disconfirming evidence as they questioned all activities as to whether they were core to the mission or not. Additionally, they reviewed all policies.

Even though the director and team at the library in the case study were forced to make decisions critically because the circumstances they were presented with were dire, this author believes critical thinking should be brought to bear for all decisions that do not have an obvious solution. As was pointed out in skill 6 above, regarding entrapment bias, perhaps the obvious solution is not so obvious either. Perhaps critical decision-making should be applied to all decisions in today’s libraries and perhaps the most obvious solutions should be set aside, at least at first, to ensure no better solution arises.

Similar to the Southeastern library mentioned above, one Midwestern public library director was also faced with budgetary pressures. While perhaps a bit less dire, the situation was certainly not an easy one. Her decision was whether or not to close a stand-alone special library (i.e., it did not contain a typical branch library collection, but instead a specialized research collection). It had 12 visitors on average per day, and was open 10 a.m.–5 p.m., Monday–Friday. The question was simply: keep the special library open at significant cost or close it. In the interim, the system was preparing a large community-wide fundraising effort in order to renovate the Central Library and the director knew if she closed the special library there would be significant public backlash at a time when she was trying to build goodwill in the community.

Using skills 2 and 3 above, she generated several alternatives and evaluated the expected consequences of each. Ultimately, she decided

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