CONGRATULATIONS TO...

LIANZA was delighted to hear that Amandajane Mcfadden was awarded funding to participate in a leadership development course that was provisioned for women working in the information management sector. The course was held by Women & Leadership New Zealand (WLNZ). Amanda-jane reported back about her experience.

In April after discussing my five-year career plan with my manager, I happened to come across a LIANZA Facebook post about a leadership course; Women and Leadership New Zealand. This post sparked my interest as it an area I want to work on for my growth. Reading their webpage I new I would like to take part in the programme.

Women and Leadership New Zealand is about developing and supporting female leaders at every stage of their journey

I am very lucky to have the support of my workplace but Women and Leadership New

Zealand (WLNZ) did offer a partial scholarship, which I applied for and was lucky enough to be awarded. There are three levels in the programme

and I am doing the Executive Read seven-month

self-directed course, which is made up of face-toface workshops, webinars, coaching sessions and interactive online workshops. Three best things about the programme?

I am a quarter of the way through and three are my picks so far are:

1. Learning and growing my leadership skills with the help of 20 women of all ages and from a variety of different sectors; from a shepard on a big sheep station to a lecturer at a university.

2. Peer coaching: Where do I start? WLNZ say that Coaching is a Gift, and I agree. I feel blessed to have a time every few weeks to improve my own coaching skills with my peer coach. Skills that I can straight away apply with my own team.

3. 360 degree feedback: We had to ask for feedback from our manager, a peer and a team member. This type of feedback is not for the faint hearted. I valued each piece of feedback; I now know what I need to work on to improve my leadership potential.

Quote: Leadership is a way of thinking, a way of acting and, most importantly, a way of communicating. Simon Sinek

https://www.womenandleadership.co.nz/ Q

DO YOU THINK THERE ARE PARTICULAR LEADERSHIP CHALLENGES FOR WOMEN IN THE LIBRARY SECTOR? IF SO, WHAT ARE THESE?

A

Often a library career is a second career choice

for many women. This may mean a pay cut and the need to study to gain that qualification to get ahead. It could also be that the woman is a working mum with all that entails, balancing childcare hours with a career. Another challenge I see is that many part-time roles in libraries, of which there are many, are not flexible enough to be leadership positions. I have heard where the job sharing option is not offered for woman in leadership roles who want to maintain both a career and parenting.

Once we gain that hard-worked-for diploma or degree we then need to have leadership roles available for us to aspire to. Luckily for us with the changes in the New Zealand library world there are now many more leadership roles than there has traditionally been in the past. These are roles where you can take the lead in a project, getting the experience to move up on the leadership ladder.

WHAT CAREER OR LEADERSHIP TIPS OR SUGGESTIONS WOULD YOU GIVE TO WOMEN WHO ARE LOOKING TO PROGRESS IN THE LIBRARY SECTOR?

If you have decided to go down the leadership path or are wanting career progression then you need to be looking out for opportunities to help your leadership growth. My advice is to get you out of your comfort zone, try something new. It may be a small thing to start with like putting your hand to help plan a library event, be on a committee at your child’s school, apply to be on a LIANZA regional committee or joining Toastmasters. You may want to start by presenting a paper at LIANZA Weekend School or the LIANZA Conference. Look out for courses/seminars/ programmes that spark your interest, they may not be library-related at all, but leadership related and may help you get to the next step in your career.

If you get the chance the Women and Leadership programme is a fantastic programme to build your leadership potential. The programme is a hands on (no more lengthy essays) and empowering learning environment where you take your learnings and use them with your team from the outset.

One of the best things I did was apply to be on a council team for the Local Government Management Challenge. It took me right out of my comfort zone and back again. I feel that the hours spent working with others from around council with their different thought processes and skills helped me to think more widely when doing the tasks for the challenge and this transpired into my own way of working.