Leveraging the Listening Tour as a Strategy to Help Library Leaders Acclimate to a New Organization

Abstract

Leaders stepping into new roles within a library must engage team members and learn about their new role through dialogue and interaction. Listening tours (LT) have been highlighted in business and popular literature; however such approaches have received limited attention in academic literature. Through a series of semi-structured interviews with team-members, library leaders can learn perspectives on various issues including organizational needs, challenges, and culture. Effective LTs allow leaders acclimating to a new leadership role within a library or a leadership role with a new institution to start building trusting connections, prioritize steps for change, and take inventory of the organizational support structures that can impact success. This review seeks to provide a background and possible structure for LTs for library leaders at all levels by outlining useful practices for successful LTs, presenting advantages and drawbacks of these strategies, and encouraging leaders to intentionally build associated practices into their next transition.