Academic libraries often talk about innovation, experimentation, and risk-taking—yet our organizational structures frequently make these aspirations difficult to realize. Clay Shirky’s Here Comes Everybody, particularly the chapters on structural holes, power-law distributions, and what he memorably calls “failure for free,” offers a useful lens for understanding why.

Academic libraries—and the broader higher education ecosystem—are built on the flow of information. A single decision can influence instruction schedules, access to resources, student learning pathways, and cross-campus collaboration. When those decisions arrive without context or explanation, the people responsible for delivering and sustaining academic services are left navigating a landscape of half-understood directives and unspoken implications.

Some supervisors lead with vision, others with collaboration, others with consistency. And then there are supervisors who lead from the center of a storm—always reacting, always scrambling, always one emergency away from unraveling. Their days are filled with urgent requests, shifting priorities, and last-minute decisions. For employees, this mode of leadership doesn’t inspire action—it disrupts it.

Hidden disabilities are often discussed in the context of privacy, autonomy, and personal choice. And in healthy workplaces, employees should be able to decide what they share—and what they don’t—without fear of consequence. But in toxic or unsafe environments, the decision becomes far more complex.

Academic libraries often pride themselves on collaboration, curiosity, and supporting diverse learners. But even in mission-driven environments, neurodivergent library workers frequently find themselves misunderstood, misinterpreted, or mislabeled—especially when their identities are invisible. Neurodivergence, like queerness, chronic illness, mixed-race identity, or trauma history, often operates as an invisible marginalized identity. Dannie Lynn Fountain’s Harvard Business Review article describes such identities as “walking like you have dynamite in your pocket”—a vivid metaphor for navigating spaces where your difference is real but unseen.

Academic libraries often experience turbulence because you work inside one of the most complex political ecosystems in higher education. Bureaucratic processes, internal power dynamics, and hierarchical decision-making structures shape nearly every aspect of your daily work. The politics of change manifests deeply in the internal dynamics of your library—determining whether your organization remains adaptive, collaborative, and student-centered, or whether it slips into dysfunction, frustration, and burnout.

Academic libraries—especially small ones—often operate in conditions that are far from ideal. Staffing is tight. Budgets stretch thin. Responsibilities keep expanding while teams shrink. Many librarians know this reality intimately.

When a library invites us in, our goal is simple: help staff and leadership build a healthier, more supportive workplace culture. But what does that actually look like? Here’s a general overview of an engagement with us:  Before We Arrive

The moment I knew something had shifted in our library wasn’t during a big meeting or a strategic planning retreat. It happened on an ordinary Tuesday morning, when two staff members—people who used to laugh together over coffee—walked into my office separately, each certain the other was the problem.

Jen never meant to replace anyone. In Nomadland, she stepped into a role she loved—supporting a school district’s library systems, helping teachers navigate their tools, and doing the quiet, careful work that kept digital learning afloat. She was good at it. She cared. And yet, the moment she realized her boss—an experienced professional with a master’s degree—had been pushed into retirement so the district could save money, something inside her shifted.

I’ve often been told after presentations or in response to articles, “That’s great—but I can’t do that here at my institution.” My answer is always the same: Yes, you can—but you have to build the culture, bit by bit, and it’s slow.

Every professional relationship requires reciprocity, but few are as fundamentally important as the one between employee and supervisor. When that relationship functions well, it becomes a source of growth, clarity, and professional satisfaction. But what happens when the support simply isn’t there, when communication falters, feedback disappears, and the supervisor becomes more absent than present?

In boardrooms and faculty senates across America, a question echoes with increasing urgency: What does it mean to be a values-based organization when external pressures challenge those very values? This question has taken on particular weight regarding equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) initiatives—three words that organizations once proudly proclaimed but now increasingly whisper or erase entirely.

Supervisors often carry an air of authority that can make them seem unapproachable. Employees may hesitate to knock on their door, send a message, or share a concern, even when it would be helpful. But why do supervisors look this way?

Libraries thrive on collaboration. Yet too often, our ability to work well together falters not because of skill gaps, but because of how we communicate. Words, tone, timing, and unspoken assumptions can create friction that undermines trust. To counter this, many library leaders are experimenting with tools and frameworks that put communication, empathy, and psychological safety at the center of workplace culture.

Supervisors don’t always realize how intimidating they look to their team. Even if you see yourself as open and collaborative, your employees may hesitate to share concerns, ideas, or feedback. Why? Because the role itself carries power, and power creates distance. The good news: supervisors can actively close that gap. Here’s how.