Becoming a dean changes the weight of your words in ways you may not fully realize at first.

A disappointing performance evaluation. A critical remark from a supervisor. Another year without a raise. A promotion awarded elsewhere. A demanding, disruptive leader who appears to face no consequences while others absorb the impact.

Academic libraries do not recognize all leadership equally. Two unit directors may start at the same organizational level, yet one is repeatedly invited to chair committees, lead strategic initiatives, and represent the library across campus, while the other is expected to manage staff tensions, handle follow-up, solve operational problems, and keep the unit functioning behind the scenes. Both are leading. Both are contributing. But only one is being positioned to advance.

In academic libraries, first impressions carry enormous weight.

Student employment in academic libraries is often described in practical terms. Student workers staff desks, support projects, complete tasks, and help keep the library running. All of that is true. But if that is all we see, we miss something important.

Not long ago, I found myself in a familiar leadership moment—navigating a decision that needed to move forward quickly, with limited time and competing perspectives. The instinct, as it often is in higher education, was to decide, communicate, and implement. But what was missing wasn’t information—it was alignment.

What does a university look like when its community members are truly flourishing — and what is the cost when they are not?

I recently wrote about leadership accountability and blame-shifting, and the silent supervisor, exploring how leaders deflect responsibility when things go wrong or are non-communicative with their colleagues. That pattern of avoiding accountability often manifests through the communication dynamics I will examine here, the subtle ways our messages can undermine rather than support, even when we mean well.

In a previous post, I explored how communication and trust form the bedrock of effective leadership. But what happens when leaders undermine that foundation by refusing to accept responsibility for their own decisions? And more troublingly, what does it reveal about their leadership when they attempt to shift blame onto those with less power, namely their direct reports, frontline staff, or mid-level managers?

Higher education organizations often speak about belonging. Strategic plans reference it. Conferences center it. Leadership programs aspire to cultivate it.

We talk often about calm leadership. About steadiness. About modeling composure.

I’ve been reading Mary Clearman Blew’s This Is Not the Ivy League, a memoir about teaching at a small, open-admissions college in 1970s Montana.

Technology failures in libraries don’t just interrupt services.They generate sustained, invisible labor.

Academic libraries often pride themselves on being collegial, service‑oriented, and deeply relational spaces. That ethos is one of our strengths—and it’s also where things can quietly go wrong.

Academic libraries are very good at sustaining what already works.

Academic libraries are institutions of continuity.

Academic librarians often talk about shared governance as something that happens “out there” — in faculty senate meetings, departmental politics, or provost-level decisions.

Resistance to change in higher education is rarely loud.

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.

Why Supervisors Seem Intimidating Even When They Don’t Mean To Be

In today’s academic workplaces, leaders often talk about inclusion, respect, and collaboration. But one of the most overlooked foundations of all three is the ability to set and honor boundaries. Boundaries are not walls that divide us; they are commitments that define how we work together with clarity, respect, and care.

You’ve asked for more help—more staff, more resources, more time—again and again. You’ve presented data, shared reports, explained trade-offs, and documented the risks. Yet the answer often comes back the same: a sympathetic nod, maybe even an “I’m sorry,” but no real relief, no action, no remedy, nor a solution. If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone. Many employees live in this cycle, where overwork becomes normalized and requests for support fade into background noise.

In many academic libraries and workplaces, “niceness” is a celebrated trait. We want to be approachable, collaborative, and supportive of colleagues. But there’s a shadow side to this cultural value: when the desire to be liked outweighs the need to lead effectively. In toxic dynamics, niceness can mask conflict, stifle honest communication, and leave teams without the guidance they need.

When you work in a library—especially a smaller one—it’s easy to feel like you’re talking to yourself. Ideas swirl around in your head, problems are mulled over on repeat, and solutions echo back without fresh perspective. Over time, that echo chamber can become isolating. Without input from others, it’s harder to grow, harder to adapt, and harder to feel connected to the larger profession we are all a part of.

Communication, Platforms, and Belonging in Academic Libraries

As a library administrator—associate university librarian, associate dean, department head—you’ve probably experienced this: you send an email about a difficult decision, such as reorganizing desk schedules or shifting budgets, and… silence. No one replies. Or, you notice that some staff avoid initiating emails on sensitive topics altogether.

Every organizational survey seems to tell the same story: employees want more communication. Yet when leaders respond with regular updates, open-door policies, and multiple channels for information sharing, the complaints persist. Staff members continue to feel left in the dark, suspicious of hidden agendas, and frustrated by what they perceive as a lack of transparency.

Leaders in academic libraries and higher education often emphasize the importance of “listening” to employees. Staff surveys, open office hours, and town halls are all designed to create the sense that leadership is paying attention. Yet many employees report a gap between being heard and being truly understood. The difference lies not in the act of listening itself, but in how leaders respond.

On some days, leading a library feels like living several professional lives at once. Some days, balance feels impossible.

Toxic workplaces in academic libraries often share the same roots: lack of communication, absence of trust, and exclusion. The consequences are predictable—burnout, disengagement, and diminished scholarly output. Yet, the opposite is also true. When trust, inclusion, and even laughter are present, library teams thrive. Scholarly productivity grows, relationships deepen, and the workplace feels lighter.

Setting the StageAcademic library administrators often carry the weight of two jobs: managing their own heavy workload while supporting the well-being of their staff. The irony is hard to miss—leaders are expected to shield their teams from burnout while quietly experiencing it themselves. The result? Exhaustion, disconnection, and a creeping sense that no one is winning.

As a library director, I see firsthand the toll that toxic culture and burnout can take on academic librarians. The signs are often subtle at first—a colleague skipping breaks, staying late too many nights in a row, or withdrawing from discussions they once led with energy. Over time, those small signals accumulate into disengagement, frustration, and, eventually, burnout.