What we need now: leadership skills, strategies, and competencies in today's academic libraries

To remain effective, academic library leaders must continually adapt to changes within and outside their organizations. Today's academic library organizations have different expectations, needs, and concerns due to significant workplace disruption caused by recent environmental factors, including the COVID-19 pandemic. Using the framework of leadership competencies, this study explored the impacts of these workplace changes on the practice of library leadership, aiming to understand what skills and strategies will be needed in today's environment to be an effective library leader. A series of focus groups were conducted with library staff and faculty both in leadership and not in leadership positions. The results of the study found that the new or differently relevant skills and strategies leaders needed to be effective include creating workplaces that support the whole person, modeling self-care in leadership, creating sustainable workplaces, managing conflict, managing flexibility, building team culture and community, and advocating strategically by creating alignment. Adding these new competencies to existing frameworks can help guide future leadership development.