An examination of participative leadership amongst national library directors worldwide

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyse managerial approaches of a selective group of national library directors, examining their views and perceptions of successful library leadership in the twenty-first century in different sociocultural contexts. This study was carried out based on a series of semi-structured interviews with ten top-level directors of national libraries located on different continents. Design/methodology/approach The data collection method for this study consisted of the narrative analysis of the ten interviews coupled with the participative leadership theory, which highlights the leaders’ desire to create a more democratic culture within their library organisations. Findings The analysis of these interviews reveals that many of the directors’ responses were supportive to the concepts discussed in participative leadership. National librarians, through their participative leadership philosophies, values and beliefs, contributed to the development of an institutional culture that fostered improving trust, communications, engagement as well as promotion of inter-team relationships by breaking down the traditional “hierarchical” barriers within their organisations. Research limitations/implications The participants were predominantly from Europe; only one participant represented the USA, Middle East (Israel) and Northern Africa (Egypt). As a result, there are not many diverse viewpoints from national library directors outside of Europe. Further studies would be needed to obtain a more international perspective in the national library sphere. Furthermore, this study only examines the views and attitudes of ten different library directors. In comparison with the totality of national library directors across the world, this is a relatively small sample. This study may not be representative of all national library directors around the world. Originality/value The results of this study would be of interest to library professionals and educators interested in management, as well as Library and Information Science students who want to understand how national library directors view successful traits of participative leadership in different sociocultural contexts.