In leading our libraries towards success how can emotional intelligence play a role? On this show Jen Nelson, State Librarian of New Jersey, shares how our capacity to know ourselves, appropriately express our emotions, and handle our work relationships with empathy makes us more effective – and how this is accessible to everyone.
Transcript
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Adriane Herrick Juarez:
This is Adriane Herrick Juarez. You’re listening to Library Leadership Podcast, where we talk about libraries, and leadership, and speak with guests who share their ideas, innovations, and strategic insights in the profession.
In leading our libraries toward success, how can emotional intelligence play a role? On this show Jen Nelson, State Librarian of New Jersey, shares how our capacity to know ourselves, appropriately express our emotions, and handle our work relationships with empathy makes us more effective—and how this is accessible to everyone. Enjoy the show!
Jen, welcome to the show.
Jennifer Nelson:
Thank you, Adriane. It’s a pleasure to be here.
Adriane Herrick Juarez:
Question #1: Today we are talking about emotional intelligence in library leadership. What is emotional intelligence, and is this something that is accessible to everyone? 01:23
Jennifer Nelson:
Emotional intelligence is accessible to anyone and everyone. It’s a core skill that anyone can learn and get better at, and be more attuned to. At its heart—it’s not knowing yourself and what makes you react, or what makes you respond, whether it’s a positive response, negative response. It’s really just to understand yourself. It’s fundamental to leadership in terms of being able to first lead yourself, and then lead others.
Adriane Herrick Juarez:
Question #2: So, in order to lead with emotional intelligence we need self-knowledge. Why is this important, and what does it entail? 02:07
Jennifer Nelson:
Self-knowledge is really about being able to—some people give the analogy of stepping up on a balcony and watching yourself. Being able to step outside yourself and watch your reactions and responses to various stimuli, for lack of a better word, the events happening around you, and to understand why you’re having the response you are. Then to be able to control that in a way that presents you in the way you want to be as a leader. Sometimes we use the example, I tend to—like many people, not be thrilled with conflict. I know that my response to conflict is driven by things in my past. Until I realized, I would get reactive. I would shut down, and do all sorts of things that really weren’t helpful for me just because I didn’t know what was happening. Once I got that knowledge of myself and an understanding of where the response came from suddenly made it easier to manage it, and be able to present myself in the way I wanted to in a tense, or difficult situation.
Adriane Herrick Juarez:
Question #3: I know you talk about a four-stage approach to developing emotional intelligence. What are these stages? 03:20
Jennifer Nelson:
The four stages start with self-knowledge, really understanding who you are, why you are, and what drives you. The second part, I think I’ll use the word, behavior—being able to not control your behavior so much as adjust your behavior to a circumstance to present yourself in the way that you want to. It’s really being able to step up on the balcony and say, Wow, that person really made me angry, and having an angry response right now wouldn’t be helpful. So, I’m going to calm myself down, however I need to do that, and move forward with productive conversation with the person. There’s self-knowledge, and self-behavior.
The second is other knowledge. That’s really about empathy, being able to observe other people to see how they’re responding, and to—in one sense, not taking things personally, to understand that people are just like you. They’re responding from cues and behaviors, all sorts of things that you don’t know about. Another way to phrase it is giving people the benefit of the doubt, really understanding that they’re doing the best they can understand their circumstances, which may not be what you need them to do, but it’s what they’re capable of. So, it’s having that empathy for other people.
The final stage is really being able to manage and control those social situations so that you’re able to turn the heat down—turn the volume down when it’s needed in order to help create a productive environment, an environment that—I’ll use the word warm, connecting for people. I think as a leader that’s really important that you’re able to not take things personally. To know that people are driven—some people respond to me, maybe because of my title. That always makes me laugh a little bit, but it’s important to them. I need to recognize that and to value that even though it may not be something I find in quite the same way.
I think that as a leader, being emotionally intelligent really helps you to fire on all cylinders, and at the same time to be able to understand and work with yourself in situations, but also to work with other people—whether it’s on an individual basis, or in groups of people. Group dynamics is always a fascinating thing to study, but the more you can go off on that balcony and take a look at what’s happening, rather than stepping directly into it the better off you are in terms of being able to manage the situation and keep yourself where you want to be as a leader.
Adriane Herrick Juarez:
Question #4: When it comes to emotional intelligence what does this look like in management? 06:05
Jennifer Nelson:
I’m glad you asked that question. What it looks like in management I’d sum up in just one word, which is compassion. Really being able to understand what’s happening around you. You have compassion for the people that you work for, the people that work for you, the people you work on behalf of. To really be able to let that be what drives you. It’s a value almost. That value of compassion, being able to be, and understand people as a perfect human being, that they are doing the best they can on any given day, really helps a leader to turn the heat down in some ways. Also to allow you to be human with staff, and to be vulnerable.
My experience has been that being vulnerable has led to really positive things in my interaction, particularly with staff—letting them know, for example, that I’ve had my challenges with mental illness. It makes them more comfortable, it demystifies it for them so that it’s no longer a taboo subject. I might not talk a whole lot about it, but I’ll acknowledge it, because I know there are other people that are dealing with similar situations. I want people to know in my organization that they’re not alone and that their ability to care for themselves is just as important as their ability to do their job.
Adriane Herrick Juarez:
Question #5: Successful leadership teams and organizations employ the ability to first lead one’s self. What does this mean in the context of our discussion today? 07:35
Jennifer Nelson:
Emotional intelligence is a great way to start leading one’s self, because it starts with that self-knowledge of really knowing who you are—what makes you respond, what makes you happy, what makes you frustrated, what kind of people…there’s always people in the world that are going to set me off. To understand and to know that—I’m leading myself and saying, Yes, that person, or that type of person is frustrating to me, but I don’t have to let that dictate my behavior toward them or the situation. It allows me freedom, if you will, to be able to be the kind of leader I want to be in the context of whatever the situation is.
I mentioned compassion as a fact of leadership. I think self-compassion helps you understand that you’re not going to be perfect, mistakes are going to happen. I give my favorite example. I learned the hard way that you can’t hire twelve-year-olds to do things. When I was in the library, so—oh, well I figured it out there was a solution. There’s always a solution, but it was really a humbling experience to realize that I didn’t know as much as I thought I did, and that was at least twenty years ago. It’s stuck with me since then. The reminder that I know myself, and I wanted this young man to have a job because he had some signs on the autism spectrum, and he had some really great talents and interests in technology, and that kind of thing, but really needed help with social skills. My intentions were—I’m proud of my intentions. They were great. Unfortunately my practical knowledge didn’t support them. I think knowing that about myself allows me to appreciate myself for what I was trying to do even though it was unsuccessful. And to the irritation of my supervisors when they came, Why did you do that? …having that conversation.
Adriane Herrick Juarez:
Question #6: It’s good to know those things. Is there anything else that you would like to share? 09:50
Jennifer Nelson:
For me, emotional intelligence, compassion, and empathy really all work together to create a full approach to leadership. There is lots of good literature out there. One of the things I was thinking about in preparation for this call is what I’d recommend. Interestingly enough, what I would recommend people read is the Dalai Lama’s The Art of Happiness. That is a book that means a lot to me, particularly when he articulates that you get to be happy and your happiness spreads. You have to start with yourself. That to me is the most important part of anything that we do—that it all starts inside.
Folks talk about equity, diversity, and inclusion and what does that look like, and how do you do it? There are plans out there and schemes, and all sorts of training. But, really it starts with yourself, being able to—in my case I’m a white woman, to look at myself and say, Well, I’ve benefited from white privilege. What does that mean for me? How does that help me to be more understanding and empathic of the challenges of people of color that I work with, that are in my community? Without emotional intelligence, and compassion, and the empathy I wouldn’t be able to do that. I probably wouldn’t be as happy a person as I am knowing, and having this background knowledge, information, and insights into myself.
I don’t take myself too seriously. I think that’s a danger when we do take ourselves too seriously. In my experience—in my almost forty years of working in a library, there’s nothing that can’t be solved. There’s always a solution out there. It may not be pretty. It may be painful, but there’s a solution. Everything can be fixed.
Adriane Herrick Juarez:
Question #7: You mentioned reading the Dalai Lama, do you have any other favorite management, or leadership books, or resources, and why? 11:41
Jennifer Nelson:
The one thing I encourage people to do—there’s a fellow named Travis Bradberry who has a book called, Emotional Intelligence 2.0. It’s a really quick primer on emotional intelligence. One of the nice things is, he has in it a code where you can take a test and measure your own self-awareness, and the four criteria. I like to direct that to people just to get an understanding of what—where some of your challenges might lie.
For me, several years ago I took a Myers-Briggs and I scored really low on communication. At first I was affronted, Oh, my gosh, how can I not be a good communicator, etc? But, when I had time to think about it I went through some of the emotional intelligence, working with a coach in the area of emotional intelligence, and realized that my ability to bring empathy and to understand what was happening in people around me was limited. I wasn’t seeing the full picture, being open to that. I was missing a piece in all of my relationships—in my work relationships, and communication, so it was really helpful to be able to use Travis Bradberry’s book. He also has a weekly newsletter that he puts out and that is really wonderful. I’m blanking on the name of it at the moment. He does a really nice job with it. I think it’s on LinkedIn. It’s easy to follow.
There’s just a ton of good books out there. I like the work that Daniel Goleman has done—can’t be a leader without Sanger and Faulkner in your back pocket. Those are some of the ones that are meaningful to me.
On the other side of things in the area of self-compassion there’s a woman named Kristin Neff who does some really nice podcasting meditation, that sort of thing, on self-compassion that I find really helpful. I tend to fall to them when I’m in a frustrating situation. The words she uses are: May it be kind; may it be peaceful; may I accept myself as I am. That always helps me get through those difficult situations where part of me wants to be really reactive, and the other part, No, you don’t. You really don’t want to do reactive. You want to respond in a way that’s going to respect the situation. I encourage myself to be kind to myself, and to be healthy, and to appreciate myself for who I am—the good, the bad, and the ugly, so to speak.
Adriane Herrick Juarez:
Question #8: Thank you, Jen. In closing, what do libraries mean to you, personally? 14:21
Jennifer Nelson:
Libraries for me are all about hope, and potential. I’ve worked in libraries for forty years and had a lot of different jobs. What’s really driven me the whole time is how libraries help people make their lives better and improve their lives, whether it’s young children learning to read, or adults learning how to use technology. I remember my first interactions with somebody—teaching them at the library. They wanted to know how to go on EBay. That was back, way back in the day with the Gates computers, back in the 90’s. So, that’s always been my motivation—how do we help people to live their best lives? I think libraries are primary institutions to be able to do that. I think we’re both fortunate, and blessed to be able to have compassion, location, and application, and as a career. I feel very lucky, and grateful for the opportunity libraries have given me.
Adriane Herrick Juarez:
Question #9: Providing hope, improving lives, and helping others are definitely important ways that libraries have impact. I think emotional intelligence is one way that library leaders can help move our organizations towards those ends. So, I’m grateful to have you on the show today. Thank you for being here, Jen. 15:29
Jennifer Nelson:
Oh, it was a pleasure, Adriane.
You’ve been listening to Library Leadership Podcast. This is Adriane Herrick Juarez. For more episodes tune in to LibraryLeadershipPodcast.com where you can now subscribe to get episodes delivered right into your email inbox. Our producer is Nathan Sinclair Vineyard. Thanks for listening. We’ll see you next time.
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