Pima County Public Library is a large library system with many leadership opportunities. Until now, we’ve had no formalized training curriculum that encourages staff to realize their leadership potential. Our system wants to grow leaders and plan for the future of our organization. We also want to instill confidence in staff to take risks, bring ideas forward and empower staff to take on leadership roles no matter what position they hold in the library.

Everyone’s a Leader is a system wide leadership training course that is open to all staffing levels from pages to library director. Staff of various levels takes the all-day course together irrespective of staffing level. They work in small groups to define leadership, assess leadership styles, and learn ways to motivate and empower people. We’ve made a commitment to give staff a day away from their regular duties to explore different possibilities and to think about leadership in the workplace, in their lives and in the community.

Creating a system wide training program not only succeeded in training staff on leadership principles, but also gave 26 staff members the opportunity learn facilitation skills. These 26 staff members worked together to create the curriculum and facilitate the training sessions. All staff members will attend the training by the end of 2012. We have trained 159 out of 450 staff in 2010. Evaluations of the program have revealed that staff members have learned how to work with different personalities, effectively motivate people, be a leader in every aspect of their lives and inspire others. Staff realizes after this training that they all have the ability to lead from wherever they are.