Between the HR department and our senior staff members, we noticed that several of our newer leaders felt unprepared for being in a position of leadership. We also saw a trend that we were bringing in more leadership from outside of ACPL rather than promoting from within. HR worked to develop a curriculum for new and emerging leaders that would help them establish their identity as a leader and become more confident, helping us grow our leadership from within the organization.

ACPL’s leadership cohort is an 8-week program that currently runs for four months in the spring of each year. We bring in leaders from throughout the community to work with our cohort staff on topics such as strengths, EQ, team building, conflict resolution, and communication, to name a few. At the end of the program, cohort members make a presentation to the rest of cohort and senior staff about a topic that their supervisor picked and how it is supported by the information they gained in the cohort. This strengthens their public speaking skills. This program is unique because we have staff participate from all areas of library operations, which contributes to a broader understanding of how the library runs. We’ve had some staff who were seasoned leaders who requested to be in the cohort, staff who were new to leadership positions, and even staff who show leadership potential but are not yet in leadership positions.

Since the leadership cohort was started in the spring of 2024, 18% of our participants have been promoted within the library. Specific to the July 1, 2025 to July 31, 2026 timeframe, 80% of all of our leadership hires were from within the library, and 50% of leadership hires were staff who had participated in the leadership cohort. On a more personal metric, we ask all participants to complete a pre- and post-cohort survey, including answering how confident they felt about their leadership abilities on a scale of 1-10 (1 low, 10 high). Without fail, all participants have increased that answer by their post-cohort survey. We have also witnessed a strengthening in community relationships since the beginning of cohort. The presenters we bring in have developed strong ties to the library and are being asked to do other consulting work within our system.