178   INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND LIBRARIES  |  DECEMBER 2006

L
eadership—what is it? ALA President Leslie Burger 
has me thinking about it a lot these days. As I write, 
the LITA Board is in the process of determining who 

LITA will sponsor in the ALA Emerging Leaders Program. 
The task is difficult. LITA has many new librarians who 
have strong potential for leadership. Consequently I feel 
assured that LITA has a strong future because what is an 
association, if not its members? So one of the questions 
the Board asked was what does it mean to be an emerg-
ing leader? When has one emerged? Personally, I feel that 
I am still emerging because there is always more to learn. 
Lifelong learning, isn’t that what librarians are all about?

In preparation for my presidency, I attended an 
American Society for Association Executives seminar facili-
tated by Tecker Consultants. They defined four types of 
influential leadership: servant, visionary, expert, and cata-
lytic. I see all four types of influential leaders within LITA 
and they are all important. The servant leader provides 
service to others. In a volunteer organization like LITA, 
a lot of servant leadership is being exhibited. These are 
the people who keep the organization humming, making 
sure we have the programs and education opportunities 
that make LITA relevant to its members. The most obvi-
ous place we see visionary leaders in LITA is at our Top 
Technology Trends; however, it is not the only place where 
visionary thinking occurs. LITA members are often cutting-
edge, applying new technologies to solve problems or to 
provide better solutions and services. Visionary leadership 
is where one sees what the future could look like. LITA 
programs are filled with expert leaders who share their 
technical expertise and lead the profession in applying 
those technologies. However, we also have many expert 
leaders who have important insights into what the asso-
ciation can be. The catalytic leader brings people together 
and leverages their capabilities. The LITA Board works 
with other LITA leadership to ensure that our goals are 
reached and to bring together all of the LITA offerings to 
make membership a comprehensive professional benefit. 

My challenge as the current LITA President with the 
ALA Emerging Leaders Program is to ensure that our 
sponsored member has a meaningful opportunity to 
become a superb leader both within LITA and within the 

profession. In addition to attending the leadership training 
workshops for all of the emerging leaders, each sponsored 
person will be appointed to some service role within ALA 
or one of its units. The LITA Board has elected to have our 
sponsored emerging leader work closely with the officers, 
in particular our Vice President/President-elect Mark 
Beatty, on strategic planning for the next two years. I am 
hopeful that we will learn a great deal from our emerging 
leader regarding what new members are seeking out of 
the organization. 

When I think about a good leader, I think about some-
one who listens, who allows others to think creatively 
and to take risks, who inspires, who sees the big picture, 
who can make decisions and make others understand the 
reasons for a decision, and who communicates well. John 
Buchan put it this way: “The task of leadership is not to 
put greatness into people, but to elicit it, for the greatness 
is there already.” My goal this year, in conjunction with, 
but not limited to, the ALA Emerging Leaders Program, 
is to grow our new members into future LITA leaders. I 
have been rewarded in all of my work within LITA to wit-
ness rising stars take on exciting roles and projects. I hope 
everyone reaps the joys of mentoring new professionals at 
some point in their careers. 

In my own leadership role, I take seriously the need 
to implement LITA’s strategic plan. In that vein, the board 
has created an Assessment and Research Task Force that 
will make recommendations on gathering assessment data 
and feedback from members. With the appropriate knowl-
edge base, we can ensure that value is being received. The 
board has also created a working group consisting of the 
chairs of the Education Committee, the Regional Institutes 
Committee, and the Program Planning Committee to make 
recommendations on our education programs. I have been 
working with that group to identify new modes of deliver-
ing our programs and to ensure that they maintain their 
relevancy to LITA members. LITA continues to implement 
new communication technologies to reach out to its mem-
bers. The LITA Blog has now been up for over a year and 
the new LITA Wiki is available for use by Interest Groups 
and others to allow experts to collaborate in the building 
of topic-specific resources. 

Sir John Harvey-Jones framed the question thusly: 
“How do you know you have won? When the energy is 
coming the other way and when your people are visibly 
growing individually and as a group.”

I see this happening in LITA. What an energizing and 
fulfilling sight it is!

President’s Column Bonnie Postlethwaite

Bonnie Postlethwaite (postlethwaiteb@umkc.edu) is LITA Pres-
ident 2006/2007 and Associate Dean of Libraries, University of 
Missouri–Kansas City.