“10 Years, 4 Libraries, 2 Office Moves, and 1 Staff Retreat Later: A Leader Emerges”
Mary Carmen Chimato engaged symposium attendees with high-energy freestyle approach, reaching an audience that extended across the conference room. In her presentation, Chimato shared her professional life experiences, commitment to work, and the fervor to create the best user experiences possible for library patrons. She began her career at the Florence A. Moore Library. Her experiences as a newbie librarian and the mentoring she received transformed her into an experienced librarian. Working in a small library required wearing multiple hats and taking on multiple responsibilities. She continues her professional journey at North Carolina State University (NCSU), where she is Head of Access Services in a large library, supervising a large number of staff.
Chimato told of her determination to create a user friendly environment for library patrons and simultaneously improve the morale of the circulation department at NCSU. She created a sense of belonging to a team in her department, producing and atmosphere that is supportive, collaborative, and goal driven, ensuring and sustaining a pleasant work environment for her staff. This allowed her employees needed to achieve the best possible outcomes for the experiences of users and their own job satisfaction. Her relentless efforts to inspire staff, create trust, resolve issues in a timely manner, and support staff initiatives helped her realize her professional goals. Chimato recommends the book, “Death by Meeting” by Patrick Lencioni, for leadership and team-building inspiration.
Chimato endorses a practical leadership style. She described the characteristics of responsible leaders, suggesting that good leaders must ask difficult questions and attempt to arrive at decisions that everyone agrees to support. Leaders should acquire the communication expertise to pitch ideas to employees and administrators during the initial planning stages of a change. Leaders, she says, should offer challenges to their staff; even small successes can be improve employee morale. In her experiences as a leader, Chimato has learned to invite feedback from all levels, allow risk taking, generate higher expectations, and acknowledge achievements. She believes that positive library user experiences depend on service; every library employee, should treat everyone, including colleagues, as customers of the library. She goes on to state that effective leaders can motivate by:
o Putting work in context
o Developing their followers professionally
o Leading by example
o Providing support
Chimato believes “attitude is everything.” She encourages library leaders to develop a positive attitude, a sense of humor, confidence, and committment to their work. With this kind of a leader, staff will soar with vigor and enthusiasm to achieve goals.
Mary Carmen Chimato, an emerging leader, credits her success to having a phenomenal mentor, professional life experiences prevailed, and the unwavering commitment to create the best user experience possible for library patrons.
Book mentioned by Mary Carmen Chimato
Patrick Lencioni, Death by Meeting: a Leadership Fable about Solving the Most Painful Problem in
Business. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2004. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/53848357
–Dianne Gordon Conyers
