Dowagiac Hearts Leading from the Middle

Posted by jlubans on March 29, 2011

The Dowagiac News (MIchigan) featured a story about the new director of the Dowagiac District Library, Katherine Johnson. Ms. Johnson’s recent lunch talk to the Rotary club at the Elks Lodge 889, in Michigan, included this quote about what she has been reading lately about leaderships:

“My two favorites are Rudy Giuliani’s book on leadership and ‘Leading from the Middle … a “really good book on leadership, and let me tell you why,” Johnson said. “There’s a restaurant (Tadisch’s) in San Francisco with excellent food and service beyond compare. It’s not fancy, but the ambience is comfortable and it’s a really wonderful establishment. (When the author of Leading from the Middle was there one night – (as described in the second chapter of the book) -, he asked the waiter to talk to the boss to tell him what a wonderful restaurant it was and the waiter said, ‘I’m the boss. …”

“Every person working in the restaurant, (stated Ms. Johnson) knows that to the public dealing with that person, he (or she) was the restaurant, just like in the library when you go to the desk, that clerk is the library. “

Leading from the Middle is giving employees that feeling that they have a stake “

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Comments

Posted by russ on March 31, 2011  •  08:00:40

The false perception of the general public (patron) is everyone that works in a library is a Librarian...unlike a restaurant where I doubt that diners think that the wait-staff also cooks. Or in medicine, where not everyone sees in hospital is a doctor.

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