Statement of Competency
Introduction
Information professionals occupy a wide range of positions, from community librarians to digital asset managers, each applying their unique skills to connect people with knowledge and resources. Whether working in a public, academic, or specialized setting, the ability to lead with integrity and communicate effectively is central to professional success. Developing these skills expands opportunities, strengthens collaboration, and deepens the sense of trust that underscores meaningful information work.
Leadership
Kendra Albright (2022) synthesizes several definitions of leadership from influential leaders such as Peter Drucker, Bill Gates, John Maxwell, Warren Bennis, and Travis Bradbury, and distills them into a single definition of leadership: “the ability to draw people together to set and accomplish goals that are intentionally directed toward positive outcomes” (p. 503). The Library Leadership and Management Association (LLAMA), developed through the American Library Association’s Emerging Leaders Program in 2008, created a framework of leadership competencies for library and information professionals that currently includes fourteen areas (American Library Association, 2016). These competencies are organized under four overarching metacompetencies—cognitive ability, vision, interpersonal effectiveness, and managerial effectiveness—which provide structure for the fourteen core areas (Ammons-Stephens et al., 2009):
Budget creation and presentation
Change management
Communication skills
Collaboration and partnerships
Conflict resolution
Critical thinking
Emotional intelligence
Evidence-based decision making
Ethics
Forward thinking
Problem solving
Project management
Marketing and advocacy
Team building
These competencies are designed to offer broad applicability “across roles, career stages, and library types” (ALA, 2016, para. 1). Albright’s (2022) evaluation of leadership theories emphasizes that social influence is central to leadership behavior, that success can emerge through multiple pathways, and that authentic leadership always aims toward the greater good. Leadership is foundational to professional practice across the information professions. Because information professionals occupy a wide range of roles and institutional contexts, leadership must be adaptable and inclusive of different styles and approaches. Albright (2022) highlights several leadership theories that are particularly relevant to information environments:
Transformational/Charismatic Leadership Theory – focuses on inspiring and motivating followers.
Democratic/Participative Leadership Theory – invites input from followers while the leader makes the final decisions.
Servant Leadership Theory – focuses on meeting the needs of followers before those of the organization.
While distinct in their methods, these models share core themes of communication, motivation, and empathy which are qualities that are essential to effective leadership in the twenty-first century’s culturally and emotionally nuanced professional landscape.
Communication
In the twenty-first century, information professionals must demonstrate proficiency in multimodal communication through in-person, virtual, and written forms to effectively serve their communities and constituencies (Alman, 2022). Both the American Library Association (ALA, 2016) and the Library Leadership and Management Association (LLAMA, 2009) identify clear communication as one of the core leadership competencies essential to professional success. Echoing Alman, these organizations emphasize the importance of “well-developed verbal, non-verbal, and written communication methods to interact with employees and stakeholders, conveying information clearly and efficiently and using active listening for consistent, mutual understanding” (ALA, 2016, para. 4). While most would agree on the non-negotiable “hard skills” of communication, meaning those that encompass verbal, non-verbal, and written expression, Alman (2022) further highlights the significance of “soft skills,” which reflect an individual’s interpersonal adeptness and capacity to build meaningful professional relationships (p. 376). If communication is understood as the interplay between the sending and receiving of information, these hard skills form the foundation for effective transmission, while the “receiving” side relies on active listening, sensitivity to non-verbal cues, and a commitment to civility.
Evidence
INFO 282: Project Management in Remote Work Environments
My first piece of evidence is a Prezi presentation I submitted as my final term project for INFO 282: Project Management with Dr. Sean Gaffney. We were instructed to either write an eight page term paper on a Project Management topic of our choosing, or create a presentation that covered the breadth and depth of material of the term paper option. Because I wanted to extend my knowledge base using technology, and the topic I chose dealt with project management in the remote work environment, a visual presentation carried resonance with the topic. In this presentation, I cover a host of topics about remote project management (history, impact of COVID-19, for example), but the sections on Leadership and Communication are particularly salient and applicable to this competency.
This evidence supports Competency M by demonstrating my understanding of strategic and adaptive leadership, including topics such as conflict management, motivation, and team coordination. I show that I understand that effective communication in new, digital environments is not only nuanced (because it combines written, visual, and audible, delivered through technology), but also crucial to effective and professional leadership. The references I consulted to create and support the presentation includes both academic and professional literature, which shows I can integrate different schools of thought and synthesize key findings.
I secured, in advance, the permission of my group members to include their names and school email addresses as they appear in my e-Portfolio evidence.
My second piece of evidence is a script I wrote and designed for our synchronous Zoom presentation to members of our INFO 246: Information Architecture course. The script is an ancillary piece of work that was created to support the redesign of a website, concentrating on Information Architecture, user experience, and taxonomy. I was responsible for presenting the first five slides, and I organized the script by inserting a two by five table into a google document, and placid each slide in the first column, and put the corresponding script language in the column on the right. I spoke directly off of this script while delivering my presentation (only audio and the visual slides were included in the presentation).
This evidence supports Competency M by showing various communication modes and methods. I married the information visuals (slides) with text to describe our project and communicate our findings. In this piece of evidence, I synthesized the visual and textual elements of our presentation. The text was clear, organized, and written in a way that could communicate my point in an audience-focused manner. This script, when it was used in the presentation, married textual and verbal communication skills through professional public speaking to a closed group of students and one professor.
This group project was selected by Dr. Virginia Tucker to represent INFO 246: Information Architecture in the 2025 Exemplary Student Showcase: Tahoe.com Website Redesign.
INFO 204: Leadership Characteristics Discussion Post
My third piece of evidence is a discussion post about leadership characteristics completed for INFO 204: Information Professions with Dr. Sean Gaffney (Fall 2023). We were instructed to choose a leader in the MLIS field and write a 500-word profile that spoke to their leadership characteristics. We had to make use of scholarly readings to support the type of leadership traits exhibited by our chosen leader. I chose to profile Mychal Threets, an SJSU Alumnus (2018) who broke into the TikTok and Instagram communities during COVID-19 by posting videos and speaking about his experiences as a child and a librarian in the Solano County (CA) public library system.
This evidence supports Competency M by demonstrating my understanding of transformational and charismatic leadership, which aligns with Albright’s (2022) accentuation of emotionally intelligent leadership for information professionals. I back this up with examples of how Mr. Threets exemplifies these emotionally intelligent leadership "soft skills”: his ability to make meaningful connections over social media, his vulnerability in sharing his own mental health struggles, and by demonstrating inclusivity in his communication style.
Conclusion
As I move forward in my career as an information professional, I plan to center leadership and communication in my daily practice. I recognize that authentic leadership grows from empathy, ethical decision-making, and the ability to communicate clearly across many contexts. I will continue to develop these skills by being an engaged collaborator, practicing active listening, and remaining adaptable to work with both stakeholders and users. The competencies outlined by the ALA and LLAMA provide a strong foundation for actionable professional knowledge and behavior, and I intend to revisit their revisions throughout my career.
References
Albright, K. (2022). Leadership skills for today’s global information landscape. In S. Hirsh (Ed.), Information services today: An introduction (3rd ed., pp. 501-512). Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
Alman, S. W. (2022). Communication, marketing, and outreach strategies. In S. Hirsh (Ed.), Information services today: An introduction (3rd ed., pp. 374-387). Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
American Library Association. (2016, October 3). Leadership and management competencies. Library Leadership & Management Association (LLAMA). https://www.ala.org/core/continuing-education/leadership-and-management-competencies
Ammons-Stephens, S., Cole, H. J., Jenkins-Gibbs, K., Riehle, C. F., & Weare, W. H., Jr. (2009). Developing core leadership competencies for the library profession. Library Leadership & Management, 23(2), 63–74.