Leadership Skills Through Professional Service

Description: Service work or professional service, whether through professional associations, conference planning, editorial boards, or task forces, offers librarians a pathway to developing leadership skills outside their immediate workplace. These roles provide opportunities for gaining competencies in such areas as project management, strategic decision-making, budgeting, and team coordination. Developing these skills can be important to one’s personal professional development, and may even pave the way for a future move into leadership positions at work.

This webinar, led by Marcela Y. Isuster and Katherine Hanz, authors of the upcoming book Service Work for Tenure and Promotion, will explore how to strategically select and leverage service opportunities that align with your career goals, build transferable skills, and enhance your professional visibility. We will discuss practical approaches for moving from participation to leadership roles, navigating equity and access challenges, and showcasing service contributions in performance reviews, tenure dossiers, and job applications. Participants will leave with actionable strategies for identifying service roles that build leadership competencies, mapping those experiences to workplace leadership opportunities, and effectively communicating the impact of their service work to supervisors and promotion committees. This workshop is aimed at librarians in all sectors and career stages.

Learning Outcomes: 

By the end of this webinar, attendees will be able to:

• Analyze service opportunities to select roles that align with career goals and build leadership competencies;
• Apply strategies for documenting and communicating service contributions to demonstrate impact during performance reviews and promotion processes; and
• Engage in professional networks through service to build social capital and expand influence beyond the library.

Who Should Attend: Librarians across all sectors and career stages. Also supervisors, department heads, and library directors interested in supporting service-based leadership development, as well as association leaders and committee chairs.

 

Presenter:

Marcela Isuster is a librarian at McGill University, where she coordinates the Digital Scholarship Hub and serves as Liaison Librarian to the School of Information Studies and the Department of Hispanic Studies. With over a decade of experience in academic librarianship, her work is grounded in service, mentorship, and inclusive leadership.

Katherine Hanz is a librarian at McGill University, where she currently holds the position of Associate Dean, Teaching and Learning. She has over fifteen years of experience in academic libraries, including numerous years as a subject liaison for education, social sciences, and the humanities. Prior to becoming an Associate Dean, she led the coordination of lending and access services across all library units as the coordinator and subsequently head of lending & access services.

Tech Requirements