What is Contingency Theories of Leadership

Academic libraries in the 21st century are in the midst of constant and tumultuous change caused by advances in technology, shifting demands of faculty and students, declining budgets, and transformations in publishing and in other methods of acquiring scholarly research. Librarians working in this environment must cope with continuous change while still providing research support to their primary clientele - faculty and students. This chapter addresses the research on change leadership styles and behaviors employed by leaders in academic libraries today. Included in the chapter are reinforcement and transactional leadership, consultative and participatory leadership, participatory and transformational leadership, shared leadership and self-leadership. The chapter concludes with a review of areas in need of future research.