This week, I have a new paper out titled “Coding with those who show up: Two methodologies on technical committee work” in Information Technology and Libraries. It is licensed CC-BY-NC, so you can read it for free here.

The point of the article is that the literature on “laissez-faire leadership” is disproportionately (and in my opinion, sometimes incorrectly) negative about hands-off leadership styles. While that literature is largely quantitative, I read it with a humanistic approach to ask whether what they say and claim is defensible. My conclusion, reading “against the literature,” is that laissez-faire leadership is sometimes — possibly under very specific circumstances — valuable and useful. This analysis is supplemented with two case studies of a laissez-faire approach in committees in our library.

I hope you enjoy the paper and I’d be curious to hear your thoughts!

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