Effective Leadership as the Roadmap towards Academic Librarians’ Service Delivery

Abstract

Service delivery is simply the act of providing service to users, customers, or clients. It is a component of activities that defines the interaction between providers (librarians) and clients (users). Leadership is the influencing process of leaders and followers to achieve organizational objectives through change. Influencing in leadership is about the relationship between leaders and followers, it does not necessarily mean control is enforced on the followers. This paper discussed effective leadership as the roadmap toward academic librarians‟ service delivery. A general overview was explained of what leadership is, looking at the leadership styles that leaders of academic libraries and others alike may employ to carry out their daily activities to ensure service delivery. This paper also described the effectiveness of leadership for service delivery which showcases the ability of the individual to successfully direct the activities of the group of librarians to the attainment of stated goals and objectives. The role of leadership in academic libraries in service delivery was expatiated. The conclusion of this work stated that leadership is a function of group association and interaction. It was recommended among others that there should be effective leadership in the library so as to bring about good service delivery and information dissemination to the library users.