Leading through uncertainty: Fostering morale and connection in challenging times 

This post is one in a series documenting findings from the RLP Leadership Roundtable discussions. It is co-authored by Rebecca Bryant and Chela Weber. It is the first of two blog posts that summarize outcomes from discussions focused on leadership in times of uncertainty and change.

Leading people and programs can be especially challenging during times of uncertainty and change. As many libraries grapple with budget constraints, staffing shortages, and resource limitations, the OCLC Research Library Partnership (RLP) created space for leaders to share challenges, learn from peers, and provide mutual support. 

The RLP convened separate roundtables for special collections and research support leaders, both focused on leading through uncertainty. Participants explored several key questions: 

1. What is the most challenging aspect of your work in a leadership role today? 
   
2. What’s been your approach to sunsetting or pivoting work on services, projects, or other activities, especially when those decisions are unpopular? Do you have underlying principles that guide your decision making? How do you balance short- and long-term priorities? 
   
3. How do you effectively and transparently communicate during challenging times? How do you share enough without sharing too much? Do you have tools for supporting staff morale during extended periods of staff uncertainty? 
   
4. We all dealt with the major crisis of the pandemic and the uncertainty it brought, some in leadership roles while others have come into leadership since. What have you learned from this or other past crises that you can apply now? What are you learning about leadership from observing senior leadership at your institution? Has anyone done anything that inspires you or lifts your own morale? 

Fifty individuals from 43 RLP institutions across five countries participated in a total of eight 90-minute discussions. The discussions revealed that leadership challenges transcend national boundaries, though specific contexts vary. Common themes emerged around financial constraints, communication challenges, and the need for adaptive leadership strategies. RLP leadership roundtables observe the Chatham House Rule—no specific comments are attributed to any individual or institution, but a list of participating institutions is provided at the bottom of this post.

The resulting discussions were so rich that we couldn’t capture them all in one blog post. This is part one of the outcomes of our leadership discussions, and part two will follow shortly.  

Budgetary and staffing pressures

Our discussions reveal a group of librarians and archivists grappling with a complex web of challenges while working to maintain operations and support staff.

Budget constraints. Library leaders face severe budget constraints as their most immediate challenge. Roundtable participants described how their organizations are facing cuts ranging from 5% to 33% for fiscal year 2026. One participant described their institution as already in a perilous condition following years of declining enrollment and budget recissions, and others described the precarity of state budgets.

Uncertainty abounds. One participant expressed concerns about how reductions to indirect costs will further impact library funding, prompting efforts to prepare campus faculty for potential library cuts. The uncertainty of when, and if, budgets will stabilize impacts morale.

Staffing pressures compound these challenges. Hiring freezes and budget constraints force many institutions to operate with skeleton crews. One leader who lost one-third of their personnel in the last two years cannot rebuild due to hiring restrictions. Another institution self-imposed a hiring freeze to avoid future position cuts. Retention is another struggle; one leader explained, “I have lost staff simply because they cannot afford [to live in our city] on the amount that they get paid at the library.”

Operational impacts. Budget uncertainty and staffing shortages create cascading effects throughout library operations. Library staff at many institutions feel overworked, stressed, and overwhelmed. Morale is low.  Staff take on new responsibilities without additional compensation, and several libraries reported reorganization efforts to address reduced capacity.

Strengthening morale through recognition and connection

Several participants described their efforts to build morale by engaging teams in meaningful work and providing authentic support.

Acknowledge fear and uncertainty. With staff feeling anxiety, “especially about job security,” several participants described the need to extend compassion and convey to staff that “it’s okay to not be okay.”

Connect to core purpose.  It’s important to maintain a connection to the core mission despite challenges. External engagement seems particularly motivating. One leader noted: “When you’re with other people who are excited about your material, it gets you excited again” about the work. Another helps “my direct reports find work projects that they feel . . . like they’re doing something that is meaningful to them beyond just the kind of cultural heritage work that we normally do.”

Foster solutions-oriented thinking. Leaders struggled with team expectations to provide all the solutions, seeking ways to encourage solutions-oriented thinking.

• Identify things you can’t fix. One participant helps staff identify “gravity problems”—issues that, like gravity, are not going to change and shouldn’t consume energy. Instead, they urge focus on problems that can be meaningfully addressed.  
• Promote collaborative work. Several leaders promote projects that allow staff to support each other rather than relying heavily on supervisory relationships. Through collaboration, “they see each other’s work, they are interdependent, they can support each other more.”
• Convene solutions-focused meetings. Many use staff meetings to address roadblocks and encourage team members to “come with proposed solutions” rather than just problems.

Recognition and morale building. To buoy morale, many libraries have implemented regular recognition practices:

• “60-second shout-outs” start meetings positively by allowing quick recognition of valued work
• “Shout-out cards” let staff publicly recognize the work of others on cards posted in the staff break room
• Celebrating achievements like publications, awards, promotions, and personal accomplishments at regular library meetings
• Community events or “engagement days” convene staff members for team building and wellness activities. One institution recently hosted a kitten adoption event
• Campus award nominations leverage institutional HR staff awards programs—for example, one institution has fostered a positive culture of appreciation through regular award nominations and wins

The impact of these efforts extends beyond individual recognition: “It’s been gratifying to see how supportive people are of each other, and this kind of peer support is meaningful to a lot of people, not just the person getting the shout-out.”

Strategic approaches to uncertainty and change

Facing budget and staffing uncertainties, library leaders described strategic approaches that focus on core services, scenario planning, and selective implementation of new initiatives. They looked to professional values and institutional priorities to guide their decision-making.

Planning strategies

Scenario planning. Participants’ institutions are conducting budget exercises to identify and maintain core services in anticipation of deep cuts. This “war footing” approach prioritizes core services with hopes of rebuilding later. Some included staff in documenting potential responses to different funding levels, facilitating informed decision-making. Several emphasized the need to take a library-wide view of cuts due to significant cross-departmental impacts.

Defining and identifying services. Informed decision-making requires understanding the depth and breadth of library activities. One institution created a comprehensive “service catalog” through a collaborative process to identify all services, including legacy offerings and those duplicated across departments. This approach reveals services they “don’t realize that we are doing” and serves as a “game changer” for the organization, supporting the library as it undergoes a significant restructuring to refocus services. Some institutions are working to clearly define what constitutes a “core service,” though this presents challenges as disagreement emerges about priorities.

Operational adaptations

Flexible contracts and purchasing. One institution is negotiating greater flexibility by shifting from multi-year to single-year purchasing contracts, requesting hardship clauses where single-year options aren’t available, and purchasing some resources outright instead of licensing to manage future uncertainty.

“Good enough” service standards. Participants agreed that libraries and archives cannot and should not continue to provide the same level of service with significantly reduced resources. Instead, one library is implementing a “good enough” approach that emphasizes sustainability over perfection.

Strategic sunsetting of services. Several institutions are examining services to discontinue, which can be challenging because staff are deeply invested in their work. Examples include ending conservation work on circulating collections after staff departures, sunsetting an under-resourced research information management system, and reallocating a data visualization position to geospatial support to fill strategic campus gaps.

Leveraging change

Crisis as opportunity. A few participants view recent challenges—including the pandemic and staff losses—as opportunities for positive change. These circumstances can serve as a catalyst for workflow reconceptualization, service prioritization, and improved institutional alignment, with one participant saying, “never let a good crisis go to waste.”

Visible service impacts. Some leaders are deliberately making service reductions visible to demonstrate the real impact of budget cuts, rather than maintaining the illusion that operations can continue unchanged. “I want them to be visible. I don’t want to not be able to serve people and make it hard to use our collections, but at the same time, I don’t think I do anyone a service . . . by pretending that we can continue to [work as we always have].” This transparency helps stakeholders understand the consequences of funding decisions.

Supporting staff through change

Managing staff expectations and morale. The identity-driven nature of archives and special collections work creates particular challenges when asking these staff to reduce their efforts. As one leader noted, “People draw a lot of identity from their work” which “makes asking them to scale back even harder.” Leaders are helping staff adjust expectations to match current realities to identify what can be paused, as well as working on realistic individual goal planning.

Boundaries and organizational support. Participants emphasized the need to ensure that service reduction decisions are supported throughout the organizational hierarchy, offering frontline staff the agency to set boundaries with users.

Looking ahead

These discussions accentuated that effective leadership during challenging times requires both strategic operational thinking and genuine care for people. Participants shared experiences that showed not only the weight of their decisions but also the collective strength found in peer networks, transparent communication, and a focus on meaningful work. The strategies they explored—scenario planning, morale-building practices, visible service impacts—reflect their efforts to balance institutional priorities with the well-being of staff and the communities they serve. 

The strategies and insights shared by RLP affiliates offer support and resources for peers navigating similar challenges. As we continue to unpack their insights, the next post will delve deeper into practical approaches for fostering adaptive leadership and organizational resilience.  

Roundtable participants

For the special collections roundtable in May 2025, 25 participants from 25 institutions attended:

Clemson University	National Library of New Zealand	Harry Ransom Center (University of Texas at Austin)
Cleveland Museum of Art	Smithsonian Libraries and Archives	University of Toronto
Cornell University	The New School	University of Utah
Emory University	University of Calgary	University of Washington
George Washington University	University of Arizona	University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV)
Haverford College	University of Delaware	Vanderbilt University
Monash University	University of Kansas	Virginia Tech
Montana State University	University of Miami
National Library of Australia	University of Pittsburgh

For the research support roundtable in June 2025, 25 individuals participated from 23 RLP institutions:

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory	Stony Brook University	University of Maryland
Institute for Advanced Study	Syracuse University	University of Sydney
Monash University	Tufts University	University of Tennessee, Knoxville
New York University	University of Arizona	University of Texas at Austin
Ohio State University	University of California, Irvine	University of Toronto
Penn State University	University of California, San Diego	University of Waterloo
Rutgers University	University of Delaware	Utrecht University
Smithsonian Libraries & Archives	University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Sincere thanks for Mercy Procaccini and Erica Melko for their suggestions that improved these posts.

AI Nota Bene: The co-authors leveraged AI in the writing of these blog posts. AI was used to identify key themes from notes and discussion transcripts, which was useful for developing the blog outline and some suggested quotes. We found AI useful for suggesting subheadings and more concise language. Nevertheless, we did the majority of the writing ourselves.