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The purpose of this chapter is to show how organizational change could be applied to local public libraries in a post-war country, in this case Kosovo. After decades under the communist system and a decade of conflict and political instability, Kosovo gained its independence in February 2008. Local libraries in Kosovo, fully developed under the previous communist system, almost collapsed in the post-communist period, which was characterized by conflicts that finally ended with the NATO bombing in 1999. They are now trying to catch up to western styles of work and development, trying to function within a region still governed by the UN, secured by NATO forces, and dealing with library users who have increased significantly their expectations of library services.

Addressing the challenge of continuously strengthening our own leadership begins with considering our self-efficacy, our belief in our capacity to carry out desired actions, and its influence on our agency, our actual capacity to carry out desired actions. Our agency grows when “nudged” along by our self-efficacy. However, this requires insight into what is happening around us, achieved by looking to the following two leadership horizons:

Presence, how much we notice and attend to what is happening, with empathy, for all stakeholders.

Vision and values, why we do what we do, how we see ourselves, and who we aspire to be.

Beyond what these two leadership horizons offer separately, together they influence the stories we shape in our “storied space,” the place we each occupy in which the events of the past and the possibilities of the future converge in our ever-unfolding present. We constantly draw together emerging insights to keep making new meaning and ideating possibilities best matched to addressing emerging challenges. As our understanding sharpens, we narrow our options to the best fitting one, shape it into a prototype, and test it in action. Throughout this, we constantly monitor the resonance of our self-efficacy and agency to keep the actions we intend undertaking realistically sitting at the threshold of what we can nearly accomplish.

Rather than mapping a fixed blueprint, this design approach offers rigor and agility, enabling our agency to grow organically, culminating in leadership fit for purpose, including a sound capacity to strengthen our own leadership, by design.