Leadership in challenging times of academic libraries

Purpose The purpose of this study is to explore the key challenges of academic libraries in times of changing nature of higher education system and how library leaders can manage the challenges when effective leadership is highly required for academic libraries today. As the time is changing, the kinds of challenges that library leaders face have also changed. Author of this study explores the methods and approaches, which are more effective ways of managing challenges in the reshaping environment of academic libraries. At the same time, change has become a permanent part of academic libraries and they need leaders who are able to lead and manage change efficiently, bring theories into practices, find innovative solutions to challenges, creative thinkers, effective communicators, collaborative mindset and self-motivators. Design/methodology/approach The selective publications have been reviewed to find the best ways to leading changes and managing challenges in academic libraries. The approaches and methods in this study are based on personal experiences of author as director of the university libraries and experiences of library leadership worldwide are conversed. Findings Academic libraries are facing similar challenges around the world. The author found that academic library leadership needs innovative skills and competencies, effective communication abilities and a new way of thinking to deal with challenges and create willingness to adapt the changes. Kotter’s leadership manage change model may apply for creating and implementing organizational change in academic libraries. Originality/value Literature on this topic is comparatively limited. Consequently, this manuscript adds value to the publications of library and information sciences and offers the literature in the field of leadership challenges and manage change in the academic libraries. It also provides guidelines to academic library leadership universally, and how can leaders work with change effectively.