By: Jennifer Diaz Garcia, Outreach Librarian at Iowa State University Library
A reflection on early-career leadership inspired by a conversation with a colleague.
DOGS. Dogs everywhere in the library.
Big dogs. Little dogs. Very fluffy and serious-looking dogs with jobs to do and little bandanas on. Students in a circle around them, petting happily as if they had never known stress a day in their lives. Nearby, there are puzzles and coloring sheets laid out for those who want a quieter kind of decompression, snacks from Parent and Family Programs for students studying through Prep Week, and in the corner, five-minute chair massages.
There is only a little irony in the fact that an event designed to help students deal with stress left me feeling like a shaken-up soda can.
This is Barks@Parks, one of our library’s biggest events, with a legacy of more than 10 years. In fall 2025, it was mine to help steer. That meant coordinating a large, beloved event involving colleagues with far more institutional knowledge than I had, while also trying very hard not to look like I had been put there by a typo.
At one point during the event, while talking with Circulation Librarian Cara Stone, I finally said out loud what was actually making me anxious:
“I guess it just makes me nervous, telling library staff ‘what to do’ when I feel like they must be looking at me like, ‘What is this newbie going on about?’”
It was in that conversation that Cara said a phrase that stuck with me immediately: leading from where you’re at.
I liked it because it sounded grounded and practical. It made leadership feel like something I could do now instead of someday in the distant future, when I had finally transformed into the kind of librarian who sends decisive, error-free emails and has never once been psychologically wounded by a vague Teams message.
If I’m being honest, that feeling has shown up in more than one project. New Student Orientation (30 days…many tours), for example, is also under my umbrella. It is meaningful work, but it is also full of moving pieces, communication, decision-making, and more than a few moments when I find myself thinking, “I feel like I need to call an adult, but I think I am the adult?”
Later, I asked Cara if she would let me interview her about what she meant.
“For me,” she said, “leading from where you’re at means you understand your context… You’re able to identify areas of need or areas of improvement and take steps forward to make progress.”
What I liked about that answer was how straightforward it was. I think a lot of us early-career folks imagine leadership as confidence, authority, and certainty arriving all at once in one glorious momentum. But Cara’s definition was not really about having all the answers. It was about noticing, understanding, and acting.
She gave me an example from earlier in her career. A classroom setup was not working. The grand solution would have been a full redesign, new funding, and the whole institutional production. Instead, she and a colleague asked a smaller question: what would make this better now? The answer was simple: an extension cord that let them lead from the front of the room instead of the back.
“It’s not necessarily about earth-shattering things,” she said. “It’s things that can make things more efficient, more functional, more fun.”
That mattered to me because early in your career, it is very easy to think leadership arrives all at once. That, one day, after enough years and enough meetings, a switch flips, and suddenly you feel ready.
Life does not seem to work that way.
What I am learning is that leadership is not “knowing everything.” Cruelly, it’s not even the same thing as feeling confident. Sometimes it really is just sending the email, asking for volunteers, making the call, following up, adjusting the spreadsheet, clarifying the timeline, and trying not to assign too much emotional weight to a three-word message from someone in administration who is probably just busy.
One of the most helpful things Cara said was about questions, questions, questions. I think a lot of us quietly assume that asking too many makes us sound uncertain or inexperienced. Cara framed it differently.
“Being willing to ask the dumb questions,” she said, quickly adding, “there are no dumb questions…has really helped me clarify expectations”.
That stayed with me. One of the hardest parts of being new in any setting is not always the task itself. It is everything around it. What are the expectations? What context am I missing? What are the invisible rules here?
As Cara put it, “A lot of miscommunication happens when expectations aren’t understood.”
Which means the answer is often less glamorous than overthinking would prefer. So, ask the question!
That same emphasis on clarity came up again when I asked what makes someone trustworthy as a leader. Cara’s answer was not certainty. It was clarity: clear outcomes, clear expectations, and honest communication when things shift.
“You don’t have to have the middle stuff figured out,” she told me, “but you do have to have a picture of what you want the end to be.”
She also said something else that really stayed with me: “If there is any way to turn comparison into collaboration… that’s where everybody gets stronger.”
That one landed. Comparison is such an easy trap when you are new. You look at colleagues with years of experience and assume they just know. But as Cara put it, confidence is a muscle built over time, and that growth is not solitary.
Again and again, she came back to connection. Get acquainted with colleagues you can ask questions to, colleagues you can learn from, colleagues who can help you check your understanding, and colleagues who can give perspective when you are too far inside your own head.
“The connections,” she said, “are the things that will carry you through hard times.”
In other words, you are allowed to be in process. And that, really, that is why I am writing this.
Because I know at least one of you is out there waiting just like I was. Waiting for someone to tell you that now, finally, you are experienced enough. Good enough. Official enough. Now you are in the position to lead. Now you will be taken seriously.
Friends, I fear that that moment does not come in the clean, ceremonial way we might hope for. So, with no real authority except having thought about this a lot and lived through a few deeply character-building library events, let me say it anyway: start leading.
Chances are, you already are.
You are leading when you ask the question no one else has asked yet. You are leading when you notice something is not working and try to improve it. You are leading when you bring people together, clarify expectations, and help move the work forward. You are leading when you rely on others well. You are leading when you make space for other people’s strengths without shrinking your own.
Are you doing these things now? Yes? Congratulations! You are already leading right now, exactly from where you’re at.
A big thank you to Cara Stone, much wiser than I, without whom I truly could not have handled Barks@Parks, and who helped ease me into my first library job with a friendly ear, thoughtful advice, and, at least once, a much-needed piece of chocolate.