A Qualitative Approach to Upward Evaluation of Leadership Performance: Pros and Cons

Upward evaluation at the Arizona Health Sciences Library

“…Worries about confidentiality emerged as the central concern in the AHSL committee discussions. This is echoed repeatedly in the literature [2,[7][8][9]. Confidentiality can be especially hard to ensure where the format is qualitative rather than quantitative, because, as Turrentine et al found, ''employees reasonably believed that their words could identify them in ways that a numerical response could not'' [2].…”

“…Even in situations where staff size makes the gathering and statistical analyses of quantitative data meaningful, authors have emphasized the value of qualitative data [2,8]. AHSL's questions about the attributes outlined above were accordingly very open ended.…”

“…It should be noted that the literature stresses that upward evaluation is a tool to be used exclusively for professional development and performance im-provement, and not for personnel decisions [2,4,9,10].…”

“…Switching from a ''library-centered'' focus to ''student-centered'' focus, libraries should make subject guides available at the point of need [2] and design them so the content is available where students are working [3]. According to Morris and Del Bosque, ''The emergence of Web 2.0 tools and social networking sites has contributed to a renewed interest in subject guides'' [4].…”

“…Although common in industry [1,2], it is fairly rare in libraries and even more rare, though not unheard of, in medical libraries [3]. A recent informal, unscientific poll of academic health sciences library directors conducted by the Arizona Health Sciences Library (AHSL) director revealed that only three of twenty-six respondents participated in upward evaluation of managers.…”