How LEADx Helped the Los Angeles Public Library System Create a Culture of Leadership

The Challenge: Sustainable leadership development education is needed across the entire organization, but library employees are rarely at their computers

With 1,200 employees across 72 branches, the Los Angeles Public Library is the second-largest library system in the US. Yet despite its size, LAPL lacked a strong pipeline of future leaders and a shared definition of leadership.

To engrain leadership development into LAPL’s culture for the longterm, the library needed a solution that would:

• Engage all of LAPL’s current and future leaders, rather than a select few
• Be accessible to library employees who spend their workdays moving throughout the buildings
• Be sustainable through changing budget cycles and administrations

Julie Lamba, an executive fellow with FUSE Corps tasked with implementing LAPL’s leadership development program, explained it this way: “Most library employees aren’t sitting at a desk for multiple hours per day, so we knew asking people to complete an hour-long workshop on a computer wasn’t a good option. We needed to reach people where they are.”

Additionally, Lamba felt strongly about equipping library leadership with small, actionable pieces of leadership development content on an ongoing basis, rather than the traditional method of sending people to a multi-day conference or training once per year. “I knew from experience that engaging with small, personalized doses of learning is the best way to catalyze growth,” said Lamba.

The Solution: AI-powered leadership coaching offers mobile learning in small doses

LAPL partnered with LEADx to launch “Coach Amanda,” an AI-powered mobile app, with 37 users over a 4-week pilot period. Coach Amanda provided LAPL’s managers with realtime suggestions, advice, and developmental resources. Specific functionality includes:

• Behavioral nudge engine
• Action plans mapped to leadership competencies
• Over a thousand micro-learning assets

“LEADx checked all the boxes for LAPL,” said Lamba. “It provides, what I believe, is the best kind of learning, and Coach Amanda met our need to provide some kind of coaching, even though she’s not a human coach.”

The pilot with LEADx allowed LAPL’s users to spend 15-30 minutes each week engaging with Coach Amanda and LEADx’s repository of leadership development resources, including micro-learning videos, webinars, and book summaries.

“I enjoyed the reading material that was provided,” said one participant. “I liked having time during my day to think about my management style and how to improve that.”

The Results: Pilot exceeds expectations, catalyzes positive cultural shifts

The response from LAPL’s group of pilot users was overwhelmingly positive, as nearly 75% want to continue using the app. The pilot also revealed that LAPL’s managers used LEADx even more than they thought they would. The average pilot user opened the app 10.5 times per week, compared to their initial intent to open the app just once per week.

Additionally, when asked how likely they would be to recommend LEADx to a friend or family member on a scale of one to 10, 50% scored LEADx as a 7 or above.

LAPL rolled out LEADx to a larger group of leaders in February 2020 and made the program optional for frontline managers. Lamba expected 30 to 40 additional signups, but more than 80 expressed immediate interest in incorporating LEADx into their workweek. It couldn’t have come at a better time, as COVID-19 had started making its way across the US. When non-essential businesses were ordered to shut down, LAPL’s LEADx users were able to access relevant and timely content like managing teams remotely and how to cultivate resilience in the face of adversity.

One manager said, “I will volunteer that I have noticed a big improvement in my boss’s leadership skills since we began this program and I think that is the best recommendation I could give.”

Overall, Lamba sees LEADx as a catalyst for a major cultural shift in how LAPL employees think about leadership.

“If you’re trying to say to your organization, ‘Hey, the way that we act as leaders matters and how we practice these skills matters,’ you have to set an expectation for everyone, not just a few people,” said Lamba. “If you want to make leadership development part of your organizational culture, you have to continually remind people to think about how they want to grow.”