In academic libraries, workplace tension does not always begin with a major disagreement, a policy change, or a visible conflict. More often, it begins quietly. It begins when people fill in the blanks instead of asking questions. It begins when someone assumes they know what another person needs, prefers, understands, or can handle. Over time, those assumptions shape decisions, relationships, and workplace culture.
That is why Nedra Glover Tawwab’s insight is so useful: “We have no clue what someone is comfortable with unless we dig deeper by communicating instead of assuming.”
For academic librarians, this quote speaks directly to everyday workplace dynamics. Libraries are often collaborative environments, but collaboration alone does not guarantee clarity. In fact, in workplaces where people are committed, conscientious, and eager to be seen as collegial, assumptions can thrive. Staff may avoid raising concerns because they do not want to appear difficult. Managers may avoid deeper conversations because they think they are protecting relationships or preserving efficiency. Senior leaders may assume silence means alignment.
The result is a chain of misunderstanding that can move through an entire reporting structure.
This is especially true in layered organizations where a middle manager is responsible not only for supervising employees but also for translating priorities from above. A department head, unit coordinator, or team lead may be trying to support a direct report while also responding to the expectations of an associate university librarian or another senior administrator. Each person in that chain may be operating with partial information, unspoken expectations, and assumptions about what others are comfortable with.
A healthier workplace requires something different. It requires communication that is more intentional, more specific, and more grounded in curiosity than assumption.
Why assumptions are so damaging in academic libraries
Assumptions can seem small in the moment. They often appear harmless, efficient, or even well-intentioned. A manager assumes an employee is comfortable with added responsibilities because they are competent and reliable. A senior leader assumes a middle manager will raise a concern if something is wrong. An employee assumes their supervisor should already know they are stretched too thin. None of these assumptions may feel unreasonable on their own. But together, they create a workplace where people are reacting to guesses rather than engaging with what is actually true.
Academic libraries are especially vulnerable to this pattern because so much labor is invisible or underacknowledged. Emotional labor, service commitments, committee work, instruction preparation, troubleshooting, mentoring, and institutional citizenship often sit alongside formal job responsibilities. A librarian may appear to be handling everything because the visible work is still getting done, while the less visible cost of that work grows heavier in the background.
Assumptions also flourish in environments where professionalism is closely tied to composure. In many academic library settings, people learn to remain agreeable, calm, and responsive even when they are struggling. They may not want to seem resistant to change, ungrateful for opportunities, or incapable of managing their role. In such environments, silence is often misread as comfort.
This can happen in several ways.
Between a middle manager and an employee
A supervisor may see a librarian continually meeting deadlines, covering service points, showing up for committees, and stepping in when needed. From the outside, that employee may appear highly capable and fully on board. But capacity is not the same as comfort. The employee may be overextended, unclear about priorities, or carrying concerns they do not feel safe expressing. If the manager assumes that performance equals ease, the employee’s strain remains unaddressed.
Between a middle manager and their boss
A middle manager may assume that their supervisor, such as an associate university librarian, wants confidence, speed, and solutions rather than candor about what is difficult. So the middle manager edits what they share. They soften concerns, delay hard conversations, or present a more stable picture than reality supports. Meanwhile, the senior leader may assume that because no serious concerns have been raised, implementation is going well. Both people leave the conversation with an incomplete understanding of the situation.
Across the full reporting chain
Once assumptions accumulate at multiple levels, the organization becomes less honest with itself. Employees feel unseen. Middle managers feel squeezed. Senior leaders feel surprised when issues finally surface. Trust erodes not because people are malicious, but because communication has been replaced by interpretation.
In academic libraries, this can affect morale, retention, teamwork, change management, and the success of major initiatives. A workplace built on assumptions becomes reactive. A workplace built on communication becomes more resilient.
The middle manager’s challenge
The middle manager often occupies one of the most difficult positions in an academic library. They are responsible for supporting staff, implementing decisions, communicating expectations, handling conflict, advancing projects, and maintaining service continuity. At the same time, they are also accountable to senior leadership, budget realities, institutional pressures, and shifting strategic priorities. They are expected to provide stability in both directions.
That position can be deeply isolating.
Middle managers often feel pressure to absorb tension rather than name it. They may believe they need to protect their staff from institutional pressure while also shielding senior leaders from the day-to-day strain within the department. They become translators, interpreters, and buffers. While some of that is part of leadership, it becomes a problem when buffering turns into silence or when translation turns into assumption.
A middle manager cannot effectively support employees by guessing what support looks like. An employee may need more autonomy, clearer boundaries, more context, a slower pace, or simply more honesty. Those needs cannot be inferred with confidence from performance alone.
Likewise, a middle manager cannot lead upward successfully by assuming what their supervisor wants most. Senior leaders may value transparency more than polish. They may prefer realistic timelines over artificial optimism. Or they may need clearer information about how institutional decisions are affecting staff. When middle managers make assumptions instead of communicating directly, they weaken their ability to advocate.
In academic libraries, where staffing is often lean and organizational structures can be complex, the middle manager’s role becomes even more critical. They often see the clearest picture of how policy meets practice. They know where a strategic initiative is exciting and where it is overburdening staff. They know when a talented employee is quietly burning out. They know when something that looks manageable on paper is becoming unsustainable in practice.
That knowledge is valuable, but only if it is communicated.
The middle manager’s challenge, then, is not simply to keep things moving. It is to create more honest movement. That means asking better questions, sharing more grounded information, and resisting the temptation to fill in relational gaps with assumption. It also means recognizing that communication is not an extra task added to management. It is the work of management.
What better communication can look like
Better communication does not mean constant meetings, excessive processing, or perfect emotional fluency. It means creating more opportunities for clarity before confusion turns into resentment. It means choosing curiosity over interpretation. It means being willing to ask what someone needs instead of deciding you already know.
This can be a subtle shift, but it changes the tone of a workplace.
For example, instead of saying, “I thought you were fine with this,” a manager might say, “I realize I may have made an assumption here, and I want to better understand what this feels like from your perspective.” That phrasing opens the door to honesty. It signals humility rather than defensiveness.
Instead of asking an employee, “Can you take this on?” a supervisor might ask, “Can you take this on well with everything else you are managing right now?” That question does more than assess technical capacity. It acknowledges workload, context, and the quality of the work experience.
Likewise, instead of telling a senior leader, “We’ll make it work,” a middle manager might say, “We are committed to the goal, but I want to be transparent about what support or flexibility will be needed for this to be sustainable.” This kind of upward communication is not resistance. It is responsible leadership.
In academic libraries, better communication also means naming the things that are often left implied. Many tensions develop not because people are unwilling to communicate, but because they are communicating too vaguely. People say “soon,” “a lot,” “support,” “priority,” or “manageable” without defining what those words actually mean. One person may hear flexibility where another hears urgency. One person may hear collaboration where another experiences added labor.
Stronger communication gets more concrete. It asks:
What does success look like here?
What is most urgent and what can wait?
What support would be most helpful?
What are you concerned about that has not yet been said?
What assumptions might we be making about each other?
These kinds of questions build understanding across roles. They help supervisors lead more clearly, employees speak more honestly, and senior leaders make better-informed decisions.
Better communication is also relational. In academic libraries, people often work closely over long periods of time. They serve on committees together, navigate campus politics, respond to institutional change, and support students and faculty under pressure. Because of that, communication cannot be reduced to task delegation alone. It has to include trust-building. People need to know they can be candid without being penalized for it.
That kind of workplace does not emerge accidentally. It is built through repeated signals that honesty is welcome, questions are encouraged, and assumptions are worth challenging.
Moving from assumption to practice
A healthier workplace culture is not created only through insight. It is created through repeated practices that make communication clearer, safer, and more useful. For academic librarians, especially those in supervisory or middle management roles, the goal is not just to agree with the principle of communication over assumption. The goal is to build it into everyday management.
1. Replace vague check-ins with useful questions
Many workplace conversations remain too general to reveal anything meaningful. A manager asks, “How are things going?” and an employee responds, “Fine.” Both move on. The exchange is polite, but it yields almost no information. In high-functioning academic library environments, people can stay in this pattern for a long time because everyone is busy and everyone knows how to sound composed.
More useful communication requires more specific questions.
Instead of relying on generic check-ins, supervisors can ask questions that invite reflection and honesty. For example: What part of your workload feels most manageable right now? What feels less clear than it should? Where are you feeling stretched? What has taken more time than expected? Is there anything you have hesitated to bring up?
These questions help shift the conversation from performance presentation to actual working conditions. They also give employees permission to talk about ambiguity, pressure, and concern without having to manufacture a crisis in order to be heard.
For middle managers, this is particularly important because they are often the first to detect changes in morale or workload strain. Better questions help them gather more accurate information, support staff more effectively, and advocate upward with greater precision.
2. Clarify comfort, not just capacity
One of the most common mistakes in supervision is treating capability as consent. Just because someone can do a task does not mean they are comfortable with the pace, process, timing, or expectations surrounding it.
In academic libraries, this distinction matters a great deal. Librarians and library staff are often highly adaptable. They teach classes, revise guides, support students, pilot new services, join cross-campus initiatives, and fill gaps where needed. A manager may see that adaptability and conclude that an employee is comfortable with the work. In reality, the employee may be stretched beyond what is sustainable or may feel uncertain about what success actually looks like.
Clarifying comfort means asking more than whether someone can handle a task. It means asking what would help them handle it well. It means exploring concerns early rather than waiting for signs of distress or underperformance. It also means making room for the possibility that someone is capable but not well supported.
A manager might ask: What would make this assignment feel more realistic? What concerns do you have about taking this on? What would help you feel better prepared? Which existing responsibilities might need to shift if this becomes a priority?
These questions are especially helpful when assigning visible or growth-oriented work. Too often, developmental opportunities are framed as simple positives, leaving employees feeling pressured to say yes even when their workload says otherwise. Clarifying comfort allows opportunities to remain developmental without becoming exploitative.
3. Normalize upward communication
Many middle managers learn, implicitly or explicitly, to manage upward by minimizing friction. They try to bring solutions instead of problems. They delay difficult updates until they have more certainty. They avoid raising concerns too strongly because they do not want to sound negative, unprepared, or unsupportive.
But when upward communication is too filtered, senior leaders lose access to the information they need most. They may not understand the real cost of implementation, the morale implications of a decision, or the capacity challenges facing a team. As a result, decisions are made on the basis of incomplete information.
In academic libraries, normalizing upward communication is essential. Senior leaders need more than optimism. They need grounded insight. They need to know where timelines are unrealistic, where staff are confused, and where assumptions at the leadership level may not match operational reality.
A middle manager can communicate upward effectively without becoming adversarial. That might sound like: I want to flag a concern about capacity before we move further. My team supports the direction, but the workload implications are significant. There is enthusiasm for this initiative, but there is still confusion about expectations. I want to share what I am hearing before silence gets mistaken for agreement.
This kind of communication is not a failure of leadership. It is a sign of maturity and trustworthiness. It shows that the middle manager is paying attention not only to outcomes but also to conditions.
Over time, normalizing upward communication strengthens organizations. Senior leaders become better informed, middle managers become stronger advocates, and employees benefit from decisions rooted in more accurate understanding.
4. Make expectations discussable
Unclear expectations are a major source of workplace frustration. In many academic libraries, expectations are communicated indirectly or left to interpretation. People are told something is important, but not how important. They are given a deadline, but not whether it is flexible. They are asked to lead a project, but not told how much authority they actually have. The result is stress, overwork, and inconsistent outcomes.
Discussable expectations create a healthier alternative. This means not only stating expectations clearly but also inviting conversation about them. Employees should not have to guess what success looks like or fear that asking clarifying questions will make them seem less competent.
A supervisor can make expectations discussable by saying: Let’s talk through what this actually requires. What does success look like from your perspective? Here is what I see as essential, and here is what has more flexibility. What questions do you have before we move forward? If capacity changes, what should we revisit first?
This practice matters across the reporting chain. Middle managers benefit when senior leaders are equally clear about priorities, timelines, and flexibility. Employees benefit when managers explain not only the task but also the context. And the organization benefits when expectations are transparent enough to be adjusted before problems escalate.
Discussable expectations also help disrupt perfectionism. In academic library settings, many employees hold themselves to high standards and may assume every assignment requires equal urgency and polish. Clarifying what matters most allows people to allocate time more realistically and reduce the anxiety that often comes from ambiguity.
5. Treat discomfort as data
When someone seems hesitant, withdrawn, reactive, or resistant, the instinct in workplaces is often to interpret the behavior quickly. A supervisor may assume an employee is disengaged. A senior leader may assume a middle manager is not fully committed. A colleague may assume someone is difficult or negative. These interpretations may be convenient, but they are rarely sufficient.
Discomfort is often data.
It may indicate confusion, fear, overload, misalignment, lack of trust, insufficient support, or concern about how power is operating in the situation. In academic libraries, where many people are trained to remain professional and composed, discomfort may not be expressed directly. It may appear as delay, silence, withdrawal, careful language, or reduced participation.
Treating discomfort as data means pausing before assigning motive. Instead of asking, “Why are they being resistant?” a more useful question is, “What might this reaction be telling me about their experience?” That shift opens the possibility of learning instead of escalating.
A middle manager might say to an employee: I’ve noticed some hesitation around this project, and I want to make sure I understand what is behind that. Is it a matter of workload, clarity, timing, or something else? A senior leader might say to a manager: I sense some concern about this direction. I’d rather hear it directly than have you feel you need to smooth it over.
These conversations require emotional maturity, but they also prevent larger problems. When discomfort is treated as useful information rather than as a threat to authority, workplaces become more adaptive and less defensive.
What this looks like in practice
Consider a middle manager in an academic library who supervises a librarian while reporting to an associate university librarian. On paper, everything appears fine. The librarian is still meeting deadlines, attending meetings, and handling instruction. The middle manager is meeting with senior leadership and reporting steady progress on a new initiative. The associate university librarian sees no obvious signs of disruption.
But beneath the surface, the librarian is overwhelmed. They are covering more than their share of service work, trying to adapt to shifting expectations, and carrying uncertainty about how to prioritize new projects. They do not want to appear unable to cope, so they say little. The middle manager notices that the employee seems quieter and somewhat slower to respond, but assumes it is a temporary stress point. At the same time, the middle manager has reservations about the pace of the initiative coming from above, but assumes their supervisor expects confidence and quick execution, not concern.
This is a common workplace pattern. No one is lying. No one is trying to create harm. But assumption is doing too much of the work.
Now imagine a different path.
The middle manager schedules a conversation with the employee and says, “You’ve been doing a great deal, and I do not want to mistake your professionalism for ease. I want to understand what feels sustainable right now and what does not.” That statement alone changes the conversation. It signals that honesty is not only permitted but invited.
The employee then feels able to explain that the work is getting done, but not without strain. They share that some priorities are unclear, the pace of change has been difficult, and they are unsure which responsibilities can realistically shift.
The middle manager then takes that information upward and says to the associate university librarian, “The team is committed to this initiative, but I need to be transparent about capacity and the amount of ambiguity staff are navigating. I think we will get better results if we clarify priorities and adjust the timeline.”
Again, nothing dramatic has happened. There is no confrontation, no public conflict, and no breakdown. But communication has interrupted the accumulation of assumptions. The employee feels more seen. The middle manager is acting as a real advocate rather than a silent buffer. The senior leader receives information that can shape better decisions.
This is what healthier communication often looks like in practice. It is not flashy. It is not performative. It is direct, respectful, and grounded in a willingness to ask before assuming.
Questions for academic library leaders
Whether you are a supervisor, a middle manager, or a senior leader in an academic library, it can be helpful to pause and examine where assumptions may be shaping your decisions and relationships. Organizational culture is often reproduced through habits so ordinary that they become invisible. Reflection helps make those habits visible again.
A useful place to start is with questions like these:
Where am I relying on interpretation rather than conversation?
Have I mistaken professionalism for comfort?
Have I mistaken silence for agreement?
What information might my staff or colleagues be withholding because they are trying to be collegial, efficient, or self-protective?
What am I not asking because I think I already know the answer?
How often do I communicate in ways that invite honesty rather than simply compliance?
Do the people around me experience me as someone they can tell the truth to?
These questions matter because leadership is not only about making decisions. It is also about shaping the conditions under which truth can be spoken. In academic libraries, where people often work within overlapping hierarchies, service commitments, and institutional constraints, the quality of communication can determine whether a workplace becomes collaborative or quietly corrosive.
For middle managers in particular, these questions can help reframe the role. The task is not merely to keep the peace or move work along. The task is to notice where assumptions are distorting reality and to introduce more clarity, context, and candor into the system.
For senior leaders, these questions can help surface whether the organization is rewarding honest communication or merely polished communication. If middle managers feel they can only bring good news, then important realities will remain hidden until they become harder to address.
For employees, these questions can also be empowering. While managers hold more structural responsibility, employees still benefit from asking themselves what they have left unsaid, what assumptions they are making about leadership, and where a direct conversation might create more understanding than quiet resentment.
A more solution-oriented workplace
Academic libraries do not need to eliminate every misunderstanding in order to become healthier workplaces. But they do need to get better at challenging the assumptions that allow misunderstandings to harden into culture. A more solution-oriented workplace is not one where no one ever feels tension. It is one where people are more willing to bring tension into conversation before it turns into distrust.
That begins with a different understanding of communication. Communication is not just the transfer of information. It is the practice of checking reality together. It is how supervisors learn what support actually looks like. It is how middle managers advocate with integrity. It is how employees move from quiet frustration to constructive participation. It is how senior leaders hear what is really happening instead of what people think they want to hear.
In practical terms, this means slowing down enough to ask better questions. It means clarifying expectations before confusion builds. It means inviting candor in both directions. It means recognizing that people can be competent and uncomfortable at the same time. It means viewing discomfort as a signal rather than a nuisance. And it means acknowledging that the most respectful thing we can do in a workplace is not to assume we understand one another without conversation.
For academic librarians, this matters because the work is already complex. Libraries are navigating institutional change, evolving service models, technological shifts, staffing limitations, and increasing demands from across campus. In that environment, assumptions may feel efficient. They may feel like a shortcut. But they are often expensive shortcuts. They cost trust, clarity, and emotional energy.
Communication, by contrast, is slower at first and wiser over time. It does not solve every structural problem, but it does create the conditions for better problem-solving. It allows a middle manager to lead more honestly, an employee to speak more safely, and a senior leader to respond more effectively.
That is the real lesson in Tawwab’s quote. We do not know what someone is comfortable with unless we ask. We do not build strong working relationships by guessing. We build them by digging deeper, listening carefully, and creating workplaces where people do not have to hide behind assumptions just to get through the day.
For academic libraries, that is not a soft skill on the margins. It is a leadership practice at the center.
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