Smith, Shannon Marie2024-06-122024-06-122024-06-01979-8-89255-547-0https://alastore.ala.org/critical-library-leadership-managing-self-and-others-todays-academic-libraryhttps://wyoscholar.uwyo.edu/handle/internal/9666https://doi.org/10.15786/wyoscholar/9883This chapter discusses the various challenges I have encountered as an early-career librarian working in scholarly communications and presents practical ways to think about these issues. While this chapter is written from my perspective, particularly in drawing upon themes and experiences in scholarly communications and scholarly communication adjacent work, this chapter holds relevant themes for anyone working as a leader without positional authority. It is important for librarians in these situations to recognize that while they may not be able to effect institution-level change, they can open the door for conversations that may not have previously occurred in their respective institutional contexts. They can ask difficult questions with an eye toward finding allies to help answer the questions they are grappling with. Here, for the individual librarian, it can be about doing something rather than expecting themselves to do everything.enAttribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 Internationalhttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/librarianshipleadershipearly-careerimposter syndromeBook chapter