'Portal to Leadership' Courses Teach Bookstore Management

The Professional Booksellers School will offer a set of three-week courses on bookstore leadership in March, May, and September, in partnership with the Whole School Leadership Institute. The “Portal to Leadership” series addresses effective bookstore management, teamwork, and consensus building.

Participants may enroll in one, two, or all three fee-based courses, each of which are three weeks long and involve one-hour weekly video conferences plus assigned readings of one book per course, including The Culture Code by Daniel Coyle, Leading with Dignity by Donna Hicks, and Engaging Emergence: Turning Upheaval into Opportunity by Peggy Holman.   

The series developed from meetings in 2023, when Reimagining Bookstores convener and Kepler's/Berrett-Koehler Publishers CEO Praveen Madan—who participated pro bono—invited WSL executive director Kathy Minardi to host two interactive online workshops for booksellers. More than 80 store owners and staffers took part in the sessions, and Minardi collected feedback for bookstore-specific content about innovative, equitable management. WSL designs leadership modules for schools and businesses, and is informed by social justice principles, the educational research of Harvard’s Robert Kegan (An Everyone Culture), and research from the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence. 

"We think leadership development is a critical need for booksellers, especially those who are ready to embrace the task of reimagining their bookstores to deepen literacy, strengthen their communities, and pay living wages," Madan said. "We are delighted to have played a part in bringing this leadership development opportunity to bookstores and grateful to Kathy, Eileen [Dengler of Professional Booksellers School,] and their respective teams for all they are doing to help bookstores."