Leadership Acid Test

In a recent post of mine, I talked about the Big "L" Leaders. These are Leaders who have a title but don't always know leadership (leadership with a small l)

The Leadership Now site in their Leadership Minute, describes leadership beyond or without the title. If you are a big "L" Leader, that is with a title, the site encourages you to occasionally perform a Leadership Acid Test.

If you were stripped of your title – the politics of leadership, the power to punish and reward people – would they still follow you?

Michael McKinney at Leadership Now recommends this test for Leaders. However, I think that the test is also interesting when applied to other Leaders.

Pick a Leader with a title. If that Leader no longer had a title, would you still follow him/her. Would the leader still have influence? I can think of Leaders on both sides of the answer. I guess that is life. A quiet leader (with a small "l") has no choice but to excel at influence the hard way. Might this mean that quiet leaders are better candidates for Leadership roles?

Thanks for reading. Please lead quietly.
Don