Sunday, September 27, 2009

Leadership Acid Test

Elections are looming in Niagara and Erie Counties. If you're undecided Here's a litmus test from Lead Quietly, a way to evaluate the current roster of politicians. You can find it here and below.

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?

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