What's In A Title

A few days ago, a young family member asked me for advice on how she could move up at her office. Her goal was to get in a leadership position. She went on to tell me her immediate supervisor had left the company, and the position was open to be filled. Also, the company preferred to hire from within the group.

I asked her if she was taking advantage of her boss' departure by offering to perform a few of his tasks. She quickly shot back, "no!" She went on to say she wouldn't do something like that..because she did not have a title. Then I asked what does a title have to do with anything. "Everything," was her response.

As I thought about her comments, I decided to send her the link to LeadershipNow's article,"You Don't Need A Title To Be A Leader." It's a good article because chips it away at the paradigm of 'title equals leader.' I also sent the article to a few mentoring program leaders in my area. Their participants would benefit from a topic discussion of leadership and titles.