Last weekend, after a week walking past a broken bottle on the sidewalk near my home and thinking, "someone should clean that up," I grabbed a broom and dustpan and cleaned it up myself. While I had self-interest due to my child regularly falling on the sidewalk for no apparent reason, this was still unlikely behavior for me. What spurred me on? The new book from Mark Sanborn, You Don't Need a Title to Be a Leader.

Like Sanborn's previous book, the best-selling The Fred Factor, this book is another small (102 pages) package with lots of advice on creating a real impact regardless of your position in the world or within your company. The premise here is how to be a leader even if no one's put you in charge (or, in my example of sweeping up the broken bottle, even if no one notices). By taking the initiative regardless of expectations or official job description, you set yourself up for rewards down the road, including, in many cases, that lofty title you didn't have before.

You Don't Need a Title to Be a Leader is a good book for anyone needing motivation doled out in bite-sized chunks. And I'm sure that Sanborn's past success will ensure this one has a long run on the bestseller's list. That said, if you read a lot of these types of books (which I do), I can't say Sanborn's breaking new ground here.

The beauty of The Fred Factor, of course, is its "hook," a nice story about an overachieving mailman - which is then extrapolated out to teach us all how to have a positive impact in our small slices of the world. You Don't Need A Title to Be a Leader tries to do something similar, but the "hook" of being a leader regardless of your title is a little less meaty. As a result, while everything in the book is great advice, the whole is somehow less than the sum of its parts. It's just not as cohesive a message as Sanborn intends. (By the way, the book's title comes from the reply a contract worker gives after happily accepting a critical assignment without the promise of receiving a lofty title on the other end.)