How to Lead When You're Not in Charge: Leveraging Influence When You Lack Authority

by Clay Scroggins

When you find people who can get things done in an organization conspiring against them, you’ve found leaders. Why? Great leaders leverage influence and relationships over title and position.

regret the times I didn’t speak up. I regret the times I twiddled my thumbs, waiting for someone to tell me what to do. I regret feeling like a victim to the structure or hierarchy of the organization.

Leaders don’t sit back and point fingers. Leaders lead with the authority of leadership . . . or without it. The authority is largely irrelevant—if you are a leader, you will lead when you are needed.

It wasn’t more authority I needed. Instead, I needed to accept the authority I had and then use it wisely to cultivate influence and make things better.

I had not yet realized that we don’t need authority to have influence.

“Many people at the top of organizations are not leaders. They have authority, but they are not leaders. And many at the bottom with no authority are absolutely leaders.”

‘But how do I persuade my CEO to get it?’ My answer: Don’t worry about that . . . each of us can create a pocket of greatness. Each of us can take our own area of work and influence and can concentrate on moving it from good to great. It doesn’t really matter whether all the CEOs get it. It only matters that you and I do. Now, it’s time to get to work.”2

The more I sat back and watched things pass without taking initiative, the softer my voice became.

Leading well without formal authority has less to do with your behavior and far more to do with your identity. Like the ace of spades, who we are trumps what we do every time.

If I’ve spent too much time dwelling on my failures and inadequacies, it will show in my response.

every leadership distortion is ultimately rooted in the ever-so-important chamber of identity.

until you know who you are, you cannot do what God has called you to do.

our identities precede our actions; our behaviors flow from our identities. So before we spend any energy on what we do as leaders, we really need to spend some time on who we are as leaders, especially when we are not the ones in charge.

“For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you.” A distorted identity will cause you to think too lowly or too highly of yourself, when the goal is to think rightly.

The clearer you are about who you are . . . • the more consistent you will be with others. • the more confident you will be about what you do. • the less concerned you will be with the opinions of others. • the less confused you will be by your emotions.

And your identity will be best shaped if you allow your heavenly Father’s voice to be the loudest one in your life. Your identity is the right identity when you let it be defined by what God says about you.

I want to be a fearless leader. Whether I’m in charge or not, I want to be ruthlessly committed to doing what is best to help others, whether it helps me move toward a promotion or not.

If you fail to believe what God says about your identity, you will fail to reach the potential he’s put in you as a leader.

If you believe God actually controls your career, what place does fear have in your life? This doesn’t mean we should be reckless. If anything, it means we have the freedom to be more disciplined and patient. We aren’t subject to the frustrations and passions we might experience on a given day; we take the long view and trust that God has a plan.

Every time we respond in fear, we miss an opportunity to lead, and this failure of leadership is an issue of identity.

If you sense fear in yourself, the best way to face those fears is with a healthier sense of self. You turn up the volume of what is true about you, and you listen to what God says about you. As you do, your identity will adjust.

When I realize how perfectly loved I am, what is there to be afraid of? If I’m perfectly loved, why not embrace risk? If I’m perfectly loved, why do I need the stamp of approval from others? If I’m perfectly loved, why would I fear failure or the uncertainty of potential outcomes?

Just because you can’t see the tangible results from what’s happening right now, you need to trust that your identity is taking shape. And there are things you can choose to do—how you respond to your boss, to your coworkers, to your circumstances, to your thoughts and emotions, and to God—that will shape and determine your future as a leader.

God has placed desires inside of us: a desire for more, a desire to see things change, a desire to make things better, and a desire to

Your boss is not in charge of you. You are in charge of you.

The water cooler talk and office gossip cannot be a part of your life if you’re going to do this right. In an attempt to connect with coworkers or even put yourself ahead, belittling your boss through needless chatter actually hurts you more than it hurts him or her. Your moral authority is vastly more important than your positional authority, and nothing erodes moral authority more than undermining the person you claim to be following.

If you feel frustrated because someone hasn’t led you well, often just dropping the expectations can really change things. One of the most freeing steps for you and for your boss would be for you to relieve your boss of the obligation of leading you well.

Are you expecting to be led by someone who is incapable of providing that kind of leadership?

Go ahead and try to say it out loud: “My boss owes me nothing.” I can’t promise that’ll feel good, but I do believe it’s worth a shot. Choosing to believe your boss owes you nothing, or at least very little, is a powerful step forward for the relationship.

To protect ourselves, we resist going all-in with someone who is not all-in with us. If you’re not committed to your boss, your boss probably won’t be committed to you.

To think God cannot use bad leaders to grow a church, organization, or even you is ludicrous. God has used bad leaders for generations. Where would we be if Daniel had said, “I just can’t learn under Nebuchadnezzar. I need to leave.”

What if God wants to accomplish something in you more than he wants to accomplish something through you? What if the only way for him to grow it in you is to put you under a bad leader? Don’t we all learn more from times of struggle than we do from times of ease?

“We see the world, not as it is, but as we are—or as we’re conditioned to see it.”1 How we see the world has less to do with the way the world is and more to do with the way we are. That situation at work that’s frustrating you might have more to do with you than the situation itself. And to understand how to effectively work and lead under someone else’s leadership, you have to understand this matter of perspective.

It’s the ability to see how things fit together. It’s about seeing how you fit into God’s big picture. It’s seeing your organization’s big picture and how you can contribute. You’ll need to fight to see things from this perspective, and you must constantly work to broaden your view. As you seek this wide-lens perspective, you may be able to better see and feel how your role is connected to what the organization is ultimately trying to do.

They’ve found that the satisfaction employees have in their job is directly correlated to their ability to see how what they do fits into the big picture.

Their research describes the evolution required for employees to move from feeling “esteemed” to “involved” to “enthusiastic” to eventually becoming a “Builder Employee.”3 This is the person willing to go the extra mile in customer service, spreads enthusiasm across their team, and take the success of the church or organization personally.

It’s your responsibility to look for ways to connect what you do each day to those overall goals and objectives.

Your manager can make the connection clear or he or she can make it muddy, but it’s your duty to hold that objective in front of you.

happening. There is no wasted time in God’s economy. When you keep your focus on that, it helps you keep the perspective you need to be able to dig in deeply where God has put you.

The way you see is more important than the tragedy. The way you see is stronger than any calamity.

What you believe about God and how you see the future are foundational voices for how you will lead right now. A small view of God leads to an outlook of despair. An outlook of despair for the future will lead to being consumed with your present circumstances.

There is a confidence that comes from believing that God has you where he wants you. Throughout history, God has put specific people into particular positions for definitive reasons. And he has you where he wants you.

As followers of Jesus, we should be the most hope-filled people on the planet.

positivity is not just a personality trait. Positivity is a character trait.

The greatest benefit I bring my team is not my talents, gifts, experience, or education. It’s my energy.

You are not ready for your boss’s job. Why would I say that? Because you’re not in your boss’s job.

“Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God” (emphasis mine). This is a pretty weighty thing to think about. It’s God, not man, who ultimately establishes authority. If someone is in charge, God has a reason.

A deep trust in God and a persistent hope for the future will push you to keep growing and learning because you believe God is getting you ready for something he will lift you into. Until he does, you’re not quite ready.

God does the lifting. We need to do the humbling. God picks people up. We need to keep our heads down and work hard. Followers of Christ know that we are who we are and are where we are today because of God. Because God’s mighty hand is strong enough to lift any of us up out of any circumstance, we can trust him and we can have hope for the future.