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

by Clay Scroggins

That means true leaders become people of influence, regardless of their spot on an organizational chart.

Great leaders leverage influence and relationships over title and position.

If I had no authority, I was just waiting my turn.

like a tamed lion (or, at the very least, an eager meerkat) at the zoo, lying in my cage, having lost my ambition to lead. I soon learned I was wrong, because as it turns out, the cage doesn’t even exist.

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.

I needed to accept the authority I had and then use it wisely to cultivate influence and make things better.

“Take responsibility to make great what you can make great. And let others do it in the areas that they can make great. And if the whole company doesn’t do it, you can’t change that. But you can take responsibility for your area.”

Leading well without formal authority has less to do with your behavior and far more to do with your identity.

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.

Choosing an identity based on the situation and circumstances might have worked for Jason Bourne, but it won’t work for you.

Pretenders don’t last very long.

We do this by projecting an image that we have it all together.

don’t know which is more damaging—being too

critical or thinking too highly of yourself.

If you think too lowly, you

will often see yourself as unqualified or unworthy of leadership, and you

will miss opportunities to make change and create something great with the responsi...

it’s also based on how you sense others perceive you today.

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 wha...

know your weaknesses. I know what you’re not good at. I know you stutter. I know you’re scared. I know you’re insecure. I know your past. I know about it all. But I don’t want that to define you. You have what it takes! Well, you don’t have what it takes, but because I’m going to be with

you, you have what it takes! Now go! And quit worrying about who you are not and focus on who I AM!”

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.

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

about you, and you listen to what God says about you.

We forget that our thoughts and feelings are our thoughts and feelings. We own them. They do not own us.

You don’t have to allow thoughts of fear, inadequacy, and insecurity to take up residence in your mind.

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.

We look to blame others for

our lack of authority, we

He wants us to responsibly engage, doing the work he has given us wherever we are, with whatever title or role he has currently assigned to us.

A kabash leader doesn’t need authority, but he or she cultivates influence through relationships.

A kabash leader knows that the way to the front isn’t by pushing ahead or waiting until the game is over; it’s getting behind people and helping them move ahead.

cultivates growth in others through time, attention, care, a...

give people space to thrive in the way God has ...

Rather than killing the ambition within you, that God-given desire to create, I want to encourage you to find the third way of the kabash leader.

motive for leadership is to help others for God’s glory.

When a person attempts to kabash for their own glory, they end up putting the kibosh on everyone else.

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

“Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much”

begging God to help him keep his heart pure.

We won’t improve unless someone is honest with us.

If money were no issue, what would I choose to do with my time?

What really bothers me? What breaks my heart?

What makes me pound the table in frustration or passion?

What gives me life or makes me come alive?

for you to relieve your boss of the obligation of leading you well.

to be treated with dignity