How to Lead When You're Not in Charge: Leveraging Influence When You Lack Authority
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the real leaders in an organization will find a way to lead the charge until they are in charge. Ultimately, those are the folks great leaders put in charge.
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I chose that particular team because they had led well in an organization that neither honored nor encouraged leadership.
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Great leaders leverage influence and relationships over title and position.
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We come to see positional authority as a prerequisite for effective leadership.
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the people who are responsible for executing a decision are the ones with the authority to make the decision.
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I needed to accept the authority I had and then use it wisely to cultivate influence and make things better.
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Influence has always been, and will always be, the currency of leadership.
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King led because that’s what leaders do. They cultivate influence with a title or without a title.
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“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.”
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differentiating between authority and leadership and making the point that they are not a package deal.
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. each of us can create a pocket of greatness.
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But what you can do is focus on your own area of responsibility and make it great.
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When people have to tell you they’re in charge in order for you to follow, you know instinctively that something has gone desperately wrong.
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No one wants to follow someone who is holding a gun to their back. That’s not leading. That’s pushing people around and forcing them to go where they don’t want to go.
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they should not confuse a position of authority with a call to lead.
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“Not so with you” kind of leaders learn that there are more effective ways to cultivate influence and build trust.
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In those cases, mid-level managers weren’t merely managing incremental change; they were leading it by working levers of power up, across, and down in their organizations.”
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Influence always outpaces authority.
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leaders who consistently leverage their authority to lead are far less effective in the long term than leaders who leverage their influence
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Practice leading through influence when you’re not in charge. It’s the key to le...
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So it’s never too early or too late to begin processing your sense of self.
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Leading well without formal authority has less to do with your behavior and far more to do with your identity.
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my ability to calmly process my thoughts with awareness and emotional intelligence is largely dependent on the security of my identity.
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It’s as if all the work I have or haven’t done to see myself accurately comes to call in that moment.
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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.
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A distorted identity will cause you to think too lowly or too highly of yourself, when the goal is to think rightly.
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What’s most challenging is when you lack self-understanding and it isn’t clear to you how your wiring affects how you see yourself.
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But that term “calling” really frustrates me because I’ve seen how well-meaning people hijack it and use it for selfish manipulation.
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In other words, it’s when we exercise our will to make decisions and determine what we allow to define us.
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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.
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Don’t mute the voice of your boss, spouse, mentor, or pastor, but the volume of his or her voice might need to be turned down.
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your identity is healthiest when what God says about you is most true of you.
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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.
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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.
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The takeaway for us, as leaders, is to recognize that the best leaders may or may not have all the authority they need or want, but the security of their identity—especially as someone called and loved by God—gives them a freedom and fearlessness to do what is right.
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If you believe God actually controls your career, what place does fear have in your life?
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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.
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We forget that our thoughts and feelings are our thoughts and feelings. We own them. They do not own us.
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Elevating the voice of God above the volume of these lies is essential to allowing God to form a healthy sense of identity in you.
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A distortion in motivation will limit your leadership and cause a host of issues that will follow you wherever your professional life takes you.
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we all have ambition inside us.
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What you do with that ambition will make all the difference in your ability to lead when you’re not in charge. How you currently think about the ambition inside you is the product of your personal wiring and your past mentors. But what you do with that ambition going forward is on you.
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Ambition doesn’t magically begin when you are placed in charge.
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Because our hearts are naturally deceitful (see Jeremiah 17:9), we cannot trust our desires.
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I know many church leaders who struggle with their ambition because they see it as an expression of selfishness or a desire for promotion that might come at the expense of others.
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leader wants to accomplish something, because that’s what is inside of him or her. But then that lie takes root: “I need to be in charge if I want to get anything done.” Instead of identifying and removing that lie, we begin to entertain
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There isn’t a healthy church or organization that exists for leaders who think they don’t need an authority over them.
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If you haven’t processed the weight of that, now would be a great time. When God made you, he had himself in mind.
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What is important is that we see the drive to “be fruitful and increase in number” as both a gift and a responsibility to steward.
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The mandate to subdue is something deep within me, and it’s deep within you as well. But just because it’s in me doesn’t mean I’m always handling it well and directing it wisely.
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