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

by Clay Scroggins

Assure the listener you are for him or her. When we know others are for us, we can better hear feedback that might otherwise feel critical. • Always present a solution to any problem you

raise. Issue recognition doesn’t win friends. • Keep your blood pressure as low as possible when communicating feedback. If you can’t talk about it without getting emotional, you’re not ready to talk about it. • Deliver potential challenges in the rhythm of positive-challenge-positive. Some call it a

compliment sandwich and some just ...

Be known as a value-add,

add, a problem solver.

be more intentional about picking up responsibilities. I told him he’d be most helpful if he could find problems that needed to be solved. I needed him using his additional margin to add

value to what we were trying to accomplish. Part of his job was to find ways within his area of responsibility to make better what we were trying to accomplish. That was his job, not my job.

never present your boss with just a problem. Always bring a plan for the

solution.

Planning takes time, thought, and mental space to be able to think through solutions.

up early working through my list of what’s most important for the day, the week, and the next ninety days.

To be a great assistant coach, you have to be able

to anticipate and respond to what’s important to the head coach. The assistant coach has to move one step ahead during practice, setting up the next drill in order to keep practice moving. Leaders seeking to resist the passivity of not being in control need to do the same. Rather than responding only to what comes next

on their calendars, great leaders respond to what’s most important to the boss and move accordingly. In order to be able to anticipate and respond to the direction the boss is heading, you and I must...

What has my boss established as the greatest “win” for our team? • If your boss could wave a magic wand and have something done, what would it be? • What is your boss most worried about? What is creating stress? How can you relieve that? • On your team, what is

a frequently discussed problem? Can you take steps toward fixing it today?

make sure to ask these questions of yourself before you ask them of your boss. As you train yourself to choose what’s not getting done, plan time for future planning in the margins of your calendar, and then

respond to what is most pressing for your boss, you’ll have a game plan that can work.

Where can you cultivate influence with those around you, to learn how to serve them better?

What’s in the way of your team accomplishing more? What can you do to remove that obstacle?

Leaders see problems. They see

things that aren’t working. And they come up with solutions. Leaders make a way when others can’t find a way. Leaders look at what is, see what could be, and organize others to move toward the preferred future. Leaders are not rabble-rousers, but they will challenge the status quo. They are not okay

with “this is the way we’ve always done it.” They refuse to accept mediocrity. Leaders are not content to sit on the sidelines, managing a system that is yielding solid results, when there ...

the desire to effect change and improve what isn’t working.

When you challenge what is, others perceive that as a criticism of who was. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t challenge. It just means you need to understand how it might feel to be challenged, and be sure to communicate with that in mind. Knowing that “challenging up” and raising questions about the status quo is difficult does not change the fact that you should do it when necessary. But it may change how you do it.

You see something that is befuddling. Why in the world do we do that? It makes no sense to you, and you’ve often wondered why it hasn’t been changed or challenged. You talk it over with some of your peers. You formulate a game plan. You nail down an approach to bring it up.

The words you use when you share your idea are bricks that will either build a bridge of relationship for your idea or a wall of distrust.

Before you decide to approach your boss or even someone in another department with something potentially

challenging, you need to think through the relationship you have with them. Do you get the sense they like you? Do you feel they respect you? Do they trust you? And what about the other side of the equation? Do you like them? Do you respect them? Do they feel like you care about them?

you need to choose to love your boss. Loving your boss means you genuinely want what’s best for

them and you’re trying to do what’s in their best interests.

Choosing to love your boss is imperative if you’re trying to lead your boss. You cannot lead someone well if you don’t love them.

Champion publicly. Challenge privately.

Admit to yourself and to your boss that you may be missing information.

It does you no good to walk into a situation thinking you have it all figured out. There is always information you’re lacking that can help you understand the situation more clearly.

We make worse decisions when we feel like we can’t walk away. But “no” is not the end of the world.

“People don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it. And what you do simply proves what you believe.”

When you challenge up, you are selling an idea, a new way, a different path toward a better future. The clearer your why, the more they’ll buy.

With the right approach, you can say just about anything. With the wrong approach, it doesn’t matter if you’re right or wrong; it won’t work. Adjust your approach to fit the person. In order to know what approach to take, we need to be deeply acquainted with our boss’s wiring, temperament, and

personality.

What is your boss’s personality type? Does your boss think concretely or abstractly? What level of detail does your boss need? How does your boss like to receive information? Do you need to send an

email ahead of time with all the details, or should you follow up with an email after the conversation? These are all questions you can ask your boss when emotions are low. Later, in challenging conversations, if you have done your homework, it will show. The bottom line is that you do some

homework and learn the approach that best fits your boss. Declare your intentio...

when you need to have a difficult conversation. Declare your intentions up-front.

“I really believe in you and I love working for you. I have something I want to bring up that could help us grow. Maybe I’m missing something, but I think this might be a better solution for all of us.” • “I think I’ve identified something that is holding us back and if I were in your shoes, I would want to know what it is. I think I have an idea about how to solve it. Would you mind if I shared that with you?” • “I want your advice on something. I have an idea I think will make us better, but I want to know what you think about it. I’ve thought a lot about

it. It might initially create some complications, but in the end, I think we’ll be glad we made the change because of the results it could produce.”

lead with a clear statement of your intentions.

Ask questions of curiosity and mean it.

If you choose to start the challenging conversation with questions, it will teach you something. It will build trust, and it will save you some embarrassment.

When your phone rings and you see the name of a person pop up, what happens? Well, it depends on how you feel. And how you feel is determined by