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

by Clay Scroggins

Influence has always been, and will always be, the currency of leadership.

Some of the most effective leaders—the people who have changed our world—led without formal authority.

Our focus doesn’t have to be simply on persuading those in charge to effect change. You may be able to do that, and you may not. But what you can do is focus on your own area of responsibility and make it great.

When someone has to pull out the gun of authority, something is broken. You only pull out the gun of authority when nothing else is working.

Waiting didn’t make me more of a leader; it made me less of a leader. And this is true for all of us, regardless of who you are.

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.

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.

It’s one thing to determine what posture and approach fits the circumstances you’re facing. It’s another thing for the instability of your identity to create wobble in your persona because you’re trying to fit in or because you think it’ll help you win.

if your identity is unstable, you’ll subconsciously flip through identities to find the one you think others need you to be.

Yet the truth is that you and I pretend all the time, especially when we’re under pressure. We do this by projecting an image that we have it all together. We work longer hours to make sure we’re seen as proficient and committed.

being overly generous with the way you see yourself—your self-identity—can have far more significant consequences.

Either way, accepting a distorted identity is failing to live in reality, which will ultimately erode your ability to lead.

A distorted identity will cause you to think too lowly or too highly of yourself, when the goal is to think rightly.

The temptation of choosing from multiple passports, using a fake ID, or misrepresenting height and weight will never go away, but when your identity is rooted in something, you are much more likely to live and lead from a place of stability and security. The rest of this chapter is an attempt to pour concrete on the identity that will lead to the best version of you.

There are five basic components of identity,

They are your past, your people, your personality, your purpose, and your priorities.

A worthwhile exercise to help you find your self-in-time would be to chart your life on a timeline by picking five highs and five lows from your past and marking them chronologically.

We’d all like to think that the people around us don’t change how we see ourselves—that we are in complete control of our identity—but that’s just not true.

Who are the people around you right now, and how are they affecting you and the way you see yourself? Who is in your corner? Who shouldn’t be in your corner? Who are the loudest voices speaking into your life right now? Who should be the loudest voices for you right now? Pay attention to those voices and to their volume.

RightPath and StrengthsFinder.

I believe God has revealed enough of his general purposes in this world for us to chew on for the rest of our lives.

You were created for something or someone bigger than yourself. • You were created to contribute to a greater good. • You were created to bring good to other people. • You were created to cultivate good in other people.

You certainly have a mission greater than making yourself happy.

The degree to which you understand and feel a purpose for your life will affect the degree of security you have in your identity.

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.

The reality of this world is such that most of the voices we hear, even some of the good ones, can cloud out the voice we most desperately need to hear—the voice of God.

Let me say it again: your identity is healthiest when what God says about you is most true of you.

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.

We treat them like they rule us, like they are in charge of us, and not the other way around. We forget that our thoughts and feelings are our thoughts and feelings. We own them.

The why of leadership is the engine that drives your leadership train. You are motivated by something inside of you, and you need to know what that is.

A distortion in motivation will limit your leadership and cause a host of issues that will follow you wherever your professional life takes you.

I define ambition as that strong desire we have to make something or to achieve something, even when it takes great effort, focus, and determination.

Ambition doesn’t magically begin when you are placed in charge.

The first response of many leaders, especially Christian leaders, is to look for ways to kill their ambition.

Since they aren’t in a leadership role, they assume the desire is wrong or sinful, a sign of rebellion perhaps.

“You better check yo’ self before you wreck yo’ self.”

When our good, God-given ambition is distorted, it can manifest itself in a selfish need to be in charge, to seek recognition, or to exert control over others.

“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit” (Phil. 2:3, emphasis mine) and “For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice” (James 3:16, emphasis mine).

On the flipside, instead of killing their ambitions, some leaders let them run wild.

they allow frustration to take control, thinking, I’ve got to be in charge and I’ll get there by any means necessary. Or, I’ve got to be able to call the shots, or I can’t work here.

We look to blame others for our lack of authority, we contract a critical spirit toward those who are in charge, and we end up sabotaging the very thing we’re seeking.

Just as the response of killing ambition mutes something God has placed within you, the response of letting your ambition run wild fails by allowing your ambition—instead of God—to take the driver’s seat.

Just be aware that you will never find that magical place where you can lead without any constraints.

God clearly gave us this drive, but he also gave us a context for this drive. In the same way that trying to kill ambition isn’t a great option, trying to kill that desire to “be fruitful and increase in number” doesn’t work either.

“fire outside the fireplace is dangerous.”

fill the earth and subdue it.’ ” This command to “subdue it” is a mandate for leadership,

If we want to grasp this mandate, the context of the garden of Eden has to be front and center in our minds.

Kabash /'kä bäSH/ to subdue, cultivate, and organize something in such a way that it thrives, grows, and flourishes “fill the earth and subdue it.”

But here’s the problem: far too often, that good kabash becomes kibosh—an attitude of opposition and negativity that kills creativity and shirks responsibility.