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

by Clay Scroggins

Great leaders leverage influence and relationships over title and position.

Hindsight is 20/20, but the future doesn’t have to be so blurry if we wear the right glasses.

You just learn to put your mind in neutral and go with the flow. When someone else is leading you, it seems as though there is no leading left to be done. So you just wait. No one likes waiting for a turn to lead—to be the one making the decisions—but we all know what it feels like.

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.

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

Once you become aware of something, you start seeing it everywhere.

what you can do is focus on your own area of responsibility and make it great. We need to avoid the trap of thinking we are passive victims with nothing we can do. Each of us can begin to lead right where we are today. Collins continues, “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.”

Jesus argues that the best leaders, the ones who align with his vision for leadership, will lead as servants who are aware of their responsibility and who answer to a higher calling.

the good news is that influence can (and should) be cultivated wherever you are. If you’re able to grasp this truth as a leader today, it can prepare you for the future. But if you fail to cultivate influence when you’re not in charge, you will have no influence to leverage when you are. Influence always outpaces authority. And leaders who consistently leverage their authority to lead are far less effective in the long term than leaders who leverage their influence. Practice leading through influence when you’re not in charge. It’s the key to leading well when you are.

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. All human beings have a measure of leadership loaned to them. We may not immediately recognize it for what it is, but we each have the ability, as well as the opportunities, to influence others and effect change in this world. And the earlier we begin to fan the flame of the gift of influence, the more it will grow. Conversely, the longer we wait, mired in passivity and the sense that we are victims of circumstances and the decisions of others, the more likely we are to diminish and mute the leadership gifts within us. The more I sat back and watched things pass without taking initiative, the softer my voice became. Waiting for others to do something negatively affected the gift of leadership within me.

Near the core of what makes a person a leader is their sense of identity. The way you see yourself is determinative for your life and for the decisions you make as a leader. Your sense of identity directs you in every situation. It is foundational, determining the level of confidence you have when you challenge your boss in a disagreement. It establishes your sense of security when you face doubts. It’s what enables you to process your emotions during tense conversations. Though much of your identity is formed at an early age, your identity is always evolving. So it’s never too early or too late to begin processing your sense of self.

Like the ace of spades, who we are trumps what we do every time.

I have found that amid swirling emotions, my ability to calmly process my thoughts with awareness and emotional intelligence is largely dependent on the security of my identity. It’s as if all the work I have or haven’t done to see myself accurately comes to call in that moment.

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.

Unfortunately, trying to make their fathers proud is just one of the traps young leaders fall into when they don’t have a firmly established identity.

Unfortunately though, many young leaders can relate to changing their identity to fit their circumstances. Attempting to be outgoing because you think it will make your boss happy isn’t healthy. We’ve all seen the person who tries to be the funny guy because he thinks that will allow him to fit in. We’ve all seen the girl who tries to be the boss when the boss walks out of the room because she thinks that’s what leadership is. Choosing an identity based on the situation and circumstances might have worked for Jason Bourne, but it won’t work for you.

Because he had broken trust with God, Adam was hiding and didn’t want to be found or known by God. Pretending (or hiding ourselves from God and others) is a spiritual issue. It’s rooted in a failure of trust, a failure to believe what God says about us. I’ll get to that in a bit. For now, we can all agree that pretending is a consequence of the fall.

Have you spent time determining what success looks like in your life? I can tell you this: • 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.

Like this student, many of us tend to be passive with our thoughts and feelings. 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. They do not own us. At least they shouldn’t, and that’s where we may need to exercise a little ownership over them.

Instead of a maître d’, we need to treat our thoughts and feelings of fear, inadequacy, and insecurity like we’re Liam Neeson in Taken. I don’t know who you are. I don’t know what you want. If you are looking for ransom, I can tell you I don’t have money. But what I do have is a very particular set of skills, skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you let my daughter go now, that’ll be the end of it. I will not look for you. I will not pursue you. But if you don’t, I will look for you. I will find you. And I will kill you.2

If you feel you’re in a darkroom of your life, don’t lose sight of the development that is happening. 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.

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. It’s worth paying attention to that hunger you have because it’s not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, it’s a key part of the drive that moves you to cultivate influence.

The desire to rule or control without restraint is dangerous, but so is the inner passivity of waiting to have authority in order to lead. We might fall into the trap of believing it’s up to us—if it’s going to get done, we must do it at whatever cost, regardless of those in authority over us. This extreme doesn’t operate in faith and reliance on God but trusts in our own abilities apart from God. There are many who fall into the opposite trap—thinking we need to wait around until God gives us a certain title or promotion. But God doesn’t want us to sit back. 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.

You have ambition because you were created with the drive to create, contribute, and influence things around you. We saw that killing that ambition or letting it run wild will create negative consequences. • In Genesis, God names the ambition inside you and calls it kabash. To kabash is to bring something under your control so you can make it more effective, beautiful, and useful. • Over time, the kabash God has given you has been co-opted by sin into kibosh. To kibosh is to bring something under your control for your own good through dominant authority. • When your kibosh is passive, it leaves you waiting on authority to lead, abdicating your responsibility as someone created in God’s image. When kibosh is active, though, it manifests as selfish ambition where you are working for self-advancement and the ability to control others for your own purposes.

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. Just like a master gardener, a kabash leader gives space for people to thrive and cultivates growth in others through time, attention, care, and kind correction. The way to lead is to serve, and the way to create something great is to give people space to thrive in the way God has gifted each one. A kabash leader is marked with humility because they know that pride sets us against God (see James 4:6). A kabash leader is courageous, not because they possess inner strength, but because they know God is the one who controls the destiny of every man and woman. A kabash leader longs to organize and create for the betterment of all—for the good of others and not just the good of the leader. A kabash leader uses his or her influence to help others get ahead and not to get ahead of others. A kabash leader pours out, trusting that God’s new mercies each day will be enough to fill them up.

You are in charge of you. You are in charge of your emotions, your thoughts, your reactions, and your decisions. It’s the law of personal responsibility, because everyone is responsible for leading something, even if that something is just you.

rarely will someone love you enough to give you the full truth. I see people walking around with untied shoes, susceptible to tripping, and no one around them is courageous enough to tell them. If you want to know where you are and how you’re doing, you have to ask.

We won’t improve unless someone is honest with us. Most of the big employment decisions in your career will happen when you’re not in the room. That’s sobering,

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?

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? Of course we do. When I desire what God wants to teach me more than I desire getting done what I want to get done, I am in the best place. It would be tragic for you to leave before you have learned what God wants you to learn!

Steven Covey says, “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.

Covey’s next comment is also worth noting. “We must look at the lens through which we see the world, as well as the world we see and that the lens itself shapes how we interpret the world.”

The more I see of the world, the better I see my own world. And the better you see your world, the more informed and equipped you will be to make wise decisions. Understanding can help you develop patience, graciousness, and greater discernment for all of life. A wider angle brings a wiser perspective.

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. I’ve had bosses who naturally did this well and others who didn’t. In both cases, I’ve had to keep my eye on the big picture, and that has helped me develop a sense of commitment, even when I’ve had what felt like a minuscule role. It’s also important to remember that there’s always more going on than what I can see. God is always working on something in me and I can rarely see it while it’s happening.

The way you see is more important than the tragedy. The way you see is stronger than any calamity. The way you see is bigger than the details of the catastrophe.

Don’t let the frustration you feel over what you don’t have keep you from doing what you can do. Changing your perspective on your situation can change everything. Seeing what you do have will allow you to overcome what you don’t.

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. But notice that it wasn’t just a deep trust in God that affected Paul’s outlook. Being convinced that God was up to something greater than the circumstances in front of him provided a spirit of expectancy and hopefulness that allowed Paul to maintain a sense of positivity. He said, “I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death” (Phil. 1:20, emphasis mine). Hope is a confident expectation of something good to come. The basis of our Christian faith is that our God is a God who is always able, always moving, and always working on our behalf.

Trust-fueled, hope-filled, forward-thinking people can push through anything that gets in the way because their eyes are fixed on more than what’s directly in front of them.

God has a purpose for the structures of power that exist in this world, and though they will not last forever, we can trust God is at work through them and in them. Even in your organization. Even through that boss you don’t like very much. This should also encourage us to pray. Because if you don’t have the authority you would like to have, one of the best ways to change that is to take it up with God.

“Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time” (1 Peter 5:6). This little verse is so simple and it assigns two roles quite clearly. So let me ask you again. “Do you even lift, bro?” When it comes down to it, you don’t. 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.

leaders who are critical thinkers don’t just criticize and whine; they learn. They start by questioning things. Why do we do it this way? Is there a better way? What would happen if we stopped that? Why is this working? What’s the real “win” here? Asking questions is at the heart of critical thinking. Questions challenge assumptions. Questions uncover the invisible forces behind behaviors and actions.

Critical thinkers also notice things. Why is there no music playing? Why were their greeters so old? That presentation lacked empathy. I wonder why they chose not to paint that sign the same color as the rest of their signs. Being observant is another key leadership quality, because as we carefully observe things, we are able to better determine cause-and-effect relationships. Leaders know what to pay attention to and can find the variable that has changed or is out of place and is causing a certain result.

Critical thinkers are also able to connect things. Similar to the ability to observe, critical thinkers are able to observe and then make connections between seemingly disconnected behaviors and feelings. They also have the ability to identify what they feel in certain environments. And even more important, critical thinkers can identify what’s causing that feeling. They are self-aware and have the innate skill of connecting the feelings people have to the contributing behaviors causing those feelings. The brilliance of this kind of leadership is that when you learn ...

If there is trash in the hallway or in the parking lot, employees may decide to walk past it. Or worse, they call someone who works in facilities to pick up the trash. Owners pick up the trash because it’s their reputation on the line.

The worst is having a stack of meetings, back to back. While this can seem efficient, it can also be an enemy of critical thinking. I will get to the end of my day and realize I’ve generated no new thoughts, no new ideas. I’ve only been reacting to circumstances and solving problems. If you find yourself constantly in that mode, you need to reclaim control of your life. You need to stop stacking meetings and start scheduling time to think critically. You’ll never develop as a leader if you cannot master this.

thinking critically requires uninterrupted mental space. It’s not just showering that creates these times of clarity. Mowing the grass, taking a walk, driving to work, or pausing long enough to look, observe, and connect the dots brings the space necessary to think clearly. If you’re going from meeting to meeting, you will not have that space. You need to carve it out or your leadership will suffer.

If thinking critically is a skill, being critical is a snare. And I’m choosing the word snare for a reason. I bumped into this word while preaching on Proverbs 29:25: “Fear of man will prove to be a snare, but whoever trusts in the LORD is kept safe.” I love this axiom from King Solomon and I’ve learned to love the word snare. But what did Solomon mean? The Bible Knowledge Commentary says it well: “To fear man ensnares in the sense that one’s actions are controlled or confined by the person who is dreaded.”5 You don’t mean to get caught in a snare. You just didn’t plan to avoid getting caught in it. I know that many young leaders do not want to be critical.

People who are great critical thinkers want you to win. They’re motivated to make something better. Yes, they may deconstruct, but it’s for the betterment of others. They don’t even care about the credit. When I point out something wrong with what you’re doing because I think I see a better way for you, I’m thinking critically to serve you.

Jesus never held a clipboard, but if anyone had the right to grade others, it was the perfect, sinless Son of God. But that’s not why he came. Jesus didn’t come to condemn the world; he came to save it. He was far more interested in helping others than in grading them. So think positively. And be a critical thinker as well. Be known as a value-add, a problem solver. As you pursue the skill of thinking critically, keep that image in mind—the picture of Jesus on his knee, towel in hand, washing the filthy feet of his closest followers. The Creator of stars and galaxies gave us a picture of what we need most—to be served and washed clean in our heart of hearts. Jesus did for us what we needed most and deserved least. He could’ve graded us, pointing out where we had failed and missed the mark, but he didn’t. Instead, he introduced us to the radical concept of servant leadership by grabbing a towel and dropping the clipboard.

Maybe you don’t have the authority you want. Or you’re frustrated because your well-planned idea keeps getting shot down. Maybe you’re discouraged because you feel like you’ve been labeled and it’s keeping you from the opportunities you want. Well, “Don’t let it beat cha.” It wants to. If you don’t pay attention to it, it will. Before you even realize it, the passivity of subordination will settle on you like the plague. That’s why resisting passivity is the best response.