How to Lead When You're Not in Charge Read online

  EMBRACING THE MYTH

  Tragically, I had to land the job I had always wanted before I realized I had bought into this myth. For almost twenty years now, I have attended and now work for a large network of churches. Just after turning thirty, I was given a pretty substantial promotion. I was asked to move to one of our larger locations and become the lead pastor of that campus. It was one of those moments when I thought, Are you serious? I’m flattered, of course. However, I question your discernment because this job is huge and I secretly still want to be Puff Daddy’s hype man. Nonetheless, someone saw something in me that I didn’t see in myself, and I’m forever grateful. The new role was literally a dream come true.

  I stepped into that job as an eager young leader, ready to shape our church into what I hoped it could be. I had strong opinions about how we should operate to serve our community best. Unfortunately, over the years, I had drifted toward an unhealthy mindset, feeling like a victim whose ideas weren’t valued or understood within the larger organization. I felt inhibited and constrained, 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.

  At the time, I knew I wasn’t leading to my full potential. But if you had asked me why, I would have played the victim and blamed the problems on the organization.

  “They just have a way of doing things.”

  “They’re not open to change.”

  “They just want me to fit in the mold, toe the line, and follow the rules.”

  I realize this might be true of some organizations. Many, perhaps. But it was not true of our organization. I was working (and still am) for a man named Andy Stanley. He’s the son of a preacher, and he knows the frustration of feeling hamstrung by a large, fossilized organization. Andy has spent most of his life intentionally seeking to create a leadership culture where the people who are responsible for executing a decision are the ones with the authority to make the decision. I’ll be the first to admit that our organization is not perfect, but we certainly aren’t a place where those who want to lead and have gifts and ideas should feel frustrated and blocked. At North Point, if you aren’t leading because you don’t feel like you’re in charge, it’s no one’s fault but your own. If our organization gravitates toward one end of the spectrum, it’s toward freedom to lead and not high control.

  I still remember the moment my excuses were exposed, and I realized I had been too focused on blaming others instead of actually leading. Thankfully, my exposure was less of a “Janet Jackson Super Bowl halftime show” moment and, instead, was more of a strong conviction of my need to change. It was a defining moment for me, drastically changing the way I thought about leadership. The story itself was not dramatic, but for some reason, it was exactly what I needed in order to see what I was not seeing.

  I was meeting with Andy, who was now my boss, trying to explain why something we had done had not gone as expected—and why none of it was my fault. Our central organization had given our campus some content for a presentation, along with instructions for pulling it off, but it had not gone as planned. Again, they determined the direction and provided the curriculum. It was our job to execute. The question loomed large, like an elephant in the room: “Why didn’t this go well?”

  Confidently, passionately, and succinctly, I gave Andy three good reasons. The information had come to us late, the work given to us was sloppy, and the presentation was less than creative. I think I might have used the word “lame” to describe it. My argument was airtight: blame, blame, blame. It was clear that we were the victims. The failure of the presentation had nothing to do with us; it was someone else’s fault. As I finished listing my reasons, I felt like Andy should probably be thanking us for doing our best with these less than great materials.

  But that’s not what he did. Instead, he patiently poked and prodded for a few more minutes, asking me some good, tough questions. He asked, “So if you didn’t like the outline, why wouldn’t you just change it to make it great?” As he asked and I answered, I began to smell the stink of my polluted thoughts. Like a surgeon removing a cancer, Andy’s inquisition led me to a moment of insight. As we talked, I began to realize the problem was not with our organization at all. It was with me.

  I could have sat there, confident I was a passive victim of the institutional machinery, blaming and making excuses all day long. Instead, I experienced a moment of deep self-awareness. The truth of a key leadership principle hit me like a ton of bricks. I bumped into it so abruptly that I sheepishly couldn’t wait to leave his office.

  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.

  My instinct to blame and deflect responsibility wasn’t about having authority or a lack of authority. After all, I now had a position of some authority in our organization, a seat at the table. But over the years, I had fallen into the trap of thinking, If only I had more authority, I could fix the problems I saw. It wasn’t more authority I needed. Instead, I needed to accept the authority I had and then use it wisely to cultivate influence and make things better. I had confused having authority with the responsibility of leading. I had not yet realized that we don’t need authority to have influence. And I was reminded that I already had that. In fact, my hope is to convince you that you have it as well.

  Perhaps you’ve experienced some of the same frustrations I’ve had as a leader. Or maybe you are not currently in a “position” of leadership in your organization, but you have ideas and vision for how things can be done better. If so, this book is written for you, for those who feel a calling to lead but are not in charge. We live in an authority-based culture where certain positions possess an inherent authority and responsibility. But we all know that positional authority alone does not equate to effective leadership. If a leader does not inspire confidence, he or she will be unable to effect change without resorting to brute force. Influence has always been, and will always be, the currency of leadership. This book is about how to cultivate the influence needed to lead when you’re not in charge.

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

  SEEING IT EVERYWHERE

  When I turned sixteen, I was hoping to get a brand-new whip (that’s what rappers call a car) that would give me more cred with the ladies. Instead, my parents bought me an old, beat-up Volvo 240 DL. At first I was bummed, mostly because it reeked of Brut and mold. But after a few moments of pity, I remember thinking, Well, it’s one of a kind. If you can’t be cool, at least be unique. I’ll never forget the first day I drove it to school. I pulled up to the stoplight, looked over my left shoulder, and saw the exact same car. Two minutes later, I passed another one. And as I pulled into the school parking lot, I counted six Volvo 240 DLs. How could this be? I thought I would be unique! How could I have missed these cars in the past?

  Because I wasn’t looking for them.

  Once you become aware of something, you start seeing it everywhere. That moment with Andy was the flashlight I needed to expose the myth I had been carrying. As soon as the light bulb of leading through influence was turned on in my mind, I started seeing the truth of this principle everywhere. People lead all the time with little to no authority. Some of the most effective leaders—the people who have changed our world—led without formal authority.

  Think about Martin Luther King, Jr. What was his title again? He was the copastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church and president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. While being the president of the SCLC implies some authority within the organization, that position alone doesn’t give you the ability to effect change for all African Americans. But King wasn’t bound by his position. He knew change would come about as the truth was brought to light and hearts and minds were expos
ed to a new paradigm, one that saw the worth and equal value of all people and did not judge them by the color of their skin. King led because that’s what leaders do. They cultivate influence with a title or without a title.

  Who put Nelson Mandela in charge of abolishing apartheid in South Africa? No one. But leaders do not need to be in charge to lead.

  October 2 is now recognized as the International Day of Non-Violence. Why this day? Because that is the birthday of Mahatma Gandhi. Gandhi led a national revolt against one of the largest and most powerful governments in the world. But he had no formal position within the government. He has a title now, though, since India received its independence from Great Britain in 1947. Today, he’s referred to as “the Father of the Nation.”

  These people didn’t wait for a title to lead. And neither should you.

  In his TED Talk “Why Good Leaders Make You Feel Safe,” Simon Sinek explains, “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.”1 Sinek is differentiating between authority and leadership and making the point that they are not a package deal. Leadership expert Jim Collins agrees. He writes, “For many people, the first question that occurs is, ‘But how do I persuade my CEO to get it?’ My answer: Don’t worry about that . . . each of us can create a pocket of greatness. Each of us can take our own area of work and influence and can concentrate on moving it from good to great. It doesn’t really matter whether all the CEOs get it. It only matters that you and I do. Now, it’s time to get to work.”2

  Collins makes a great point here. 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. 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.”

  WIELDING THE GUN OF AUTHORITY

  Maybe you’ve worked for people who have titles that give them authority over you, but they misunderstand why they have those titles. They’ve confused authority and leadership or misunderstood the way authority is intended to function in leadership. And they use their positions to make you feel small or to squeeze you for results, only to take the credit for your work. Or perhaps they shut down your ideas and won’t respond to suggestions. I call this experience “being under the thumb.” When others make us feel like we’re under their thumbs because they’re in charge and we’re not, it sucks the ever-loving life out of us.

  Most of us know what that feels like. 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. When I was in college, I stumbled into an internship in the governor’s office in Atlanta. My job was far from glorious, but my seat was in the front row, so I witnessed lots of activity as the governor geared up to enact new policies. My desk was directly outside the conference room in the policy department where they debated and made decisions. I’ll never forget overhearing a particularly contentious meeting about the future of education in the State of Georgia. Voices in the conference room were growing louder and louder. Suddenly, a loud banging on the table silenced the room. A solitary voice screamed out over all the others, “I am the governor of the State of Georgia! Listen to me!”

  At that point in my life, I regrettably had not read many leadership books. I had never been to a leadership conference. I would have had trouble defining words like vision and mission. But even I knew that something had gone wrong. 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.

  The gun will get people moving, at least for a time. If someone pulled the gun of authority on you and threatened your job, would it get you moving? Of course it would! We all want food to eat and a place to live. And in the conference room that day, the gun seemed to work. But pulling the gun cannot be a regular practice. 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. While there may be times when we need to do this, our goal is for people to want to follow us. Even Jack Bauer doesn’t want to come to work with a gun to his head every day. Especially when there is another, more effective way to bring change.

  While we cannot entirely disconnect authority from the leadership equation, I don’t believe we should begin there. At one point during his ministry, Jesus warns his followers that they should not confuse a position of authority with a call to lead. Because they are in danger of getting this wrong, he abruptly makes a distinction between how he wants them to lead and the way things typically operate in the world. “Not so with you,” he says (Matt. 20:26).

  What is the “not so” of leadership that Jesus refers to here? It’s the type of leader who seeks authority for personal gain. Instead, 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.

  Do you want to be a “not so with you” kind of leader? I hope so. I know what it looks and feels like to use the gun of authority to get people moving, but Jesus tells us there is another way—a better way. Even if you have authority and a position of leadership, an inspiring leader does not need to leverage that authority. “Not so with you” kind of leaders learn that there are more effective ways to cultivate influence and build trust. Jesus tells us this is a more powerful way to lead, one we can exercise regardless of the presence or absence of authority.

  Earlier, I mentioned the examples of Martin Luther King, Jr., Nelson Mandela, and Mahatma Gandhi. These individuals effected lasting change with little formal authority. But this leadership principle isn’t just true for cultural and political movements—it’s also true within organizations. In a Harvard Business Review article titled “The Key to Change is Middle Management,” Behnam Tabrizi writes that mid-level managers are the lynchpin of change within an organization. He finds that these managers do not necessarily have the authority to effect change, but they can still make change happen. “A hallmark of the successful 32% was the involvement of mid-level managers two or more levels below the CEO. 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.”3

  How do these mid-level managers effect change? Tabrizi says they work the levers of power in every direction. They don’t have authority over their peers, much less their bosses or the other executives in charge of the organization. So how do they do it? Through influence. The lie we believe is that we must wait until we’re in the leader’s seat before we can have this kind of influence. But 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.

  UNDERSTANDING WHAT’S AT STAKE

  That day, as I sat in Andy’s office responding to his questions, I decided I would try to be a different leader. I decided I was done using my lack of authority as an excuse to blame others. For too long, my attitude and my responses to problems reflected passivity, a sense that I was a victim of my circumstances. I had believed the li
e that leading meant waiting until I had the authority to do whatever I wanted. But that day, I realized that just wasn’t true.

  Believing the lie that authority was a prerequisite for leadership deeply affected my attitude. It affected the way I thought about myself and the challenges I encountered. It affected my behavior as well. And it had a cost. For over a decade, while I was waiting for the authority to lead, I missed out on several opportunities I’ll never get back. The fear of missing out (FOMO for those who love abbreviations) is not just a perceived fear—it can be reality. I really did miss out. I can’t press rewind. I can’t go back and try again. Those opportunities are now gone.

  But even worse than that, waiting for the authority to lead slowly eroded the gifts of leadership that were inside me. 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.

  Each of us has a unique opportunity to create something right where we are. It doesn’t require special authority or a fancy title or having the corner office. Even though I don’t know you personally, I can guarantee you have an opportunity to create an oasis of excellence right where you are. Not only is it within you to lead, but it is possible for you to lead well! So don’t shrink back until someone calls your number. But know that leading without authority is more difficult than leading with authority. It requires a level of self-awareness that few of us are ready to develop. Because leading without authority means you need to have a clear understanding of your identity—who you are as a leader, apart from any titles.