Scroggins - How to lead when youre not in charge: leveraging influence when you lack authority

Autonomy is a myth.

Its a myth passed from one generation of wannabe leaders to the next. Eventually, every leader is forced to come to terms with the reality that everybody is accountable to somebody. Like most life lessons, the sooner a leader embraces this, the better. Leaders who wrap themselves in the security blanket of If I were in charge or When Im in charge as an excuse for poor performance and lack of initiative will most likely never be in charge. On the other hand, 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.

Ive been on both sides of this equation. I remember sitting in a restaurant with my leadership team the Monday after I announced to a ballroom full of folks that we were starting a new church. The six of us had worked together for several years. I smiled and said, Congratulations, we are they! You know, theythe folks everybody in management complains about. We were they. Im not sure it had dawned on us that from that point forward we didnt really have anybody to complain about or blame.

That was twenty-two years ago. They are still they and they have gone the distance to build an extraordinary organization. They were prepared for the day they finally became they. I chose that particular team because they had led well in an organization that neither honored nor encouraged leadership. Id watched em lead when they werent in charge. So I knew they were the group to put in charge. When you find people who can get things done in an organization conspiring against them, youve found leaders.

Why?

Great leaders leverage influence and relationships over title and position. When a leader is left with nothing to leverage other than title and position, the end is near. The best leaders lead like theyre not in charge even when they are. The best leaders become the leaders by mastering the art of leading when theyre not in charge. And thats why the book youre holding in your hands will be one of the most, if not the most, pivotal leadership books youll ever read. If you want to build a leadership culture in your organization, you should make this book required reading for everyone on your team.

Ive had the privilege of working with Clay Scroggins since he was a student at Georgia Tech. Clay has been an integral part of our organization for fourteen years. He started out as an intern. When he graduated from Tech with an industrial engineering degree, we hired him to lead our student ministry. His parents probably were... well... theyre happy now.

Anyway.

Clay was our student pastor when my kids were in high school. So I was paying attention. When he was twenty-five, I asked him to start filling in for me on Sundays when I was gone or taking a break. When he was the whopping age of thirty, I asked him to step into the lead pastor role of the third-largest campus in our network of churches. Now Clay serves as lead pastor of North Point Community Churchmy old job.

Clay was making a difference in our organization long before he was in charge of anything significant. Everything he touched got bigger and better whether he was in charge of it or not. Several years ago, I asked him at the last minute to do the teaching at our bimonthly all-staff meeting. He chose to talk about what he had learned about leading beyond his title, position, and authority. It was amazing. I remember thinking, I could never talk about this with any moral authority because Im in charge. My wife, Sandra, turned to me and said, This needs to be a book! I agreed but didnt mention it to Clay. Sometime later, he asked me if I thought this would be a good book topic. I said, Absolutely.

So here it is.

This isnt theory. These principles and applications are organic. They are rooted in organizational reality. If you arent convinced already, you will be. You dont have to be in charge to make a difference. You can lead without being in charge!

A NDY S TANLEY