Do you ever think you can do things differently than those in charge? Do you have great ideas but feel like you’re not high enough on the career ladder to act on them?
In How to Lead When You’re Not In Charge, business speaker and former evangelical pastor Clay Scroggins explains that you can be a leader even without holding a position of authority. You can still inspire others to strive toward a shared goal of a better future, regardless of your position.
Read below for a How to Lead When You’re Not in Charge book overview.
Overview of How to Lead When You’re Not in Charge
Do you ever find yourself thinking, “If I was in charge, I’d do things differently”? Do you have great ideas but feel like you’re not high up enough on the career ladder to act on them? In his book How to Lead When You’re Not In Charge, Clay Scroggins explains that you can be a leader even without holding a position of authority. Leadership is the ability to inspire others to strive toward a shared goal of a better future, and you can cultivate that ability regardless of your position in an organization’s hierarchy.
Scroggins is an author and speaker who specializes in leadership development. He was also an evangelical pastor for 10 years. Scroggins says that when he was younger, he had a lot of ideas about how to improve things at his church, but he never put any of those ideas into action because he wasn’t in a position of authority. Eventually, he realized he didn’t need authority, and the belief that he did had been stifling his leadership abilities for years. He wrote this book to help other people realize that they can—and should—embrace leadership and change things for the better, whatever their position. Since publishing How to Lead When You’re Not In Charge in 2017, Scroggins has written two other books and started a podcast on leadership.
The Biblical Roots of Servant Leadership
Leadership is a serving position, Scroggins says. The vision of the future that you use to inspire people must benefit others, not just yourself. This is supported by the biblical Book of Genesis, in which God tasks humanity with subduing the Earth. In this context, he says, to “subdue” doesn’t mean to dominate or exploit. Rather, it means to direct the world in a way that helps it flourish and increase in beauty and usefulness. In other words, we’re responsible for helping the world (including other people) reach its full potential. Jesus epitomizes this kind of servant leadership: Despite having ultimate authority as God, he didn’t exploit humanity for his own benefit. Instead, he improved the lives of the poor, the sick, and the marginalized, helping them flourish.
You can follow Jesus’ example and embrace servant leadership by building strong relationships with the people around you and creating positive change wherever you can. This increases other people’s confidence and trust in you, so they’ll be more likely to accept you and help you achieve your goals, even if you don’t have any official authority. (We’ll discuss Scroggins’s specific methods for embracing leadership throughout the guide.)
The Danger of Confusing Authority With Leadership
Previously, we discussed how God gave humanity the responsibility to lead. Unfortunately, you may neglect this responsibility because you mistakenly believe that you must hold a position of authority to be a leader. This belief stops you from realizing your true leadership potential: Instead of embracing opportunities to practice leadership and create positive change in your current role, you wait for someone to give you a position of authority.
Scroggins says waiting for a position of authority can lead you to feel powerless and ultimately dilutes your ability to lead: You’re so used to not having control over the big problems in the organization that you stop taking responsibility for things that are within your control. This passivity means that you’re not challenging yourself or practicing how to overcome failure, decreasing your resilience to setbacks and increasing your fear of failure. When you are given authority, this aversion to responsibility and fear of failure remain, keeping you passive even when you could create large, meaningful change in the organization. To avoid this trap, focus on what you can control in your current position, instead of things you cannot.
We’ve grouped Scroggins’s advice into two areas you can control, even if you don’t have authority. In the following sections, we’ll discuss each of these areas and how you can embrace leadership in them.
Embrace Leadership of Yourself
The main area you can control is yourself, Scroggins says. This is the most essential kind of leadership to embrace, as it’s the area you have intrinsic control over: You’ll always have authority over your own behavior, regardless of your position in an organization. By behaving well, you can increase people’s trust in you and encourage them to see you as a leader.
In this section, we’ll explore a few types of self-leadership you should embrace.
Leading Your Actions
The first type of self-leadership is leading your actions. Scroggins describes this as being dutiful and mindful in the small, daily decisions you make. This consistency shows God that you’re ready for the responsibility of leading others in the same way, making it more likely that he’ll put you in a position of authority where you can create even greater positive change.
We’ve consolidated Scroggins’s ideas into four tips for making dutiful, mindful daily decisions:
1. Support people in positions of authority. This shows you have a strong moral character, which makes you more trustworthy. You can show this support by executing your given tasks to the best of your ability and addressing challenging situations, like dealing with a demanding boss or extensive workload, with grace and maturity.
2. Actively monitor your emotions. Your emotions drive your behavior, which in turn dictates whether people see you as a good leader, as discussed above. So, continually evaluate whether you’re being driven by the right motives. Don’t let envy, resentment, or other negative feelings influence your actions. Instead, you should be motivated by a biblical love of your colleagues, which involves putting the needs and well-being of others above your own.
3. Commit to a concrete plan for personal development. You can’t become a good leader accidentally: The way you behave now will likely stay the same after you gain a position of authority, so you must be intentional about cultivating good habits.
Scroggins suggests developing a clear vision of the person you want to be by asking yourself three foundational questions: How do you want to lead? Why do you want to lead? How do you want to be perceived by others? Once you’ve established this goal, honestly assess the ways you currently fall short of it. Then, be intentional about making choices that help you become the person you imagined—someone who embraces those leadership methods, upholds that mission, and has that reputation. Look for practical ways to hold yourself accountable for your progress, like setting deadlines or joining accountability groups.
4. Take the opportunity to learn from other leaders and those in authority. Observe how they operate and discern what they do right or wrong. Then, adjust your own leadership style to mimic their successes and avoid their mistakes. Be mindful that people may be observing you in the same way, so always strive to exhibit good leadership traits that are worthy of emulation.
Leading Your Perception
The next type of self-leadership is “leading your perception,” or taking an active role in shaping how you think about things. This is an important axis of leadership because your perception of a situation influences how you react to it.
Scroggins discusses two main ways you can lead your perception: taking a big-picture view and practicing critical thinking.
Take a Big-Picture View
One way you can lead your perception is by taking a big-picture view of it, Scroggins says. Instead of assuming that your perspective is automatically correct, recognize and see past your biases. This helps you understand your role and how it fits into both your organization and God’s overarching plan for your life.
Scroggins says taking a big-picture view can help you see situations positively, as opportunities for personal growth, instead of seeing them negatively. He implies that this positive perception makes it easier to support your superiors and display a strong moral character, thus encouraging people to see you as a leader, as discussed above.
To take this kind of big-picture view, Scroggins says you need faith and hope. Faith is the belief that you’re exactly where God wants you to be right now. Hope is a firm conviction that God has good things planned for you. Together, they help you believe that your current position can prepare you for something better in the future.
Practice Critical Thinking
Another way you can lead your perception is by practicing critical thinking. Critical thinking helps you identify ways to improve the situations and organizations you’re involved in. Scroggins specifies that critical thinking and being critical are different: When you think critically, your goal is to serve and help others by creating positive change. In contrast, being critical usually involves judging and degrading others to elevate yourself. Jesus’ example shows the importance of doing the former rather than the latter: Instead of simply passing judgment on people, he offered them help and guidance.
According to Scroggins, critical thinking involves constantly observing your surroundings and asking questions about the things you observe. This includes the physical environment, the people around you, and the processes you all use. Asking questions like “Why do we use this specific process?” or “How could I make this better?” challenges your assumptions and can help you identify a better way of doing things. For example, you might ask why your office maintains a waiting area when you don’t offer in-person services. The answer might simply be that most offices have waiting areas, so your organization put one in too. After challenging this assumption, your organization could use that space for something more important.
To encourage this observation and evaluation, schedule time for critical thinking throughout your work day, Scroggins says. This gives you a period of time without distractions where you can process information and make decisions carefully, rather than simply reacting to ongoing events. He especially recommends scheduling time between meetings so you can fully process the information from the first meeting and enter the next one with a clear and focused mind.
Leading Your Identity
Another kind of self-leadership is leading your identity. Scroggins defines identity as the core beliefs you hold about yourself. These beliefs are shaped by four main factors:
- The people you’re surrounded by, both now and in the past
- Your intrinsic qualities, such as your talents, physical traits, and emotional state
- The values and beliefs that you consider most important
- Your sense of purpose, or why you believe you’re alive
These beliefs shape your behavior in every aspect of your life, including how you act as a leader. If you have a strong, clear sense of identity, you’ll understand your own strengths and limitations, so you can confidently make decisions as a leader. In contrast, if you have a weak sense of identity, you may overemphasize your strengths or weaknesses. If you overemphasize your strengths, you’ll become arrogant and may hide your mistakes so people keep viewing you positively, increasing the severity of the problem and your stress. If you overemphasize your weaknesses, you’ll be crippled by self-doubt and be less likely to take advantage of leadership opportunities because you fear failure.
How to Lead Your Identity
While some elements of your identity are fixed—for instance, you can’t change the influence your family had on you as you grew up—you can control others. For instance, Scroggins says you should develop your sense of purpose throughout your life.
We’ve arranged Scroggins’s advice for leading your identity into two steps:
1. Remember that God values and loves you for who you are, not what you’ve achieved. He knows all of your weaknesses, and he loves you anyway. When you accept that God’s love is unconditional, you can be bold and hold true to your ideals, instead of seeking approval from others or fearing failure. This step must be completed first, as your identity must be solidly rooted in God if you’re going to have the confidence to successfully complete the next step.
2. Determine whether the influences in your life—especially the people you surround yourself with—support your identity or degrade it. Then, pay attention to the positive influences and either limit or remove negative influences. For example, a friend who encourages you to live according to your values supports your identity, so you should heed their advice. A friend who encourages you to violate your values degrades your identity, so you should pay less attention to their opinion or, in serious cases, remove them from your life.
Embrace Leadership of Others
Now that we’ve covered how you can lead yourself, we’ll discuss external areas of control: how you can lead people and things outside of yourself. Scroggins implies you have a measure of control over people and things you directly interact with, even without authority.
We’ve grouped Scroggins’s ideas into two main kinds of external leadership: leading your environment and leading your superiors.
Leading Your Environment
One kind of external leadership is leading your environment, which we’re defining as the elements of an organization that you interact with regularly. These elements can be intangible, like the processes you use in your role, or tangible, like the way an office is arranged.
Scroggins says you should constantly look for new ways to improve your environment. He presents a three-step method for taking this kind of initiative. (Shortform note: We’ve reordered these steps to boost clarity.)
1. Remain attentive to your boss’s priorities. Scroggins says this gives you a direction to take initiative in: Once you understand how your boss wants to direct the company, you can identify ways to change your environment that’ll support them in reaching their goals.
2. Select a persistent issue and take full responsibility for addressing it. Knowing that you’ll be held responsible for the result will encourage you to take initiative and work hard to solve the issue. Your ground-level position is an advantage here, Scroggins says, as you have firsthand insight into what works and what doesn’t since you interact with your team regularly.
3. Create a plan to resolve the issue before mentioning it to your boss. This shows that you’re thinking ahead and can be trusted with responsibility. As discussed previously, this makes you more trustworthy and increases the chances of your boss giving you a position of authority. Thus, Scroggins recommends adding regular planning time to your schedule. Make sure you allocate enough time to be thorough: The better planned your idea is, the more likely your boss is to accept it.
Leading Your Superiors
Another kind of external leadership is leading your superiors, Scroggins says. Sometimes, you’ll notice areas that need change but are outside of your control. In these cases, you must leverage your boss’s authority to make those changes. You do this by communicating with them about the issues you’ve noticed and encouraging them to change those areas for the better.
This is a delicate process, Scroggins emphasizes. Sharing your perspective with your boss in a thoughtful and constructive way can lead to improvement, but doing so ineffectively might harm your professional relationship and make it harder to create positive change. People tend to get defensive when confronted with ideas that upset the status quo. It provokes their fear of change, and they may perceive your request for change as an implied criticism of their past decisions that created the status quo.
Scroggins offers a few methods for overcoming this resistance to change:
1. Invest time in strengthening your relationship with your boss. As discussed previously, the more they trust you, the more likely they are to follow your suggestions. If your current relationship with your boss isn’t strong, prioritize strengthening it before suggesting change.
2. Be prepared to provide a compelling justification for why change is necessary. If your reasoning is uncertain or unclear, it may confuse others, and they might resist change even if your suggestions are valid. In contrast, a well-articulated argument increases the chances of your superior agreeing to your proposed changes.
3. Maintain a calm, non-judgmental tone. Even the best ideas can be rejected if they’re presented with an aggressive tone. Avoid placing blame or issuing ultimatums, Scroggins warns. This will make your boss feel under attack, increasing their defensiveness. Instead, stay non-judgmental and decide how to proceed with your boss. This creates a collaborative environment where you and your boss work together to create positive change.
