How to Lead When You're Not in Charge

by Clay Scroggins

  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. Many of them are shaping your identity and, in some cases, you may not even be aware of how it’s affecting you.

  Your Personality

  We are all born with some hardwired realities that also shape our identity. Our physical bodies, our characteristics and traits, our emotional and impulsive lives, and our talents and skills all shape how we experience life. This in turn shapes our self-perception. If you’re highly ambitious and driven by achievement, yet find yourself in a role or organization that is static and doesn’t offer opportunities for growth or development, you’re going to be frustrated. If you excel administratively and have a deep desire to sit at your desk, focus on your work, and knock stuff out, but the organization you’re working with is highly relational, you’re going to feel like you’re constantly letting others down. What’s most challenging is when you lack self-understanding and it isn’t clear to you how your wiring affects how you see yourself.

  This is your self-interior.

  How are your temperament and personality wired? There are several ways for you to discover this. You can use RightPath, Myers-Briggs, StrengthsFinder, or Taylor-Johnson. In our organization, we think it is crucial to understand your personality, your bent, and your giftedness. Because of this, we dedicate loads of resources to assist people on this journey of self-discovery. With every person we interview, we use RightPath and StrengthsFinder. Just about every team in our organization has employed an expert on one of these assessments to facilitate a conversation around each person’s profile and how to work with others with different profiles. Why do we spend so much time and effort on self-awareness? Because the more you understand the makeup of your personality, the better you can understand how your identity shapes your thoughts, desires, and decisions, and the better you’ll be able to work with others.

  Your Purpose

  We were all created to have a purpose, but let’s go one step further. We were all created to thirst for a purpose. Every one of us has a desire to see and understand how our lives fit into a bigger picture. Every one of us has been hardwired to desire a reason for our existence. Why am I here? What can I uniquely contribute to the world? These kinds of existential questions have more of an impact on our identity than we admit. What you believe about why you’re on earth will deeply affect the opportunities you see available to you and how you should capitalize on them with your time, gifts, talents, and energy.

  This is your self-agency.

  What is your unique purpose in this world? The answer doesn’t usually just drop into your lap one day. Rather, you discern it over a lifetime. But it’s not something you will sit back and passively discover. You need to spend time wrestling this one to the ground. Full disclosure: over the years, this has created some real insecurity in me because I’ve never sensed a personal and specific mission for my life. In the church world, we designate this a “calling.” But that term “calling” really frustrates me because I’ve seen how well-meaning people hijack it and use it for selfish manipulation. I only know a few men and women who have a specific and personal purpose or mission statement. For the rest of us, I believe God has revealed enough of his general purposes in this world for us to chew on for the rest of our lives.

  So what has God said about why you exist? 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.

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

  Your Priorities

  The last item that determines your identity is your sense of priorities. I’m not necessarily referring to how you prioritize your life in regard to family, work, friends, etc. I’m referring to your priority of truths that shape your identity. This is where your faith—or lack thereof—comes most clearly into play. God has something to say about our priorities—our most important ideals, beliefs, aspirations, values, and passions. And your priorities will shape how you see yourself. While much of our identity is a result of the context and circumstances we are born into, this is an aspect of your identity formation that you can exert some control over.

  This is your self-determination.

  In other words, it’s when we exercise our will to make decisions and determine what we allow to define us. We decide what’s most important about who we are. In my life, there have been two key values I hold on to dearly, and these beliefs have held on to me in the midst of failures and successes. The two truths that have had more impact on my identity than anything else are:

  1. Because I have been created in the image of God, I am a chosen child of the King.

  2. For God so loved me that Jesus died for me.

  You’ll need to determine your own priorities. What do you choose to believe is most important about you? What ideal or value do you want to prioritize about yourself? This aspect of your identity is less determined than the others, and it takes effort to set these priorities and hold to them. You must learn to discipline yourself to keep these beliefs in front of you so they can continually shape your identity.

  You are you and no one else but you. However, that doesn’t mean you should passively accept your identity as something fixed and unchangeable. It’s worth your time to wade through the various aspects of your identity to better understand them, to grow in self-awareness, and to determine what is true about you.

  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 VOICES SHAPING YOUR IDENTITY

  The longer I’m involved in church ministry, the more aware I am of how much time we spend talking about how music sounds, especially in what some call rock-n-roll church. It’s been one of the great surprises in my work life. (Time spent talking about how the music sounds is surpassed only by time spent talking about T-shirt designs. If you’ve spent any time in student ministry, you know what I mean.) For sound, I’ve found that opinions around an audio mix from Sunday’s service can eat up an entire Monday morning meeting.

  “Did you think that mix had too much bass?”

  “Why could I not hear the guitars more?”

  “It just sounded a little muddy yesterday.”

  The more I’ve learned about music and the more concerts I’ve attended, the more I’ve come to see how important the audio mix is for the experience of the attendee. But there is another audio mix, one most of us never hear, that is even more important than the one we do hear. It’s the mix that happens inside the earpiece or monitor for each musician. Typically, each musician has a pair of in-ear speakers with a unique mix that has been created just for that musician. During rehearsal, I’ll hear them dialing it in.

  “I need more guitar, less vocals.”

  “The keys are too hot in my ears.”

  “Can I hear more of her and less of the snare?”

  In any environment, whether in the church world or at a concert, where the music is working well, a true musician will tell you, “Yeah, the monitor engineer did such a great job with the mix in our ears today.” The musicians know that a great monitor engineer is the secret to a great musical experience for the cro
wd. The monitor engineer gives each musician what he or she needs to be able to perform and participate with one another.

  When it comes to our identity, each of us gets to play the role of monitor engineer. We are responsible for the particular mix we’re hearing. There are some things we can’t change and others that we can. There are many voices speaking into the mix of our identity and we need to keep our fingers on the dials and faders to create the best mix. More boss, less past. More Dad, less spouse. More mentor, less social media. Some people are tempted to reach for the mute button, but that’s not always the best option. While there are voices you should mute, most of the time all that’s required is a simple adjustment of the volume to find the right mix. Don’t mute the voice of your boss, spouse, mentor, or pastor, but the volume of his or her voice might need to be turned down.

  I don’t claim to know the mix that’s right for you. I don’t know what you need to turn up and what you need to turn down. But with the help of your community or possibly a professional counselor or coach, you can figure it out. You need to figure it out. One thing I can tell you is that no matter how loud God’s voice is right now, you probably need to turn it up higher. 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. And your identity will be best shaped if you allow your heavenly Father’s voice to be the loudest one in your life. Your identity is the right identity when you let it be defined by what God says about you.

  WHAT GOD SAYS ABOUT YOUR IDENTITY

  God has a lot to say about your identity. And nothing has affected my leadership more than listening to what God has to say about my identity. When we survey the history of God’s people, there are many moments when he speaks into a person’s identity for the purpose of equipping them for more influence. Remember the burning bush? How could you forget it? God uses a lighter fluid-soaked bush to grab Moses’s attention. “There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up” (Ex. 3:2).

  This has all the trappings of a stellar moment: the appearance of an angel, and not just any angel, but an “angel of the LORD.” And there is a magic bush and (cue Tom Hanks from Castaway) fire!!! And what does God want to say to Moses through this conversation? Here’s my paraphrase:

  “I know your weaknesses. I know what you’re not good at. I know you stutter. I know you’re scared. I know you’re insecure. I know your past. I know about it all. But I don’t want that to define you. You have what it takes! Well, you don’t have what it takes, but because I’m going to be with you, you have what it takes! Now go! And quit worrying about who you are not and focus on who I AM!”

  There’s an identity check we all need to pay attention to. But this wasn’t the first time Moses’s identity had been shaped by what God said about him. I love what the author of Hebrews says about Moses’s identity early in his life. “By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin” (Heb. 11:24–25). Moses refused to let others define him. He said no to what would’ve been an easy identification so he could say yes to the identity God wanted for him.

  Or consider the story of Gideon. When Gideon jumps into the scene in the book of Judges, we find him scared to death, hiding from his enemies in a winepress. “The angel of the LORD came and sat down under the oak in Ophrah that belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, where his son Gideon was threshing wheat in a winepress to keep it from the Midianites” (Judg. 6:11).

  Gideon was like the middle school kid hiding in the bathroom stall, hoping the bully wouldn’t steal his lunch. He’s threshing his wheat in the oddest of places—a winepress—so the Midianites wouldn’t see him and take it all away from him. Now, I don’t know how you thresh your wheat or what you know about wheat threshing in general, but it was quite odd to thresh wheat in a winepress because of how wheat is typically threshed. Wind is an essential component to wheat threshing. It helps separate the wheat from the chaff. Because of that, wheat would have been threshed on the top of a hill, not down in the pit of a winepress.

  Why does this matter? Because it reveals what Gideon was thinking and how he was seeing. How did Gideon see himself? He seems insecure, lacking confidence, and possibly feeling helpless and just plain scared. But even though he is hiding out like a wimp in a winepress, God has something to say about his identity. “When the angel of the LORD appeared to Gideon, he said, ‘The LORD is with you, mighty warrior’ ” (Judg. 6:12).

  Mighty warrior? Was the angel confused? Did the angel mess up the game of telephone? Or was God calling Gideon to believe something about himself that he didn’t currently believe? God was speaking truth into Gideon’s identity, asking him to believe something that would change the way he led.

  Only a few short months later, we find Gideon talking with MMA-level smack, roaming around the countryside, making threats like he’s Brock Lesnar. Just two short chapters later, when the officials of Sukkoth (which is officially the worst name of any city . . . why doth our land values sukkoth such in Sukkoth?) refused to give bread to his troops, here’s what Gideon says to them: “Just for that, when the LORD has given Zebah and Zalmunna into my hand, I will tear your flesh with desert thorns and briers” (Judg. 8:7).

  “I will tear your flesh with thorns and briers.” Where did that come from? I trace his newfound confidence back to what God said to him through the angel of the Lord. Gideon is now, indeed, a mighty warrior.

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

  FEARLESS LEADERSHIP

  I want to be a fearless leader. 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. When there is wobble in my identity, I step out of the house in the morning lacking the confidence to be the leader I want to be. Worse, I step out of the house lacking the confidence to be the leader God has called me to be. Here is a key truth about your identity as it relates to your leadership: 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. Your ability to be a fearless leader is squarely rooted in your identity.

  I have a professional coach named Dean. He has a unique ability to wade through the superficial and get to the core of what is really going on inside me when I’m failing to lead like I want to lead. Several of us at North Point meet with Dean, so we have a common phrase for these meetings around our office: “You’ve been Dean-ed.”

  At one of these meetings, I was explaining a situation with a boss, and Dean pointed me toward a scene in the movie First Knight.1 It’s the story of King Arthur, Lancelot, and a Knight of the Round Table. In the movie, Richard Gere plays Lancelot, and he is jousting with a guy named Mark, a redheaded beast of a man who is quite a bit larger than Lancelot. You can sense Lancelot questioning whether he has what it takes, when he suddenly makes a few moves and ends up with Mark’s sword. It’s quite impressive. Mark wants to know how Lancelot did what he did.

  Mark: Was that a trick?

  Lancelot: No. That’s the way I fight.

  Mark: Could I do it? Tell me. I can learn.

  Lancelot: You have to study your opponent, so you know what he’ll do before he does it.

  Mark: I can do that.

  Lancelot: You have to know that one moment in every fight when you win or lose. And you have to wait for it.

  Mark: I can do that.

  Lancelot: And you have to not care whether you live or die.

  That last line is the one that matters most. “You have to not care whether you live or die.” The takeaway for us, as leaders, is to recognize that the best leaders may or may not have all the authority they need or want, but the security of their identity�
��especially as someone called and loved by God—gives them a freedom and fearlessness to do what is right. They are able to challenge well, to lead by making a way even when there isn’t a way.

  Jesus followers should understand this, but more often than not, we are as guilty as anyone of letting our fear paralyze us. If you believe God actually controls your career, what place does fear have in your life? This doesn’t mean we should be reckless. If anything, it means we have the freedom to be more disciplined and patient. We aren’t subject to the frustrations and passions we might experience on a given day; we take the long view and trust that God has a plan. When God is informing your identity, he may call you to honor your boss even more, but you’ll also have the freedom to challenge him with good intentions, unafraid to speak truth when necessary.

  There are moments when I know I want to challenge my boss. There are moments when I know I need to challenge my boss. In some of those moments, I hesitate because, in wisdom, it may not be the right time or the matter is too small to bring up. There are also moments when wisdom dictates that I should say something, and I shrink back in fear. Every time we respond in fear, we miss an opportunity to lead, and this failure of leadership is an issue of identity. When fear keeps me from “leading up” like I know I need to, it is due to a distortion in my identity. Fear has overcome who I know I could be or should be.

  But what do we do about it? If you sense fear in yourself, the best way to face those fears is with a healthier sense of self. You turn up the volume of what is true about you, and you listen to what God says about you. As you do, your identity will adjust. And as you adjust your identity, you will also adjust your response to fear. “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love” (1 John 4:18). This verse captures one of the most radical truths we can know as a child of God. When I realize how perfectly loved I am, what is there to be afraid of? If I’m perfectly loved, why not embrace risk? If I’m perfectly loved, why do I need the stamp of approval from others? If I’m perfectly loved, why would I fear failure or the uncertainty of potential outcomes?