How to Lead When You're Not in Charge

by Clay Scroggins

  Self-Leadership Principle #2: Monitor Your Heart and Behavior.

  What is easier to monitor, your heart or your behavior? The truth is that they’re both difficult. The feelings and emotions in our hearts are invisible and difficult to see in the mirror. But our behaviors also have the potential to betray us. All of us have behaved in ways we didn’t want to behave or failed to act on something we wanted to act on. Monitoring your heart involves checking those deep-rooted motives and emotions that lie inside you and give direction to your behaviors. With just a bit of curiosity and initiative, our behaviors may initially be easier to identify.

  Monitoring your heart requires constantly checking your motives and feelings before God. There is good reason David is called “a man after God’s own heart.” Look at all the times in Psalms when he bared his soul before God, begging God to help him keep his heart pure.

  How can a young person stay on the path of purity? By living according to your word.

  PSALM 119:9

  Test me, LORD, and try me, examine my heart and my mind.

  PSALM 26:2

  Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.

  See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

  PSALM 139:23–24

  No one can do this for you. You have to make a decision to constantly check the emotions of your heart. Has any jealousy rooted itself in your heart? Is someone getting attention you feel you deserve? Do you feel anger toward your boss for something that has happened in the past? Are you frustrated about getting passed over for a promotion or more responsibility? Leading ourselves requires monitoring those dark corners of our hearts where these dangerous emotions lie. Monitoring your behavior must be both horizontal (with others) and vertical (with God). This will mean asking some tough questions of those around you.

  A few years ago, I made a pretty significant job transition. During that transition, someone recommended I read The First 90 Days: Proven Strategies for Getting Up to Speed Faster and Smarter.3 I did, and it was fantastically helpful. One recommendation the author, Michael Watkins, makes is to solicit as much feedback as possible from your old job before jumping directly into your new job. I was reading this at just the right time. Without his advice to assess my vulnerabilities, I would have jumped right into my new role because I was so eager for the new responsibility. Instead, I submitted an informal, anonymous 360-degree survey to about fifty of the coworkers I had in my former role. I asked them three simple questions:

  1. What did I do over the past few years that inspired you?

  2. What did I do that frustrated you?

  3. What do I not know about myself that has become a blind spot?

  I received a lot of positive feedback. Unfortunately, I don’t remember any of that. I just remember a few comments, which have caused significant changes in the way I operate at work.

  “At times, I felt like you weren’t really paying attention to me, but were only thinking about what you had next.”

  “Sometimes when I’m around you, I get the sense that you don’t really want to hear what I have to say because you’ve already made up your mind.”

  “When we would meet together, you never really seemed prepared for our meeting.”

  These comments were invaluable, but they were not news to me. None of them shocked me. I already knew some of this about myself. I was just hoping no one else knew it too.

  A healthy curiosity should drive your efforts to monitor your behavior. And not just curiosity for curiosity’s sake, but curiosity for the sake of growth. You need to cultivate interest in how others see the way you act and lead. There is feedback orbiting around your world that could change you, grow you, stretch you, and make you better, but the responsibility for soliciting that feedback is yours! You are in charge of you!

  Self-Leadership Principle #3: Make a Plan.

  To lead yourself well, you need a plan. You will not lead yourself well by accident. It must be intentional. I call it a “Lead Me Plan.” Everyone needs to be able to answer this question: what are you doing to lead yourself well? What is your “Lead Me Plan”? To lead you well, you need to focus on three simple aspects:

  1. Know where you currently are.

  2. Have a vision for where you want to go.

  3. Develop the discipline and accountability to do what it takes to stay on track.

  KNOW WHERE YOU ARE

  As you are developing a “Lead Me Plan,” the greatest mistake you can make is to inflate your own leadership ability. You have gifts, talents, experience, and education that got you where you are. Don’t try to fool yourself. You haven’t arrived! What got you there will not get you where you want to be.

  Jim Collins noted this mistake made by some successful leaders and companies in How the Mighty Fall: And Why Some Companies Never Give In. He called it “the hubris of success.” The first misstep success brings is to credit the success to your own doing, but this only sets leaders up for future failure: “Truly great [leaders], no matter how successful they become, maintain a learning curve as steep as when they first began their careers.”4 For you to maintain a steep learning curve in this season of your life, you’ll need to be honest about where you are and how you got there. This kind of gut-level assessment of where you are will only happen by asking for it. People around you love you. They really do. They want you to get better. They want you to grow. But 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.

  One of our key leadership roles recently opened up, and we started talking about who we were going to hire for that position. During the conversation, someone brought up two names of people inside our organization who were interested in the job. The problem was that they had some pretty big gaps in their leadership skills that would keep them from being considered for the job. I asked the person who manages them if the employees were aware of these gaps that were keeping them from being considered. The answer I received was inconclusive, and that frustrated me for their sakes. 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, but I know it’s been true for my career. I’ve gotten jobs and I’ve lost jobs based on what people have said about me in rooms where I was not present. At times, some have spoken positively about me, and at other times, some have spoken negatively about me. Either way, it’s their opinion of me that matters. The same is true about your career. The people you work for have thoughts about you. They may even have thoughts about your future. It doesn’t help you if there is something keeping you from an opportunity—but you are the only one who doesn’t know it.

  Before you put a plan together for your own growth, you should ask your boss a question: “If an opportunity for promotion came available, what would keep you from fully recommending me?” The answer to that question could be the genesis for your personal growth plan. A word of advice on this: I wouldn’t ambush your boss with that question. Send him an email to tee it up, and mention that you would like to ask him some questions to help you in your job performance. Then follow up in person. And be aware that most people will resist answering that question because it is difficult to answer. Still, the feedback you receive is a good place to start. Follow it up with input from others as well.

  WHERE YOU WANT TO GO

  Once you know where you are, the next step is to develop a clear vision for where you want to go. This is often overlooked when people work on a “Lead Me Plan.” One of my weaknesses as a leader is vision—both personally and professionally. I am much more comfortable responding to opportunities rather than looking down the road a few years and imagining my future.

  A few years ago, my boss approached me with a potential promotion. I ca
lled my good friend Bryson to tell him the news. His response bewildered me. In fact, his response was no response. I had to repeat myself because I thought maybe he hadn’t heard me. After telling him again, there was no response. So I had to ask him, “What do you think about that?” I fully expected him to say, “Wow. That’s so great! Congrats, dude.” It seemed appropriate.

  Instead, he said, “Man, I’ve gotta be honest. I don’t know whether to say ‘congrats’ or ‘sorry.’ I just don’t know what you want, so I don’t know what to say. It feels like they’re just yanking you around without giving you a say. Just seems like you need to figure out what you want to do with your life before I know how to respond.”

  We all need friends like that. We need friends who remind us that we aren’t just responding to opportunities and circumstances. We each need to have a personal vision for our own lives, a plan for our futures. Without a personal vision for your life, how do you know what to do with the opportunities that present themselves? Especially the good ones, like a promotion?

  Self-leadership means spending the necessary time and effort to determine your own personal vision for your future. I see many young leaders who have no clear sense of direction, and that can be paralyzing. And while people will probably tell you that your plan for your life rarely works out the way you think it will, aiming at nothing will take you nowhere. It’s dangerous to hold too tightly to the plans we’ve determined for ourselves, but it’s just as dangerous to have no vision or direction for stewarding the gifts, talents, and opportunities God has given us.

  There are a few questions that have helped me zero in on how to respond to what God has put in front of me.

  • 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?

  Spend time answering these questions with other people that know you well. It’s one of the most crucial ingredients to leading yourself well.

  DISCIPLINE AND ACCOUNTABILITY

  If God told you that you could ask him for anything you wanted and the answer would be yes, what would you ask for? That’s a pretty thrilling thought. Because we have little kids, we play this question out in our homes pretty often. The ability to fly is the most popular answer my kids give. But the ability to generate ice cream at any point and at any time is clearly the correct answer.

  In all seriousness, I would ask for more self-discipline to accomplish the tasks I want to accomplish and to be the person I want to be. I say that because without the self-discipline necessary to see a “Lead Me Plan” through, it’s an empty plan. The good news is that I believe everyone has a motivating factor that will help spur on the self-discipline necessary to see the “Lead Me Plan” through to the end.

  What motivates you? What creates accountability to help you learn, grow, and stretch yourself in ways you wouldn’t otherwise? If you’re driven by achievement, sign up for a class at a school or some type of certification program. Most of us aren’t in it for the certificate, but it’s a form of self-discipline. For me, the implicit accountability with the school is great motivation. I wish I would read and write on my own time, but I need some accountability. So paying tuition motivates me to complete the tasks assigned on the syllabus.

  If you’re relational, maybe you need to create a group of your peers to learn and grow together. This is the idea behind book reading groups. There is built-in accountability to read, form opinions, and show up to the group. You’ll end up doing work and thinking about what you’re reading in ways you wouldn’t have normally done. Even better, offer to lead the group. Taking on the responsibility to lead will force you to think through things you normally would not. You’ll need to take initiative and ask different questions.

  If you’re wired for order and routine, determine a plan and tell someone about it. Or hire a coach who will help you formulate a plan. This works well in the realm of physical fitness, and the growing trend of CrossFit groups and fitness boot camps highlights this. People pay good money for someone to choose a fitness plan for them, set a time for them to show up, and provide the community of people that will push them along. And we don’t just need this physically; we need this in all areas of our lives.

  If you just lack motivation, pick a goal, set a deadline, and create an artificial consequence to motivate you. I’m convinced this is why people run marathons. Think about it. You’re paying money to show up early on a Saturday morning to inflict pain on your body. Why? I ask people that all the time. The answer never makes sense to me. “Because it’s fun!” Not for me. Sounds like hell. Literally. All that being said, a deadline and an artificial consequence are quite motivating and might just be what you need to kick-start your self-leadership.

  I know I need to grow in how I handle conflict. More specifically, I need to grow in my ability to deal with tense, high-stakes conversations. Part of my “Lead Me Plan” is to read two books, Crucial Conversations5 and Difficult Conversations,6 and then give a leadership talk on this topic to a few friends at work. Without this kind of self-imposed discipline and accountability, I just wouldn’t do it. The date of the talk is on the calendar. I know people will show up. And the accountability even makes me nervous as I type this. But that’s the point. A “Lead Me Plan” must also build in means of pressure and systems of accountability to help execute it.

  At the beginning of this year, I created a simple chart for my current “Lead Me Plan.” It’s not complicated, and you’re welcome to use this one or create your own. The point is to have a plan. If someone were to ask you what your future plan is, what you’re doing to lead yourself should be top of mind. If you don’t have an answer when someone asks you, you don’t really have a plan.

  LEAD ME PLAN WHERE AM I? OBJECTIVES EXECUTION & ACCOUNTABILITY

  Self-Health Complaints of being distracted in one-on-one meetings Be more present by keeping track of conversations in a journal 360° survey of coworkers and friends at the end of the year

  Social Health Too many random meetings 100 meals and coffees with:

  1. An encouragement

  2. A learning Keep list on spreadsheet and keep visible

  Spiritual Health Want to be more consistent in reading the Bible Leverage a Bible reading plan for consistency Check in with Wednesday morning guys

  You may not be in charge, but you are in charge of you!

  Remember, this will not happen on its own. You may not be in charge, but you are in charge of you! If you do not formulate a “Lead Me Plan,” no one will make it for you. The responsibility is yours. But if you do, the good news is that you will be one step closer to becoming a better leader.

  TIME TO LEAVE

  I mentioned earlier that there might be times when you need to consider leaving a job because of an unhealthy relationship with your boss. This is, admittedly, a complicated challenge, and I won’t be able to cover every situation. But the truth is that if you find yourself in the challenging position of working for someone you feel cannot lead you, you might need to leave. But before you decide to leave, I’d suggest working through a few things, just to make sure you are leaving for the right reasons. It’s similar to the “Here’s what we need to do before we leave our house for vacation” list my wife and I have. “Did we turn the AC off, flush the toilets, take the trash out, and lock the doors?” This list is intended to help you think through the things you need to do before you leave a messy situation.

  Drop the expectations.

  Hopefully, you can push past the temptation to throw all the expectations of leadership on your boss. If you feel frustrated because someone hasn’t led you well, often just dropping the expectations can really change things. One of the most freeing steps for you and for your boss would be for you to relieve your boss of the obligation of leading you well.

  I’ve worked for bos
ses that I’ve loved and I’ve worked for bosses that were less than loveable. Expectations always affect relationships. They just do. Obviously, unmet expectations have a way of ruining relationships because trust is broken. If you have a boss who is not meeting your expectations, I think it’s fair to assess your own expectations of that person. Have you attached unreasonable expectations to the relationship? Are you asking for something that just isn’t going to happen? Are you expecting to be led by someone who is incapable of providing that kind of leadership?

  Of course, it’s fair to have expectations of a boss. You should expect to be treated with dignity and respect. You should expect to be compensated fairly for your work. However, choosing to drop the expectations that might be unreasonable might just be what your relationship needs. Choosing to believe that your boss owes you nothing might just change everything.

  Go ahead and try to say it out loud: “My boss owes me nothing.” I can’t promise that’ll feel good, but I do believe it’s worth a shot. Choosing to believe your boss owes you nothing, or at least very little, is a powerful step forward for the relationship.

  Go all-in.

  If you’re not all-in, go all-in. Commit to the job for a significant season. Sometimes, when you feel you’re not being led well, it might be because your boss doesn’t feel that you’re committed. It’s amazing how we as humans have the innate ability to perceive someone’s commitment to us. To protect ourselves, we resist going all-in with someone who is not all-in with us. If you’re not committed to your boss, your boss probably won’t be committed to you.

  So, how do you know if you’re all-in? Let me ask you a tough question: if you were to leave, would anyone be surprised? If no one would be surprised, you haven’t committed enough. If you do decide to leave, the people that work around you should be surprised that you’re leaving because you were all-in.