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Transcript
In this episode, we’re going to talk about how you can be a leader when you have no position. And to really dive into the topic, to really explain it, I think it’s first important that we look at a certain aspect about leadership. And to explain it, I think we should look at it this way.
Leadership is like a pilot’s seat
Leadership is a lot like a pilot seat.
When I was younger, maybe 10 or 11, somewhere around that age, my aunt dated someone who was a pilot. And on one occasion he took us up in his plane, and I got to sit in the copilot seat, and I got to “fly the plane.”
Obviously, I did really awesome of course. But tell me did me sitting there in the pilot seat, the copilot seat make me a pilot? Did I really know what I was doing? No, of course not.
You definitely, definitely wouldn’t want me to try to land at the plane, especially then. And I think I had a cast on my arm or hand at the time as well. But not that matters on me being able to land. But you get the idea.
Just because you sit in a pilot seat doesn’t mean that you know how to fly a plane. It takes a lot of practice, a lot of learning with a trainer and then you’re doing yourself all that stuff, you know, and even when you become a commercial pilot, there’s more you have to do.
And they don’t… flying commercial, like flying people and passenger planes, they don’t just let you ride out of, get your license, they don’t let you fly it.
You know, it’d be great. You’re the sitting in the cabin in your seat, getting comfortable. The pilot gets on, it’s like, “Hey, you know, I just got my pilot’s license. You know, this is my first flight, you know, myself.”
You wouldn’t want to be on that flight. Oh my goodness. But yeah, they don’t let you do that because, you know, it takes, they have to have practice.
The seat doesn’t equal knowledge and ability
But it’s similar with leadership, because sometimes people think that because they get in that seat, become a “leader”, position, then that means they know how to lead.
But the leadership position is like a pilot seat. Just because you sit in the seat doesn’t mean you know how to lead. It’s just a position where you’re supposed to lead. Similar to piloting, it takes time and practice.
And just as you don’t need an official pilot position to be able to pilot, you also don’t have to have an official leadership position to lead. You can lead without a position. You can lead from any position or without a position. You can lead from anywhere, in other words.
In fact, if you look at the maybe teams you’ve been on, people you’ve been around, you’ve had leaders probably that you felt were good leaders and that you followed, but also some that you knew were in the position that weren’t great leaders. And you probably knew people who weren’t in leadership positions, but that people trusted and that people followed.
I think John Maxwell, I think it was in his 21 Laws book, he gave a story of when he was a new pastor, he had a deacons meeting. And it was interesting because he was the “leader” of the group because he was the pastor. But every time an issue was presented, everybody’s heads turned and looked at one person for that one person’s opinion.
That person was the actual leader of that group, despite John Maxwell’s position. And he goes in different aspects of how, where he worked in that and everything. But the point is you don’t have to have the position to lead.
How do you lead without a position?
So the question then is how do you lead when you don’t have a position? How do you get people to see you as a leader and build that influence as a leader?
Be trustworthy
The first, of course, makes sense. Like it’s one of those things that seems simple, but really it can be hard to break this, or easy to break this rather. It’s that you have to be trustworthy.
And I know when I say that sometimes it’s like, yeah, yeah, you gotta be trustworthy. But no, seriously, if you want people to trust you or to follow you, you’ve got to be someone that they can trust. You have to be someone who tells the truth, that they know when you say something, they can be confident that it’s the truth to the best of your knowledge, that you’re reliable, that when you say you’re going to do something, you’re going to do it.
And when you mess up, you admit to it. Like, “Yeah, hey, I know I said I was gonna do this, I’m sorry.” And of course, there’s only so many times you can do that before they start losing trust in your reliability. But people understand mistakes happen, but you fess up to your mistakes.
People should have confidence that what you say is true and that what you say you’re going to do, you’re going to do.
Be competent (at least to a degree)
Second is competence. There has to be a level of competence that you have. It doesn’t mean you have to be the best of everything, but you also can’t just be a total flop and expect people to follow you. There’s need to be some level of competence.
Simon Sinek in the video, I think it’s in his book too, I think it’s The Infinite Game, but I know as a video you can search YouTube, Simon Sinek Navy SEALs, something like that. But in it he talks about, he was talking to Navy SEALs, what made a good team member, kind of leadership thing. And they said there were two main things, there was trust and competence, two things we just talked about now.
And they said they found that they would rather someone with high trust and medium level of confidence, maybe a little bit lower than someone who was high competence and low trust because the high competence and low trust were toxic, toxic leaders. But they’d rather someone who’s high trust and decently competent over the other. So that says something there.
You got to be confident to a level that people trust. Know you can do your thing, but what matters even more… it goes back to that trust. They have to be able to trust you.
Be humble
Next is humility. Ego kills. I mean, think about people who are all about themselves, self-absorbed, thinks they’re better than everyone, braggarts and all of those things. They likely don’t have much influence with you. And what they do with some people, their ego limits the ability of what they can do and what they can accomplish.
So humility though is sometimes misperceived because it’s sometimes seen as a lack of self-confidence or being a pushover, things of that nature. But it’s not really that way. Humility more is thinking less, not less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less.
Now, though some people may need to think less of themselves, but it’s not a lack of self-confidence thing. It’s not an insecurity pushover thing. It’s recognizing that you’re a flawed person, that you don’t know everything, that some people may know better than you, they may be able to do things better than you. It’s being grounded.
And too, looking and thinking of others more and thinking about yourself less. When you do that, then that helps build influence with other people when it combines with the other things we’re talking about in this episode.
Show confidence
Next is confidence. Now, you can build influence with people and be insecure. Many people deal with some level of insecurity. Many deal with maybe imposter syndrome when they get in a position. That in itself won’t necessarily make it where people won’t follow you, but there’s a level of confidence, or having confidence, and being a person who shows confidence or competence, not competence, confidence, can help people build that influence with people.
Take ownership and pass credit
Next is taking ownership of your mistakes, passing the credit. Again, it’s not being about you, but you’re like, hey, I own the mistakes and not just own it and admitting to it, but working to solve it.
Having the right focus, not focusing on blame. When you get credit for things, that you pass it to other people, that builds influence with people.
Help others win
And next is really what I consider a really big one, like, a huge one if you really want to build influence with people and lead without a position. It’s this: you help others win. When you are about, not, again, kind of a humility thing, not so much about yourself and always trying to make yourself look good, you’re out there helping others win in their job and what they’re doing or their goals and help them accomplish their goals. Things like that.
When you help others win, then they’re going to have that respect towards you and then much more likely help you win. So when you’re saying, how can I get people to respect me? How can I get people to follow me? Think about how you can help others win, and doing that will help you be seen as a leader.
And with that, and I’m kind of keep adding, this is to me it ties with it, but it’s a little bit different. But it’s that when it comes to, and again, this ties with things that we’ve talked about, is that you’re not about yourself. You’re about the mission, the goal, the team.
You’re serving first others over yourself. You’re not just about your personal agenda. You’re about helping others win, like we’ve talked about. You’re about the mission and accomplishing the goal and doing what that takes, not just self-seeking.
And when you do that, people see that you’re not about yourself and you earned influence and respect, especially when you combine the other parts with this.
Build your influence with others
I hope that helped you see some, how if you don’t have a position, how you can lead. But even if you do have a position, ways that you can build influence with people is the things we’ve talked about here, doing the trust, competence, helping others win, all of those things. Hope that helps.
Something to think about and how you can apply it, and I’ll see you next time.
