One of the hardest things to do as a leader is to push your vision forward without authority. It’s easy when all the resources and authority are in your hands, but I bet that isn’t your reality right now. I bet you see the gap between your current digital discipleship strategy and where you want to be. You have a vision, but not sure how to make it come true. 

I’ve always found myself leading up with digital vision. I see what we should be doing, and over the past decade, I’ve had to figure out how to move my thoughts in my head to it being a real thing at my church. Ideas are cheap, but what actually happens is what is important. The best book on this topic I’ve ever read is How to Lead When You're Not in Charge: Leveraging Influence When You Lack Authority by Clay Scroggins. I love how he unpacks this idea of not leading with authority but with influence. You build your influence over time and show you can be a good steward of the vision and resources of your church. You prove yourself worthy, and as a result, authority is granted to you. 

It can feel like the chicken and the egg dilemma. I want the authority to do what I need to do, but I don’t have the ability to do it yet. If you approach this dilemma with a slow and steady way of building influence, like Clay talks about, once you get authority, you will know how to wield it wisely. The worst leaders lead from authority and not influence. The best leaders lead with influence. I’ve found that if someone has influence, you actually want to be led by them because it’s something they’ve done and not just a title given to them. They have street cred. People who have authority and lead purely out of their position are like spoiled rich kids who haven’t earned a dime of the fortune they have. Lead from influence and not authority, even when you have the authority one day.

Overview of Clay Scroggins’s Book, How to Lead When You're Not in Charge:

• Part 1: Understanding Our Challenge

• The oddity of leadership, the identity crisis of leading, and reclaiming your drive to lead in the right way by not disrupting those above you.

• Part 2: The Four Behaviors 

• Lead yourself, choose positivity over negativity, think critically, and reject passivity in your current role.

• Part 3: Challenging Authority 

• How to challenge upward and where to start leading today

Ingest this idea of leading up with influence deep into your bones. Your church’s digital strategy is likely broken, and you want to fix it. You aren’t waking up with magic dictator authority. You must learn how to gain influence to get your vision done. I believe it is possible, but it will take time. I know it is possible because I have lived this out for the last ten years.

Check out Clay’s book and start implementing his principles. I highly recommend his audible version, which is so good. He made me audibly laugh throughout the listen. Start leading up!

Also, Clay did write a kind recommendation for my book:

“Online Church Is Not the Answer is a great book to figure out how to wisely leverage digital for your ministry objectives. A great resource for churches!” - Clay Scroggins