Clay Scroggins

The author tells of his journey in pastoral ministry and how he has learned, as the subtitle said, to leverage influence even though he was not the boss.

He speaks of a common condition among many: the feeling of not being able to do much because one is not in a position of power. One can find no end of criticisms of the way things are being done, and the conceit that if one was in charge, how one would do things differently. The author does well to demonstrate the difficulties of these views, and the realization that anyone and everyone has a bit more "authority" than they think they do: they have the power of their influence.

The author encourages people to manifest leadership skills in ways to advance the organization's interests and to "lead from behind" through example and influence. The goal seems to be for one to be able to get to the position of full leadership.

The author writes in that now common and popular attempt to sound like the average guy, and for my taste used way too many not funny preacher type jokes and deprecating humor; it might work well in the pulpit, but it doesn't translate well in a book format. I understand that the author is attempting to write to speak to the church/business world of the cult of leadership, but I found that to be a major detriment to the work. The core truth of the work - that each and every one of us can use their gifts and skills in the position in which we find ourselves to advance the cause and leverage our influence to benefit others even if we are not in charge, and too many are paralyzing themselves either by thinking they can't do anything until they're in charge, or expecting those in charge to tell them exactly and specifically what to do without taking initiative themselves to find problems to solve - is true no matter where one is in an organization or group, and remains true even for all of those who will never be the top leader. Then again, I am a sharp critic of the cult of leadership which is all the rage in Evangelicalism, so take it for what it is worth.

On a detail level, the example given about the why and the what toward the end, regarding canceling the assembly on Memorial Day weekend because of low attendance and thus low morale among staff, embodied everything that is wrong about the spectator/performance/production mentality about the Sunday morning assemblies in far too many parts of Evangelicalism. Terribly sad.

There's some great advice here about how a person can work effectively and leverage their influence without having primary authority and responsibility. In a real sense that is true of all of us since none of us are Jesus. But the end goal should not necessarily be about becoming a leader as much as becoming a truly effective servant. The truly effective servant understands leadership, encourages and facilitates leadership, empowers leadership, and all without having to be the leader - and this is a virtue which the book does not consider, and is all too sorely lacking not just in modern society but indeed within Christianity.… (más)