When I was in grade school, it seemed a permission slip was required for just about anything outside the norm. Leave early? You needed permission. Walk to the principal’s office? You’d better have a permission slip. Missed class to go to the doctor? The permission slip better be signed by the doc! It all felt very “Mother May I?”
These days, you and I can walk the hallways, go to the doctor, and visit whomever we please without a slip of paper granting us permission. But there are still important areas of life where we need permission, and being a person of influence is one of them.
Who grants permission to be a person of influence, be that an official role such as a coach or in an unofficial capacity? You are the most significant source of permission in your life.
Don’t get me wrong, you can’t grant yourself permission to print money, fly in restricted airspace, or install yourself as king of Topeka. Many, many things in life are out of bounds. But being a person of influence is most definitely in bounds, but still remains out of reach for so many people. It’s out of reach because they haven’t given themselves permission to lead.
Giving yourself permission to lead and have influence with others is neither simple nor easy. In fact, doing so often requires soul-searching, trial and error, and lots of self-talk. Such permission is also not baseless. In fact, giving yourself permission to lead stems from four realities.
First, you matter. On a planet of 8 billion people, it’s tempting to think you don’t matter. But you do. And so does everyone else. And if everyone matters, so do you. You will never give yourself the permission necessary for influencing others if you don’t believe that you were created on purpose and for a purpose.
There is nothing prideful, arrogant, or un-Christlike in believing that you matter. In fact, quite the opposite is true. God created you not by accident or by mistake, but on purpose. It would be negligent and poor stewardship of the life God has granted you if you failed to believe wholeheartedly that you matter.
Second, you’re doing the work. While the first reality is a given, this second one is not. But to the extent you are doing the work, you have permission to lead.
“Doing the work” is a bit of therapy jargon that essentially means you are paying attention to the kind of person you are, the kind of person you want to be, and the effort it takes to close the gap. It takes a lot of work to become a better person, grow in virtue, and develop your character. When you’ve put forth the effort to influence yourself, you gain permission to influence others.
Doing the work to improve yourself also gives you a healthy dose of compassion and empathy for those you will influence. Let’s face it; to influence someone means you are asking them to change. And change is hard. When you’ve done hard work to change yourself, you earn the permission to ask others to do similarly hard work.
Third, you serve something bigger than yourself. It’s unfortunate that in today’s social media-centered world the term “influencer” has come to describe someone with a lot of followers. If your goal in influencing is to gain a following, you do not have permission to influence (at least not in the healthy version of the term). If your goal is to have people follow you, listen to you, agree with you, like you, or love you, then your permission to lead is faulty, at best.
Should you influence others? Only if your desire to influence others is in service to something bigger and beyond you. Also, it should be bigger and beyond the persons you are seeking to influence. Helping others makes for a poor end in itself. But when you strive to help others because you serve a higher purpose, you are on the right track.
Obviously, I would encourage you to frame your influence of others within the mandate of God to love others as yourself and in doing so manifest His kingdom as best you can. God’s glory and loving reign is quite a noble purpose!
Fourth, you are responsible. Being a person of influence and leadership is not a reward, it is a responsibility. It is akin to willfully taking on a burden and carrying it. It is a load. And if you are willing to carry the load, bear the burden, and be responsible for matters, then you have permission to influence.
Too often we want influence without responsibility. This is the temptation of the bystander, the audience member, or the naysayer, not the true leader. The true leader recognizes the responsibility that is inherent in being a person of influence. They look at the world as it is, consider how it could be, and then step up to make a difference – not just with their words, but with their lives.
Being responsible is not in vogue these days. Maybe it never was. It’s always easier to blame others, point fingers, and voice opinions than it is to take the blame, roll up your sleeves, and put your words into action. The responsible person asks, “Who is responsible?” and answers wholeheartedly, “I am!”
Do you have permission to influence others? My hunch is that you do. But check these four realities in your life. To what extent are they true for you? Which one(s) needs to become even more true? And, if they are true, then what’s holding you back?