Leading from below

This may be the most difficult type of leadership. There will sometimes be situations where you are on a team by definition but, for whatever reason, you have insight or experience that is equal to or even exceeds the actual leadership team’s.

Pretty much everything said so far will apply here, and maybe even more so.

The main thing that will be useful is to publicly praise the assigned leadership team, and to privately offer suggestions or correction. They will appreciate this, some more than others. If they are open to your input, give it privately. If they are not, then you may have to simply become a team member who only occasionally offers input or correction.

Similar to the above, you will mostly want to just go along with their plan. This will be true if you are 100% on board, or only 50% on board. The times when you’ll want to talk with the leadership team are when you are substantially opposed to their plan of action.

The reason for this approach is that the best way you can lead from below is to only try to lead in situations where you are concerned for a bad outcome. If you are constantly offering input, nitpicking, and otherwise trying to insert yourself into the leadership process, you will eventually be ignored. “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” is a cautionary tale here. So build up your credibility and use it only when it really matters.