You Don't Need Permission to Lead

Most of us were taught to wait — wait for the title, the invitation, the tap on the shoulder that says now it's your turn. But leadership doesn't work that way. The people who change things aren't the ones who waited for permission. They're the ones who started before they felt ready.

In this episode, Lisa explores the quiet lie that keeps smart, capable people on the sidelines: the belief that leadership is something someone else gives you. She talks about what it actually looks like to lead without a title, why the instinct to wait is so deeply wired, and what shifts when you stop asking am I allowed? and start asking what do I see that needs to happen?

This one is for anyone who's been doing the work but holding back from owning it.

Soul to Soul with Dr. Lisa Carter-Bawa is a podcast for anyone who is in the middle of becoming — doing the inner work, asking the harder questions, and learning to live from the inside out.

New episodes drop every Monday.

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Not role to role. Soul to soul.

Transcript

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You're listening to Soul to Soul with Lisa Carter Boba, where science meets soul. I want to take you back to a version of me that didn't feel like a leader. There was a time, and it wasn't that long ago, if I'm honest, when I looked around the room and thought, I don't belong here. Not in a dramatic, falling apart kind of way, in a quiet way. The kind of quiet that sits in your chest during a meeting when everyone else seems to know exactly what to say, and you're still trying to figure out if your idea is worth mentioning. I didn't have the title. I didn't have the seniority. I didn't have the track record that I thought gave people the right to speak up, to push back, to shape direction. So I waited. I waited for someone to see me. I waited for someone to invite me in. I waited for permission. And while I was waiting, I watched other people. People who weren't smarter than me, weren't more experienced than me, weren't more capable than me, step forward. Not because they had permission, but because they decided they didn't need it. This episode is for the person listening right now who is doing exactly what I did. Waiting, holding back, telling yourself you're not ready, telling yourself it's not your turn yet, telling yourself that leadership is something that gets handed to you when you've earned enough, climbed enough, proven enough. I'm here to tell you that's a lie. And it's a lie that's costing you and the people around you more than you realize. You don't need permission to lead. Intentionally or not, it was taught. From the time we're young, we're taught that leadership lives in a title. The team captain, the class president, the one whose name is on the door. We're taught that there's a ladder and leadership is at the top of it, and your job is to climb until someone tells you you've arrived. And so we internalize this idea. I'll lead when I get there. I'll lead when I have the role. I'll lead when someone gives me authority. Until then I'll stay in my lane. Think about that phrase for a second. Stay in your lane. How many times have you heard that? How many times have you said it to yourself? How many ideas have died inside you because you convinced yourself they belonged in someone else's lane? Here's what that really means. When you tell yourself to stay in your lane, you're not being humble. You're being obedient. And obedience and leadership are not the same thing. They never were. The organizational world reinforces this constantly. We have leadership development programs that are gated by title. We have meetings where certain people speak and certain people listen based on where they sit on an org chart. We have entire systems designed to tell you you're not a leader yet. Wait your turn. And so talented, brilliant, insightful people sit in rooms full of problems they could help solve, and they say nothing. Not because they have nothing to offer, but because nobody gave them permission to offer it. That's not a personal failing. That's a systemic one. But here's the thing about systemic problems. You can understand them and still refuse to be limited by them. So if leadership isn't a title, what is it? I want to give you a definition and I want you to carry it with you. Leadership is the decision to take responsibility for the energy, the outcome, or the experience of the people around you, regardless of whether anyone asked you to. Read that again in your mind. Leadership is a decision, not a promotion, not a position, a decision. And that decision is available to you right now, today, exactly where you are. The person who notices a new team member struggling and walks over to say, hey, this place can be a lot at first. Let me help you navigate it. That's leadership. No title required. The person who speaks up in a meeting when an idea is being dismissed unfairly, not because it's their job, but because it's right. That's leadership. The person who sees a broken process and instead of complaining about it, puts together a proposal for how to fix it and brings it to someone who can act on it. That is leadership. The person who has an honest conversation with a colleague who's heading down a bad path, not because they're that person's manager, but because they care enough to say something hard. That's leadership. None of those require a title. None of those require authority. All of them require a choice. The choice to show up for the people around you in a way that makes things better. That's it. That's the whole thing. And if you're waiting for someone to hand you that choice, you're going to be waiting a long time because nobody hands it to you. You claim it. Let me tell you about someone. Let's call her Elena. Elena was two years into her career, entry level, no direct reports, no fancy title. She worked on a team of about 12 people in a department that was, by all accounts, functional but disconnected. People did their work, people were polite, but there was no glue, no sense of being in it together. People showed up, did their jobs, and went home, and nobody, including the actual manager, seemed to think that was a problem. But Elena felt it. She felt the silence in meetings where nobody built on each other's ideas. She felt the isolation of working next to people for months and knowing almost nothing about them. She felt the gap between what the team could be and what it was settling for. And she didn't have the authority to fix it. She didn't have the title to call a team-building session or restructure how they collaborated. She was the most junior person in the room. So she did something small. She started a Slack channel. That's it. A simple, voluntary, informal channel where people could share wins, personal or professional. She called it good stuff. She posted the first message herself: a photo of a cake she'd baked over the weekend that completely fell apart with the caption, leadership lesson. Sometimes things collapse and you eat them anyway. Two people responded that day. Then five the next week. Within a month, the entire team was in that channel. People were sharing things they'd never talked about at work. Someone shared that they'd finished a half marathon. Someone else posted a picture of their kids' first day of school. Someone shared a professional win that had gone completely unrecognized by management. And something shifted. The meetings changed. Not because anyone mandated it, because people started seeing each other. They weren't just colleagues anymore. They were people with lives and stories and things they were proud of. And it's hard to be disconnected from someone once you've seen them that way. Elena didn't have a leadership title. She didn't ask her manager for permission. She didn't wait for the company to launch a culture initiative. She saw a gap and she filled it with the only thing she had, herself. That Slack channel didn't show up on any org chart. It wasn't in anyone's tool or trade, but it changed the texture of that team. And Elena, she became the person people went to. Not because of her role, because of her presence. That's what leadership without permission looks like. It's not loud, it's not dramatic. It's just someone deciding, I'm not going to wait for this place to become what it should be. I'm going to start building it with what I have. Now let me show you the other side because I think it's important to see both. Imagine someone named Omar. Omar is smart, deeply smart, the kind of person who sees problems before they happen, who understands systems, who has ideas that could genuinely transform how his team operates. His colleagues know it, his manager knows it, and every performance review the same feedback. Omar has incredible potential. He just needs to step up more. And every time Omar hears that, he thinks the same thing. Step up to what? Nobody's giving me a platform. Nobody's asking for my input. Nobody's making space for me at the table. How am I supposed to lead when the system isn't designed for me to lead? And honestly, he's not wrong. Not entirely. Systems do gatekeep. Organizations do limit who gets heard and when. That's real. I'm not going to pretend it isn't. But here's where Omar's story gets painful. While he was waiting for the system to make space for him, he stopped making space for himself. He stopped volunteering for the projects that scared him. He stopped sharing his ideas and meetings because the last time he did, nobody followed up. He stopped mentoring the newer people on the team because in his mind, that wasn't his job yet. He was so focused on the authority he didn't have that he forgot about the influence he did. Three years later, Omar watched someone with less experience and less insight get promoted into the role he wanted. And the reason that person got it, not because they were better than Omar, because they had been visible. They had been leading without the title. They had been making decisions, taking initiative, shaping conversations, not because someone asked them to, but because they decided that was who they were going to be. And Omar, Omar had been waiting patiently, perfectly, and invisibly. I tell this story with compassion because I've been Omar. Maybe you have too. And the lesson is not that Omar failed. The lesson is that waiting is its own kind of choice. And it's a choice that communicates something to yourself and to the people around you. Omar did not need someone to hand him a title. He needed to give himself permission to stop waiting for one. Now, I know what some of you are thinking because I've thought it too. But Lisa, it's not that simple. I'm not in a position where my voice carries weight. I don't have the social capital. I don't have the relationships. I can't just start leading. People will think I'm overstepping. I hear you. And I want to address that directly because I think the fear of overstepping is one of the most effective silencing tools in any organization. And it works because it contains just enough truth to feel legitimate. Yes, there are contexts where you need to be thoughtful about how you show up. Yes, there are dynamics, power dynamics, identity dynamics, cultural dynamics that make it harder for some people to step forward than others. I'm not going to sit here and pretend that everyone has the same runway. They don't. That's real. But here's what I will say: there is a difference between being strategic about how you lead and using the complexity of the system as a reason not to lead at all. One is wisdom, the other is surrender. And here's the other objection I hear. Why should I lead if I'm not going to get recognized for it? Why should I do the work if someone else is going to get the credit? And this one is hard because it's honest. Recognition matters. Being seen matters. I'm not going to tell you it doesn't. But I am going to ask you this. If the only reason you'd lead is for the recognition, is that actually leadership? Or is that performance? The people who lead without titles really lead, not just audition for a promotion. They do it because they can't not do it. Because seeing a problem and walking past it doesn't sit right in their body. Because helping someone grow is not a strategy for them, it's a reflex. Because the work itself is the point, not the applause that follows. And here is the paradox. Those are the people who almost always end up getting recognized. Not because they were performing, because they were impossible to ignore. So let me make this practical. If you're listening to this and you don't have the title, you don't have the role, you're wondering what leading from where you are actually looks like on a Tuesday afternoon. Here's what I want you to think about. Lead with questions. You don't need authority to ask a good question. In your next meeting, instead of staying silent, ask, what are we not seeing here? Or who's going to be affected by this decision that isn't in the room? A single well-placed question can change the entire direction of a conversation, and nobody needs to give you permission to ask it. Be the bridge. In every team, there are disconnections. People who should be talking to each other but are not. Information that's stuck in one corner and needed in another. You don't need a title to connect those dots. Send the introduction, share the context, say, hey, I think you two should talk about this. That's leadership. It's connective tissue, and most teams are starving for it. Own your development publicly. Don't wait for someone to invest in your growth. Invest in it yourself and let people see it. Read the book, take the course, share what you're learning in conversation, not to show off, to signal that you're serious. People notice when someone is building themselves, and it changes how they see you. Not because you announced it, but because growth is hard to hide. Take care of the person no one's paying attention to. There is someone in your orbit right now who feels unseen. The new hire who's too nervous to ask questions, the colleague who's been quieter than usual, the person in another department who's drowning and thinks nobody notices, you notice. Go to them, not as a manager, as a human being. Say, hey, I see you. How can I help? That's leadership in its purest form. And it requires zero authority. And finally, volunteer for the thing that scares you. The project nobody wants. The presentation nobody's raising their hand for, the cross-functional initiative that's messy and undefined, raise your hand. Not because you're ready, you won't be. Because readiness is a myth. The people who lead are the people who start before they're ready and figure it out as they go. I started this episode with a version of me that didn't feel like a leader, who sat in rooms waiting for someone to see her, waiting for someone to say, You're ready, it's your turn. Nobody ever said that. I had to say it to myself. And if you're listening to this and you're waiting for that moment, for the tap on the shoulder, for the promotion, for the invitation that tells you you're finally allowed to lead, I need you to hear me. That moment might not come. Not because you don't deserve it, but because the world doesn't always work that way. Permission doesn't always come from the outside. Sometimes the only person who can give you permission is you. And here's what I know to be true. The leaders who change things, the leaders who move people, the leaders who build something that matters, most of them didn't start with a title. They started with a decision. A decision to stop waiting, to stop editing themselves, to stop believing that the size of their role defined the size of their impact. They decided, I'm going to lead from right here with what I have, starting now. That decision is available to you today, right now, exactly where you are. You don't need to climb another rung. You don't need to add another line to your resume. You don't need someone in a corner office to tell you you're ready. You are ready. You were ready before you pressed play on this episode. You just needed someone to say it out loud. So I'm saying it. Lead from wherever you are. Not roll to roll, soul to soul. You don't need permission. You never did. Thank you for being here. I mean that. Every time you press play on this podcast, you're choosing to go deeper, and that tells me something about who you are and the kind of leader you're becoming. If this episode hits you somewhere real, if it names something you've been feeling but couldn't quite articulate, I have a favor to ask. Share it. Send it to someone who's been waiting for permission they don't need. Send it to the person on your team who doesn't see their own leadership yet. Tag me, screenshot it, text it. Just get it in the hands of someone who's ready to hear this. And if you haven't already, take two seconds and hit subscribe, hit follow, leave a rating or a review. Those small things really do make a massive difference in helping this show reach more people who are hungry for this kind of conversation. And if you want to go deeper with me, if you want more of these conversations, more frameworks, more of the real talk about leadership and what it means to lead from your humanity, come find me on Substack. It's soul to soul leadership.substack.com. I'm building something special over there, and I want you to be a part of it. Until next time, not roll to roll, soul to soul. I'll see you next Monday.