Modern Day Missionaries

S07E17 Why Missionaries Who Lead With Humility Last Longer with Dr. Josh Wymore

• Stephanie Leigh Gutierrez | Modern Day Missions • Season 7 • Episode 17

Share episode

What if humility is the key to real leadership influence—and not a weakness to overcome? How do you lead with confidence while fully owning your flaws and limits?

In this powerful conversation with Dr. Josh Wymore, executive coach and author of Humbler Leadership, we explore why missionaries who lead with humility don’t just serve better—they last longer. Josh unpacks practical ways to grow self-awareness, release the pressure to have all the answers and build leadership rhythms that last.

If you’ve ever wrestled with insecurity, pride, or imposter syndrome, this episode will show you how to lead from a place of greater health, grounded in faith and humility.


📌 In This Episode, You’ll Learn:

  • Why humility helps you lead longer and healthier 
  • The 4 key traits of humble, grounded leadership
  • How to invite feedback and lower pressure in leadership
  • What it looks like to build trust without needing to prove yourself
  • Simple habits to grow humility without losing confidence

💭 Questions to Ponder as You Listen:

  • Am I carrying the pressure to always have the answers?
  • Where am I leading from ego instead of greater purpose?
  • What’s my relationship with feedback—do I seek it or avoid it?
  • Do I see humility as a strength—or as a weakness?
  • What’s one way I could lead more like Jesus this week?

Thanks for listening! Email us your questions at care@modernday.org

Website · YouTube · Facebook · Instagram · TikTok · X · LinkedIn

[00:00:00] Stephanie Gutierrez: Welcome to Modern Day Missionaries, a podcast by Modern Day Missions created for missionaries by missionaries. I'm your host, Stephanie Gutierrez.

Today we're looking at a kind of strength we don't talk about often enough; the kind that comes from humility. I'm joined by Dr. Josh Wymore, and together we explore what it really looks like to lead with humility on the mission field. You'll hear why humble leaders last longer, serve stronger, and build healthier teams. So if leadership has ever felt heavy or you've felt the pressure to always have it together, this episode will show you a new, better, and more impactful way to lead.

[00:01:36] Stephanie Gutierrez: Josh, thanks so much for being with us today.

[00:01:39] Josh Wymore: My pleasure. It's so fun to be with you, Stephanie. Thanks for having me.

[00:01:41] Stephanie Gutierrez: Josh and I are coworkers as well. We're on the same team at Leader Q where we do leadership coaching. And so we have gotten to be friends over our time working there together. And Josh is a brilliant mind in the leadership space. Found out that his cousin, the whole time I was serving in Peru, lived just a few minutes away from where I was. So all these fun connections and he came out with a book called Humble Leadership that is outstanding and I really felt it was gonna be a blessing to all of our listeners today. So Josh, I just wanna dive right in. 

You know, as missionaries, I think most of us are already making humility a priority in our lives. I mean, hopefully that's the case. You know, we're thinking about cultural humility, spiritual humility, but your research and work in leadership, humility, I think takes it to another level. So beyond the spiritual reasons for humility that we're all aware of, you really talk about how humility is everything in leadership. And so I just wanna ask you what makes humility so powerful that it can transform the way we lead, especially in this mission space?

[00:02:42] Josh Wymore: Yeah, that's a great question, Stephanie. You know, I'll adjust something that you said there. I wouldn't say that humility is everything, but I'd say it's the foundation for you to be a good influencer, a good decision maker, and an inspiring leader.

Really humility is that foundation because when you think about what humility is, the four pillars that I found in my research, it's an accurate self-perception, appreciating others' strengths and contributions, a growth mindset and a greater purpose. And so for me to be teachable to, to learn to grow, I have to recognize, I don't know it all. That's accurate. Self perception and a growth mindset for me to call people to lay their lives down in service of a cause, you know, even to give their lives to Jesus. Well, that's a greater purpose. And so if I'm missing one of those things. I'm not gonna be teachable. I'm not gonna be a great coworker. I'm not gonna be inspiring over the long haul. And so humility is almost that operating system that every other leadership competency is built.

[00:03:45] Stephanie Gutierrez: Yeah, and you talk about that through the Humility Paradox in your book. I'd love for you to break that down for us and let's just look at what it is and then why do so many leaders, including missionaries, get humility wrong?

[00:03:59] Josh Wymore: So, a paradox you probably know are two seemingly contradictory things that when you take them together are true. And what's fascinating when you work with humble leaders, you recognize that. On one hand, they're very aware of their weaknesses and their limitations. You know, they're quick to admit when they're wrong and own their mistakes, which we would think just in knowing people that that would make them less confident, right? Like they're insecure or something like that. But that's actually not true. That they often are confident at the same time that they're acknowledging their weaknesses. And that's because they're also highly aware of their gifts and their strengths and their blessings, and so they're very confident in those areas too.

The paradox is that the further you walk down both of those trails at the same time, that you become more aware of those gifts and more aware of the depth of your brokenness. Humility is what's created in the gap between those things. So humble people are very aware of both those things at the same time. And that's the paradox, that it's not just I'm awesome or I'm terrible. It's, yeah, actually I'm beautiful and I'm broken. I'm designed in the image of God and every part of me is depraved in some way. And the more I lean into that, the more humility is kind of created in that space.

[00:05:14] Stephanie Gutierrez: Which is so good because I do think people often tend to go towards one or the other, like, I'm awesome, like you said, or I am the worst. And so you're saying a humble leader says, man, I have so many shortcomings and look at how God has equipped me to serve. I'm gonna take full advantage of the skills he's given me as well.

[00:05:35] Josh Wymore: That's right because both those things are true and, fundamentally, humility's about living in reality. That's what the root word humus actually means, earth or ground. And so when you say, oh, that person's really grounded, or he has got both his feet firmly planted on the ground, we're saying they're living in reality and we're saying that they're humble. Humility is not low self-esteem; we often think that that's what humility is, but no humility is embracing truth. Embracing reality. 

[00:06:03] Stephanie Gutierrez: And you talk about a practice that you do in the evening to make yourself aware of both of those things. What is that you do?

[00:06:09] Josh Wymore: Yeah, it's, it's really leaning into that humility paradox. You know, Christians who are familiar with a daily exam and will find that really, it's kind of the daily exam. God, where'd you show up in the course of my day? What were those gifts that I received? What were they? The places where I got to show up and offer a word of encouragement. It felt so great. God, thank you for that. Thank you Holy Spirit, for working through me in that way. And also, where was I? Selfish, where? Where did I talk more than I needed to? God forgive me for that. Heal those relationships. And so that process of thanking God and confessing our sin, really, I mean, it's something Christians have been doing for thousands of years.

I just took it and, and put it in more secular terms for audiences that are not coming from faith backgrounds, because that process, whether you're a Christian or not, is so good to center you in reality and correct for those biases that you mentioned of either thinking too highly of myself or thinking too little of myself.

[00:07:02] Stephanie Gutierrez: And actually it really challenged me, Josh, when I was reading about that, because I've read about and known about the daily examination for years. I will be honest, it's something I've never really wanted to do because for me, I love thinking about the thankfulness piece and all the good things God has done in my life. But sitting down and thinking about where did I screw up during the day? I mean, it felt oppressive sometimes, and I think that's really revealing for me. I was just like, okay, so I should be able to look at where I messed up and not take it so personally and not be so crushed by it. So, you know, that was just even a great thing.

So I'm just curious about all of our listeners . Do you guys do the daily examination? And if you do, is it hard for you or is it easy for you? Are you somebody who tends more towards I am awesome or, golly I messed up again and nothing is ever good enough. And some of those questions that come to your mind, it's actually helpful to do the daily exam because it does kind of reveal where your heart's at and gives you a chance to have true humility. Where are you high on both of those things rather than in one or the other?

That's so it's so good. Thank you for pointing that out.

[00:08:10] Josh Wymore: Yeah. I mean, I think your experience is not uncommon, right? Nobody wants to live in that spot. And I think Brene Brown's work on guilt versus shame is really helpful here. I know how familiar you're with that. But oftentimes when we're feeling bad about ourselves it's because we're feeling shame, which is, you know, I am bad versus guilt, which is I did something bad. And when we avoid guilt because it feels icky, like shame; then we miss the chance to own our mistakes and to make things better. 

And the reality is guilt is actually really productive. Shame is really toxic. So in that moment, how do we say, wow, yeah, I screwed up. And as Christians and we have this really cool opportunity, Brother Lawrence talks about this in the Practice of the Presence of God that when he comes to God with his sin, he gives it to God and he says basically, God, without you, this is all I would ever be. Then he doesn't think anything else about it. And it's this irony that almost his sinfulness is a way that he feels closer to God because it makes him recognize how Holy God is and how gracious God is at the same time. So even that, that confession of sin becomes an opportunity to grow in intimacy. 

[00:09:19] Stephanie Gutierrez: Absolutely. I know in Gentle and Lowly, that's discussed quite a bit as well. That whole idea of Dana Norton, that idea of running to God, I think he compares it to like a doctor going to visit people in a remote area where they don't have access to medical attention and that doctor going in and what does he wanna do and how would he feel if all of the people he went to serve were like, we don't need your help. Like, we're gonna take care of it ourselves. Like, no, he wants to go and help because they don't have access to medical care and he knows he can help and that's the Lord with us. And so it is bringing all of ourselves to him. So it was good. It was funny how, you know, how you read something and you hear something a thousand times, and then there's that one moment where it suddenly just clicks, and that was what happened for me.

So thank you, Josh. On a personal level, thank you. On a follow up, I gotta ask Josh, are you just this naturally humble guy where they just came so easy for you and like everyone knew, one day Josh was gonna write about humble leadership?

[00:10:22] Josh Wymore: Well, my wife's probably gonna hear this, so I can't lie on this podcast. No. You know, it was really funny actually. I went back and I got to speak at my undergrad alma mater at Lano University and share about the book. And that was probably the least humble phase of my life. And there were some of my friends who were like, working there now. And so as I'm getting up on stage, I'm like, so some of you're probably really surprised to see me up here talking about humility because no, it is not natural for me. To me it's like learning a second language. And, you know, I realized this when I learned Spanish. Like when I was taking Spanish classes in high school, I understood English better.

As a result, I was in some ways better at teaching Spanish to other people because I had to learn it myself painstakingly. It wasn't instinctive for me. And so when I had my first experience with a humble leader in college, I realized like, whoa, this guy has tools I don't have. I gotta figure this out. And as I started to figure out, it's like, well, I gotta teach other people this because this has been so powerful for me. So, no, I'm not naturally humble. I'm a lot humbler now than I was 15 years ago, but I have plenty of friends who can testify to the fact that I have a lot of room to grow. And I'm not saying that to be falsely modest.

Like it's just, it's true. I mean, we're all on that journey and I think that's the reason for the name Humble Leadership is no matter where you are, if you're Gandhi, you're Mother Theresa, or you're college Josh, we more all of us can take the next step to become humbler and just wherever you are, take that next step. 

[00:11:54] Stephanie Gutierrez: Yeah. Okay. Josh, I wanna ask you, in a leadership space, sometimes culture seems to really approve of leaders who have this edge to them and they're egotistical and they drive, and you sometimes almost hear you need somebody with a huge ego to be able to drive and make this work. What have you found in your research?

[00:12:20] Josh Wymore: Yeah, that's a great question. Probably the greatest challenge to humble leadership is that model, right? Like we look at our politics right now and we're like, hmm, if I check and see who's in these high offices, I would not classify them as humble in any way. So what you're saying, Josh does not align with reality.

And this is my best answer to that. I guess your definition of success depends on your time horizon. What I mean by that is that if I just wanted to make as much money as I could make today, probably the best way for me to do that is to go rob a bank or you know, launder some money. Right? There's a lot of ways I can make a lot of money today. Over the long haul, is that gonna lead me to be wealthy, you know, for the next 50 years? Probably not because I'm probably gonna get caught and that money's gonna go back and I'll spend time in jail and all that kind of stuff. And so really like what's, what's my, what's my horizon?

If there's a lot of ways to be successful that are not honest or virtuous and that do not lead to human flourishing. And so is it possible to obtain power and influence and notoriety and wealth by breaking all the rules and, and working against the way we are built. Absolutely. Does that lead to organizations and people that thrive over the long haul?

People that we remember in history and we're grateful for; we can see how Shalom was created as a result of that. I don't think so. And so for me it's like, yeah, you can have these spikes. You can, you can climb to the top of the mountain, but can you stay there? Can you bring people with you and is the mountain better for it? As a Christian, again, we have that eternal horizon where we're analyzing success because by most measures, Jesus was a failed leader, right? He had this three year run where he's skyrocketing, right? The mega church is getting built and whoops, ticked off the wrong person, man, Jesus could have been so great. What a missed opportunity. You know? And if we're just looking at the temporal timeline, that's what we say, but we look at the eternal timeline, it's like, what an incredible success. So again, as Christians, I think our lens for interpreting success is different because our time horizon is a lot.

[00:14:32] Stephanie Gutierrez: Hmm, that's so good. And that's the perspective, of course, is as missionaries, as Christians that we're all shooting for. I also think there's this myth, and you talk about this a little bit too, Josh, that humble means passive. Like, oh, I'm not really aggressive or assertive, I'm just kind of letting things happen. But you point out tons of leaders who are complete drivers and shakers and movers who are very humble, but also giving everything they've got. Talk a little bit about that.

[00:15:03] Josh Wymore: Yeah. I love that because again, it's one of those, those things that breaks our intuition. It's not our experience with leaders. Jim Collins was one of the people who really kind of captivated my imagination with this and in Good To Great when he talked about level five leaders. And the line he had was that these level five leaders were relentlessly ambitious, but never about themselves. And that's where that greater purpose piece of humble leaders come in. That, you know, Stephanie, if you've got an issue, I'm gonna confront you on it, not because it makes me feel better than you and I feel superior because you have a problem and I don't. Not because I wanna win you over and want you to like me but because I'm helping you.

It's like, well, no, I care about you and your ministry. And so, man, if I let you go out and have this problem, people are gonna be hurt. You're gonna be hurt. So I don't like to have this conversation, but for the sake of the greater purpose, like I have to, and I think it's almost the reluctant assertiveness, you know, that it's not about me, but for the sake of our customer, for the sake of the kingdom, for the sake of the mission, I've gotta put myself in this uncomfortable spot. And there's something about going in with that tentative way versus that swagger of like, yeah, I belong here and you're all blessed to listen to me. You know, it changes the so much, the way the message is received and lowers that defensiveness and ultimately serves that greater purpose, not just my own self-centered

[00:16:30] Stephanie Gutierrez: And mention those four pillars again in case anybody missed what those were at the beginning.

[00:16:33] Josh Wymore: Yep. Accurate self perception; so seeing myself accurately in my strengths and weaknesses. Appreciating others' strengths and contributions; really being a part of the body and relying on the body and appreciating the full body growth mindset. That commitment to always getting better, to focusing on the process and learning more so than just performance and then that greater purpose. Not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less. That it's not about you. The kind of idea that we get from Rick Warren.

[00:17:02] Stephanie Gutierrez: I love that. Thinking of yourself less, not thinking less of yourself. That's key right there.

[00:17:08] Josh Wymore: Job description of a Christian in one line.

[00:17:10] Stephanie Gutierrez: Yes. Right. It's very Jesus-like. I like it. Okay, so I'm thinking of mission leaders. I see this with pastors all the time, and with missionaries, there's this pressure to have all the answers. I mean, you can get it too. It's sometimes even in coaching or consulting, anytime you're in a position of leadership. People think that you should know everything and you can feel that pressure to know everything. So how does humility help a leader when they feel out of their depth or inadequate?

[00:17:39] Josh Wymore: Oh my gosh. It's impossible. It's impossible to live a peaceful life, I think, without humility. Otherwise if I think I have to have it all together. And I was one of those leaders, that's the story I tell in my book, right? I was a college softball coach. I thought the leaders had all the answers and I was so stressed out because I knew I didn't have all the answers. So there's all this churning the duck feet under the water, right? Because I'm trying to keep it all together. But once I realized, oh, I can be effective without having all the answers. In fact, I'm gonna be a lot more effective if I just acknowledge what everyone else already knows, which is that I don't have all the answers.

That was mind blown for me. And so you, you see this in research too. It's not just my experience that humble people are less stressed, less anxious, better life satisfaction, like all these great outcomes because they learn to just accept the reality of who they are as it is. And that doesn't mean just saying, well, you know, no one can know everything, so I'm gonna be consciously incompetent at my job. It doesn't mean that, it means owning the reality of like, Hey, you know what? That's a great question. I don't know the answer to that. And so on that level, it earns me more respect because you're recognizing that I'm living in reality.

I'm not delusional because if I lie to you and you can tell I'm lying to you, then you're starting to wonder, well, if he's lying to me about that, what else is Josh not being truthful with me about? From a respect standpoint, it's a huge game when you can, when you can say, Hey, I don't know the answer, but let me figure that out, or let's figure that out together.

And the second side of that is that because we're all battling some degree of imposter syndrome, when I own up to my limitations, it communicates to you, hey Stephanie, this is a place where you can be real. And if you don't know the answer, you can just say that. And so your guard goes down too. And now you're actually willing to say, you know what? I've actually got some other questions, things I haven't figured out. Together, we can go on this learning journey together. Not that I'm the expert and, and you're trying to show you're an expert, so you're on the same footing. We're both just acknowledging that we're lifelong learners. And so you see these humble leaders, the teams they lead their teams have greater retention and engagement and growth and performance because people are faster to acknowledge when they don't have the answers faster to then figure it out and, and work together, rather than just sweeping it under the rug and hoping it goes away.

So it does so much. Whenever you just are able to say, yeah, I don't know. Let's figure this out. Let's meet again. Let's talk next Thursday. Let me do some research and get back to you. That's such a credibility builder for leaders rather than the

[00:20:15] Stephanie Gutierrez: And it's refreshing. I think that we've limited ourselves as leaders to thinking the way we can help is through answers. That is so often not what people are even looking for. They're looking for a relationship. They're looking to be listened to. I mean, honestly, I think going through coaching training, I mean, you'll know too as a fellow coach Josh, like going through coaching, training and learning how to listen and realizing that in coaching you help somebody by accompanying them and journeying with them and asking the right questions rather than telling them what to do.

At first, it was so deeply uncomfortable coming from the space that I'd been in as a pastor for all these years, where you feel like you have to have the answers. It was so liberating, and I found that I was able to help people even so much more than before, because people have so much more inside of them than they even realize, and they're not looking for you to just tell them what to do.

I mean, there's a space for giving advice. But I think that we just think all spaces are advice sometimes, especially, you know, and certainly not all leaders. I don't want to, you know, make a blanket statement. But I think many, there’s this thought: the higher I get up in leadership, the more answers I have to have.

Okay. I hope that we are growing in wisdom and intellect and experience and everything. That's not necessarily what people need. It's often not what people need.

What have you found in your experience?

[00:21:34] Josh Wymore: Yeah, man, it's, it's so true. And so I've coached some really bright leaders who honestly probably have a lot of the answers for a lot of their people. You know, I've worked with a couple dozen Fortune 500 organizations and their top executives, and what you see with the people when they live in that advice space, is that people become codependent on them because, let's go to Stephanie, she's got the answer right. She always knows what to do. And so the people are never growing, which is really frustrating for the leader because after a couple years of, it feels good to always be the person people wanna, you know, come to for answers. After a couple years, I'm getting tired. I wanna take a vacation, but I can't because the place is gonna fall apart when I leave.

And Jim Collins talks about this in, in his comparison organizations. He had the Good to Great organizations and the o others that were really similar. And oftentimes those similar organizations had a super smart CEO at the top, but Collins called them the genius with a thousand helpers, everybody came to them, hey, here's my decision, boss, what do you think? And they did it. And actually it worked for a while, but then either that person's ego got the best of them and they kind of imploded or they retired and then there were no brains left in the place to make any decisions. And then, the organization imploded. 

Again, when you think about that time horizon, if we, if we think about success as leaving an organization behind that doesn't miss a beat when I leave, which is honestly really humbling. Because I kind of like thinking that people are gonna be like, oh, it was so great when Josh was here, but again, as my greater purpose, you know, that Josh was amazing or that I built a great organization or we accomplished a great mission. If it's the latter, I've gotta think about that. Leaving the legacy, which means I'm growing the people, which means I can't be the person who has all the answers all the time.

[00:23:19] Stephanie Gutierrez: Yes. How would it change things if we let go of the need to be needed or the need to be thought of as the expert? How would that change things around us and how would we develop leaders even that much more if we broke them of that dependency on us? That's so good. And that doesn't mean being aloof again, you sometimes just see extremes in life.

It's either I need you to need me and we're together 24 7 or, okay, I trained you, now you do it on your own. No. What does it look like to be that leader in the middle space and you, I mean, we talked about Jesus, like, let's look at Jesus as an example of leadership, because somebody might say, okay, well you guys are talking about leadership and from a very American perspective, but, and we have this global community of all different kinds of leadership in all different kinds of society. We've got the honor, shame, we've got, I mean everything, but what can we learn from Jesus and his style of leadership that translates globally?

[00:24:15] Josh Wymore: Yeah. That's such a great question. You know, I think oftentimes we think that. People are humble because they have issues, and basically the less issues you have, the less humble you have to be. You know, humility is something I do because I'm sinful. Well, if that was true, then Jesus would've been the most arrogant, self-centered guy ever. Right? He would've walked on the scene and been like, hey everyone, king of the world here. So listen up. Sit down. Everyone. Shut up because you're wasting my time. Right? Like, God's in your presence. You know, he would've acted like he was God's gift to mankind. But what's crazy was he was actually God's gift to mankind and he was the last person to act like it.

And so that tells us there's something about humility that is, when we are living humbly, we are embodying Jesus like never before. It's not a compensating mechanism. St. Augustine said that if you look at the teachings and the morality of Jesus, you know the first virtue is humility. The second is humility, and the third is humility. Like this is Jesus' operation and Jesus says stuff that to me does not make sense. He says, I don't do anything on my own behalf. I just do what the Father tells me, or I do what the Spirit tells me to do. You know, I'm in lockstep with the Holy Spirit and it's like, wait, Jesus is dependent on the Holy Spirit. That's kind of weird. Well, shoot. If Jesus was dependent on the Holy Spirit and he was God, like, what? Right? Do I have to think I can walk in and just do what I want to do? Again, as a Christian, even building off of the stuff we talked about with marketplace leaders. As a Christian, we know the Holy Spirit is a source of all truth and wisdom. So, gosh, far be it from us to ever think we could do this without a prayerful listening heart to what God's saying. 

[00:26:05] Stephanie Gutierrez: Absolutely. I remember reading once that the savior didn't have a savior complex, and I'm like, okay, that's a really good point. And you just illustrated that so well. 

Okay, Josh, I wanna transition into something that you talk about that's the “Do-Become Flywheel” and where you emphasize how the doing leads to the becoming. And I wanna hear you talk about it a little bit because I know there are two approaches to changing behavior. And that's the, I need to change what I think, kind of who I am. And that leads to a change in behavior. And then there's a change in behavior that leads to a change in the way I think or believe. I want to hear a little bit about your approach and why this “Do-Become Flywheel” is so effective in cultivating, cultivating humility. 

[00:26:50] Josh Wymore: So, yeah, I love the way you phrase that, it's the chicken and the egg, which comes first, you know, what I think about myself or how I behave? And just like the chicken and the egg, you just do it, right? Like it's not about which one comes first, you just get that process started.

And so in short, the “Do-Become Flywheel,” it means that the things we do, do something to us. Jamie Smith, who's a philosopher at Calvin University, talks about how we are desiring creatures. It's our vision of the good life that shapes us, not our beliefs, more so than anything else. And you see this because you meet people in church who can give you all the right answers for who Jesus is and what they should do. But then you watch how they live outside of that hour on Sunday morning and you're like, what happened to all that stuff you said you believed? 

And what that shows is that again, we, our thoughts, don't drive everything we do. Right? If I want a chocolate chip cookie at four o'clock and I know it's not good for me and I should wait for dinner, but I really want it, I'm gonna have it, even though I have all the answers for why that's not a good thing. And so if we think about changing who we are, changing our identity, it really comes to changing our desires. When we close our eyes and picture the good life, what does that look like for us? Okay. Well, if you wanna change your desires, how do you go about doing that? 

There's the role the imagination plays in that. There's also the role that our liturgies play in that. And so, you know, if I want to have a healthy body image, but I spend 10 hours a day reading men's health and Cosmopolitan, like that liturgy of, kind of soaking my imagination in this particular image of the good life is going to change me and make me think about the human body in a certain way. And so on, in the same way, if I want to have a heart of service, I can just pray, God, give me a heart of service. God please make me more humble. Or I can just go serve and I can feel the joy of that and die to myself in doing it when it doesn't feel good. And every time I do that thing, it makes me into a certain kind of person.

It tips the scale just a little bit further. And I'm not saying we're earning salvation through this. I'm talking about basically our spiritual disciplines. The things we do, do something to us that they make us into a certain kind of person over time. Fasting doesn't make me a better Christian because God rewards my self-discipline, it makes me a more disciplined person, which means I'm better able to stay in that position of prayer when it's hard. And so, the idea of this is when you think about becoming humbler, you don't just have to wait to get zapped with this, you know, humility, lightning bolt. You do the things that humble leaders do, and that slowly shapes you into a humbler person.

When I ask more questions, I see the benefit of asking questions. I feel more connected. I feel the pressure release of not having to have all the answers. I realize that you had great insight I didn't even know was there, and it makes me think, oh wow, that was great. I should ask some more questions. And that flywheel just continues to turn and turn and turn. And so as you think about becoming humbler, just figure out what is that next little thing you can do that's gonna help you become humbler and then as you become a humbler person, you naturally want to do the things that humble leaders do.

[00:30:02] Stephanie Gutierrez: And so Josh you said that you do the things that humbler leaders do. So what are some of the things that humble leaders are known for?

[00:30:10] Josh Wymore: Yeah, one was just asking questions. Asking questions for me is one of the power plays of a humble leader because it hits on all four of those things at the same time. If I'm asking you a good question, like Stephanie, what are your thoughts about this plan before we move forward? I'm recognizing I don't have all the answers. It's an accurate self-perception and I'm appreciating your strengths and contributions because I'm saying I think you have some insight about this. You have a different life experience or lens than I do. So let's not leave that on the table. Like share that with me.

It's showing that growth mindset because it's making me more teachable and open in the moment, and it's serving that greater purpose. Because honestly asking questions takes a lot more time than me just giving you my time. But is my purpose that I'm as efficient with my time as possible? Or is it that I actually connect with you well, and we do this together? Is it that we have the best in indecision overall? Is it that I'm growing you as a person, not just keeping myself atop the pile as the person with all the answers, I'm serving that greater purpose than it means I have to take a different, more connective approach. There's ten practices I talk about in the book, but that's probably my favorite one to harp on as a coach because it's a thing that changes things. It's more accessible for many people than other things. And it has the greatest ROI in the workplace for the mission.

[00:31:33] Stephanie Gutierrez: And I think people are afraid to do it. And I say that because I was afraid to do it, Josh, like, I'll just be very real. I was afraid to ask questions. Number one we mentioned earlier because I was afraid that it would make it look like I didn't have the answers, and I felt like I just needed to teach and tell people things.

And then secondly, I was afraid of loss of time, which you just referenced, like people are so, not listened to nowadays that if somebody actually asks them a question, sometimes some people will just go, whoa, and have so much to say. And it can feel overwhelming and you can think, well, as a leader, I have these time constraints and I don't know if I have the luxury to ask questions. So how are, I mean, you've coached so many super high level leaders and have studied them, how are these high-level leaders having the time to ask questions? 

[00:32:55] Josh Wymore: Do I wanna solve this problem once and for all and invest the time to do it and have it just be done? What do I want this to linger for? Forever? And so asking questions like letting you vent in the moment, that could feel like a total waste of time. We had an agenda and now Stephanie's just going off about her husband and I'm looking at the clock. I got some places to be, but the reality is if you're walking around carrying that and no one's helping you relieve that pressure by just hearing you, well shoot. Your productivity is dropping, your morale is going down, your engagement's going down, and so sure I could not talk about it today, but that's just, it's just a ticking time bomb. It's an infected wound that's gonna get worse and worse and worse until I get a resignation from you in six weeks. And I'm like, whoa, where's this coming from? You know? Now I gotta invest the time to find a replacement, train that person, talk about a time suck.

Like that's huge. I could have invested a little bit of time upfront to just hear you and connect with you and, and save you, you know, it kept you in our organization and kept your wisdom and experience and all that kind of stuff. And so I think because those leaders at the levels who are asking good questions, they've been in it long enough to just see how valuable people are and relationships are. They know that this investment right now is gonna pay such huge dividends down the road, and frankly, it's just, it's a lot more fun to do.

[00:34:18] Stephanie Gutierrez: It is, and it's not a boundaryless question asking like, I will talk to you whenever you want for as long as you want about whatever you want. Like there's boundaries there. But if we're to be these relational leaders, you can't be a humble leader without being a relational leader and vice versa because humility relates to people. So it's so important that you're bringing this up. Is there one other of the ten that you would particularly like to point out and think could be helpful to missionaries?

[00:34:50] Josh Wymore: Yeah, I mean, a growth mindset's huge. Again, it's not about me trying to focus on my performance, but to focus on the process, to focus on, on growth and getting better over time. Because that's kind of this little engine inside of us that leads me to not just ask questions of you so that you can grow, but to ask questions about myself.

Like, hey, what are my gaps here? How could this be better? Hey, before I send this email out, could you gimme some feedback on it? Help me know how to tighten things up. You know, for me, my rhythms of confession and accountability come from that growth mindset of realizing. I've got some blind spots and I need other people in my life to speak into that.

And so I think we have this idea that bad leaders are the ones who reject criticism. And good leaders are the ones who say, hey, my door's always open. You know, come find me. If you ever have thoughts, that's okay. But the best leaders are the ones who are hunting for it. You know, they recognize what their short shortcomings are. They're looking for it, and they're building systems to harvest feedback and to help themselves grow. You know, they're in leadership cohorts because they know that they have to keep their knives sharp or they're not gonna serve well over the long haul. You know, all those sorts of things.

And so, yeah, I'd say the growth mindset is the one where we are so afraid of what people might say about us. We're so afraid of revealing our shortcomings. We just kind of hang back and we leave so much untapped potential on the table as a result.

[00:36:26] Stephanie Gutierrez: And you just mentioned something in there that's like a nugget of gold that I think people might have missed. So I wanna pull it back out for a second. And you talked about leaders who proactively search people out and look for them rather than leaders who are simply available. I think that that's huge, Josh, because I think a lot of leaders are understandably overwhelmed and they feel like the best they can do is like, hey, if you need me, just know you can call me anytime. Here I am, and that is great. And if they actually are available, oh my gosh, they're doing better than so many other leaders. 

Can we take it a step further and actually be the leaders that seek people out? Because some of the people that we serve are just never gonna wanna take our time. They're gonna not inconvenience us. Those are the ones that so often, I mean, maybe even need us the most, or they have so much potential on the inside of them. So we're missing out on people if we're just simply available. So there's the, I'm not available, I'm available, I'm gonna proactively seek you out. You just took it to a whole nother level, which I think is huge as we think about what are the ways that we can leave and it is doable. This might sound impossible, but we see Jesus do it. We see great leaders do it. There are ways to do it. Is there any kind of last closing thoughts you'd leave along those lines? How can leaders do some of these things that just feel impossible? Maybe something like that, like being proactive. 

[00:37:54] Josh Wymore: Yeah, it's, that's where I think they do become flywheel is so helpful because it's easy to look at, you know, an amazing, humble leader like Jesus and think, oh gosh, well, I'm not Jesus. What's the point of trying, you know? And again, it's like, it's about becoming humbler, not humble. There's no finish line.

You cross where you can just take your foot off the gas. So if you don't ask any questions in a meeting now, then at your next meeting just ask one question. Like, that's it. That's a big win. You know, if you're not getting any feedback right now, ask your boss, hey, I'm about to do this presentation, would you watch you in the presentation and after it's over, just hang around for like five minutes and gimme one thing I could do better? And one thing that went well, you know, that's a very small task, but you're starting to build that muscle off of becoming a humble leader. So wherever you are, take that next little step and celebrate that. 

If you wanna know the other ten, you can find those in the book. You know, maybe there's a different one that resonates with you besides the two we talked about today. But any kind of growth is gonna serve you better, serve your people better, serve your greater purpose better too.

[00:38:56] Stephanie Gutierrez: I love that in the spirit of coaches, we are ending with some action steps. This is so good. Okay. Josh, and I wanna add a little bit of what you said there by asking for somebody who just doesn't know where to start. Because for some people they've been listening to talk and they're like, okay, I can do that. I can ask that one question. I can seek out that one person. I can make myself available. Or, you know, something like that. Some people will have the right ideas, some people might be listening and going, I don't even know, am I humble or am I arrogant? Or like, how do I even start? What should somebody like that do?

[00:39:28] Josh Wymore: A couple resources that I've created for that question that come to mind. You know, my book is one, obviously, that lays out kind of the vision of humble leadership in the first half, because frankly, a lot of us have not been around great humble leaders. Even honestly, some missionaries. It could be easy to be self-promoting. Look at all I'm doing, you know, in any kind of ministry space. And so part of it's just the imagination of being able to compare yourself to what humble leaders look like and realize, oh wow, okay, that's not how I operate. That's helpful to see. And then the practices in the second half that really make that tangible and give you some traction.

So a book is one. There's a humbler leadership assessment that I've created based on some of the research I've done. It's on my website. That'll give you just in, in three minutes a sense of sort of where you're at and what your growth opportunities might be. And then I also have a biweekly newsletter that goes out that isn't just focused on humility, it's kind of all leadership things, and that's got some little nuggets as well to kind of get you thinking and get you moving on this journey as well.

[00:40:28] Stephanie Gutierrez: I'm so glad you brought those up because that's where I was going. If you weren't gonna bring those up, Josh I've told you this, there are four weekly newsletters that I subscribe to. One obviously the Modern Day resource email, so all of you missionaries, if you're not signed up, sign up for that. But then I also subscribe to Carey Nieuwhof’s, Tim Ferris's and yours. And I love the stuff that you have to share, Josh, because you're a really great writer as well. I always say sometimes there are authors and there are writers, and not everyone who authors a book is necessarily a great writer, but you write so well and your book was a pleasure to read as I was learning things.

So, and you have some great downloadables in here as well. You've got the assessment and then you have some charts I bookmarked in here that I wanted to go look and download. So there's a ton of free resources. So much information packed into your book that it would take somebody a while to process through it all. So yeah, if you're in a leadership cohort with somebody with some other fellow missionaries, this would be a great book study I think to go through. But yeah, thank you Josh for writing a book that was such a joy to read and so helpful as well. So yes, we'll post links to all of that to make sure everybody can connect with the work that you've done. Thank you for coming on today and sharing. I appreciate it so much.

[00:41:48] Josh Wymore: It's been a delight. It's great just to spend time hanging out with you. Always enjoy being in our team meetings together, so this is a pleasure. 

[00:41:55] Stephanie Gutierrez: Could not agree more. Appreciate you, Josh. Thanks for joining us today. You can find all our episodes at https://www.modernday.org/podcast/




People on this episode

Head Shot

Stephanie Leigh Gutierrez

Host
Head Shot

Ben Ankarlo

Producer
Head Shot

Luke Eubank

Producer