Ben Hunter (00:01.824)
All right, welcome everybody to another episode of the Red Letter Leadership Podcast. Man, I am excited about this topic. My name is Ben Hunter and I am your host today and I've got the privilege of having my brother in Christ Jordan Ames with me, co-author and co-host of the Red Letter Leadership Podcast. So everybody out there, we got a great
Jordan Ames (00:29.792)
Yes, sir.
Ben Hunter (00:31.246)
topic for you today and it's based off of one of the topics that I wrote about in the book. Again, if you have not gotten the book, we will have a link to be able to get the book below and YouTube podcast, Apple podcast, everywhere you hear us, you can find a way to get the book and we'd love for it to be a blessing to you. So this is a podcast where we share
God, Jesus' experience on earth, right? And the red letters out of the Bible. And we use that from a lens of our military and special operations experience and kind of share the lessons learned of leadership. And we use Jesus as the model of the perfect servant leader. And...
We really pray it's a blessing everybody that's listening. So let's jump right into the topic. The topic is Humble Authority. Humble Authority. And this comes from John chapter 12, verses 12 through 19. Jesus comes to Jerusalem as king. Now we hear, right, we think of kings, we think of presidents, folks who are in the
authority, know, CEOs. You know, we all have that vision of what a CEO, president, king, you know, think about the office they sit in, their chairs, you know, the thrones, the big corporate buildings. And here we have in the Bible Jesus, the savior of the world.
And what is he doing at this moment in the Bible? He is riding in on a donkey. And I just love it, Jordan. When I wrote this portion, was just, and again, we read these sections of the Bible and we just want to pull out, well, what is this telling me as a leader? And it just immediately just kind of hit me like, man.
Jordan Ames (02:30.836)
You
Ben Hunter (02:50.573)
And this is again why there were so many folks that couldn't believe that Jesus was who he was. Because we think that as leaders, as folks who have a role, who are in a leadership authority position that they deserve and should have all these grand things. And we get ourselves into that mindset in a worldly view as a
opposed to a biblical worldview where we are owed certain things as leaders, chief executive officers. here's the example of the most humble servant leader the world has ever seen is Jesus riding in on a donkey. And so Jordan, I think we had a really good conversation before we started recording here about
what it's like to kind of, even from being a Christian and always striving to be a servant leader, and still we can find ourselves in roles where we've been in the military or outside of the military, and you've got some experience with that, where we are in a role, where we are in charge of everyone, and we can easily find ourselves as leaders.
feeling like we're owed certain privileges, whether it's huge big office, corporate office, corporate car, whatever, you name it. we start losing sight of what's really important, what our mission is, our impact on people, having a strong character and...
being a servant and serving those who are under us. I'll just jump right in with a question, Tell our audience, from your experience, maybe somebody you've seen, or your personal experience of a time where you or you've seen somebody who's in this leadership position, you start to see or feel where they're starting to lose sight of what's really important, which is having impact and
Ben Hunter (05:10.513)
serving those who work for them and start to get into that territory where they start feeling like they're owed things because they're in a role and they should have privileges and everything else. What do you think?
Jordan Ames (05:13.675)
Mm-hmm.
Jordan Ames (05:27.253)
Yes, this is such a great topic because it's so foundational to leadership. And I'm thinking of the one pillar that we have says leadership is a daily effort. And this topic right here shows how much of a daily effort it is. Because you can be a very humble person, humble leader one day. And the next day, you could do something, say something that shows a lot of arrogance.
And maybe the wrong person's in the room, and they're like, you know what? I'm not buying into what this guy's doing. And that takes a lot longer to recover from than your day of great humility. So with that, I want to share two examples of where lacking humility can kind of get us in trouble. It can stifle initiative in our team.
It can stifle our own progress. The second one I'll share about myself. But the first one was I had a company commander when I was a lieutenant. Actually, as a lieutenant, I was a company commander. then I got moved once. Company command position is like a senior captain position for the listeners.
And so I was kind of holding the company command position for a couple months until a senior captain could roll in and take over. And then I was reassigned to a typical lieutenant position as a company XO in a different company. Anyways, this new guy comes in. The company I was commanding, I had been with them for whole deployment. I was their XO before becoming their CEO. But a new guy comes in.
And he had great experience. He was a proven leader, I guess, as a lieutenant. He went on to serve out in the Marine Corps' base in 29 Palms, where battalions would go through to go through these certification exercises. And he served as a tactical advisor to the officers within the battalions that would be coming through. So he had a lot of, you know,
Jordan Ames (07:53.161)
science and art of war, tactician type of experience. Very knowledgeable, you know, he knew it. But with that said, he shows up and he's like, we're doing this, this is how we're doing it. I know what I'm talking about. I came from this last unit where I was certifying battalions for deployment. know, like he came in talking like that and with that attitude. He would show up.
at and he pretty much destroyed the culture of that company very quickly. I came to find this out because a few months later, I passed one of the younger Marines in the company and he was like, hey sir, when you coming back? I was like, that hurt my heart. It made me proud that I served well as a leader there, but it hurt my heart for the culture.
Ben Hunter (08:50.802)
Sure. Yeah.
Jordan Ames (08:53.857)
But then we go on deployment and I actually get reassigned on deployment, not because of him, because of some other, by that time I had pretty good influence with the battalion commander. He thought I was one of the top lieutenant as far as leaders in the battalion. And I was reassigned to kind of like help with some where leadership was lacking. And I was reassigned back to this company. And so I fall under this company commander and.
I immediately understood what was going on. By the time I got back there, the company gunnery sergeant who in the Marine Corps is the senior tactical advisor to the company commander, like that's the, the company commander should probably run everything tactically that they're thinking by him. He's a great advisor. By the time I got there, this company gunny was like not talking at meetings, not saying anything. He was like, I'm checked out.
This guy had tons of experience, he's like, why talk if I'm never wanted, if my advice is never, he tried that and by the time I got there, I saw it, the first training meeting I go to, we were told we're going to build a six-month training plan for when we came back from deployment. So we're going to meet and we're going to the sausage making, we're going to develop this training plan together. We show up, it's done.
It's already developed. Company commander shows up and is like, here, this what we're doing. We're like, are we going to talk about this and maybe start with some objectives and make sure we're, you Anyways, it all started because of how arrogant he was at thinking, you know, he was the guy. He was the guy because of my past experience with this other unit.
They're just going to be like, wow, this guy's an amazing tactician. We're just going to follow him. And that's not at all what happened. So that's one story. The other story is myself. So retiring from the military, I really felt Lord's call to get into leadership development space, not because I was an expert leader, but because he gave me a lot of experience. And I know I've grown a lot.
Jordan Ames (11:20.417)
through his word when it comes to leadership. But also being.
a veteran of the soft community and of the infantry community, I thought that people would see that on a bio, a resume type of thing or just in talking and they'll immediately want to, oh, we need to have you come and do leadership stuff. That's just not at all what happened. So for me,
who's naturally I'm pretty humble person like it thankfully it comes more naturally to me than others but the Lord really and I wasn't
Ben Hunter (12:04.507)
Yeah, for the listeners out there, he's spot on. Jordan is one of the most humble guys I've ever met. So, he's, it's true.
Jordan Ames (12:11.649)
Thanks, Ben. Thank you. Yeah, and I have people telling me that I'm humble, and my problem wasn't that I was inflating myself or overselling myself. It was more internal, and God really convicted me and showed me that my arrogance and thinking that because I have this label of I'm a soft veteran, Marine Raiders, different things,
that people are just going to immediately want what I have rather than humbling myself and saying, look, this whole business thing, entrepreneurship, regardless of what you call it, the idea of what I'm wanting to do is serve people is I need to stop acting like they so want me and start actually serving them, which is very just basic to leadership, whether.
Ben Hunter (13:04.007)
Hmm, that's good.
Jordan Ames (13:08.353)
in a father or even husband type of leadership position. I even felt this conviction as a father too is like, my kids, do they just want to obey me or think they have to obey me or whatever only because I have the title father, regardless on how I treat them.
Like sure, the Bible says honor your father and mother. So in that sense, yes, they should be honoring me, respecting me. But if I'm a father who's just like you do what I tell you because I'm your father and yet I'm not actually serving them, loving them actively and in ways unconditionally to where I'm not expecting anything in return, like I'm not supporting them in their responsibility to honor me.
Ben Hunter (13:54.96)
Yeah.
Jordan Ames (14:06.561)
We can bark all day we want about our kids need to honor us because that's what the Bible said. But how are we supporting them and leading them in actually doing that? That's our spiritual role as fathers is to lead our children to follow God's word. So how can we lead them to truly honor and respect us? I think it comes down to just taking that bite of humble pie and how can we serve them? And like I was saying, this translates to
Ben Hunter (14:28.41)
Yeah.
Jordan Ames (14:36.673)
to business, certainly ministry in the church, in the community. It's when we, leadership is servanthood and when we, for our ability to truly serve, we have to be humble. We have to set ourselves aside and truly put all others before us.
Ben Hunter (14:57.254)
Yeah, no, it's so good man. you know, Jesus was the perfect example of that for sure. You know, it's funny. Sure, there's going to be listeners in here that will giggle when I say this, especially probably my wife. But you know, I'm somewhat of an opposite of Jordan. I am being humble is not something that is.
Jordan Ames (15:03.275)
Yeah.
Ben Hunter (15:24.326)
comes very natural for me in a lot of ways. so, you know, it's interesting, know, Jordan, you give the example of even folks who are naturally humble, can still, our sinful nature and kind of naturally who we are as human beings, still find a way to make it about ourselves, make it, you know, folks, you know, where we
start to find ourselves, even when we're naturally humble, where we still feel like we're owed something and we lose sight of what we're really called to do and serve. Yeah, that's so good because I find myself probably more often, you know,
And I would feed into it, Like I said before, when I was a company commander, was rated number one company commander in the brigade and had letters of recommendation from the division commanders, like the number one company commander in the division. And man, I ate that up. I ate it up. Lord humbled me quick. I talked about that a little bit in our intro about the three of us kind of giving our background where.
Jordan Ames (16:30.698)
yeah.
Ben Hunter (16:40.73)
you know shortly after that that's when i found myself with a broken back and laying in the bed for three months peeing in a bed pan right after i thought i was god's gift to the infantry and you know army captains i was the i was it but yeah it's it's it's just so interesting to see how you know even when we try hard not to be we can
we can find ourselves in that position where we are losing sight of what's important, right? So good, so good.
Jordan Ames (17:18.155)
Yeah. Yeah, so easy to do. Yeah.
Ben Hunter (17:23.021)
It really is. Well, looking at some of my other questions here, you got any more thoughts on?
Ben Hunter (17:35.671)
on being a humble authority figure.
Jordan Ames (17:36.009)
Ben Hunter (17:45.188)
It's an interesting dichotomy of leading with humility and confidence and how to do both. We obviously want to follow folks who are confident, but at the time, like first example you gave, how do we be confident but also humble?
Jordan Ames (17:45.984)
No.
Jordan Ames (18:00.501)
Right.
Ben Hunter (18:14.177)
And I think it's a little bit of that art versus science and you gain from experience and getting it wrong and folks telling you or being humbled. But when you have a leader who is able to be confident and humble at the same time, I think you're going to get better results from your team.
Like the example that you gave with the company commander, had he come in with confidence because he had had an amazing experience and was obviously really good at what he did, his approach, and I think that's where the critical pivotal point is, is our approach. I think there's nothing wrong and it's great to have...
a wealth of experience and be able to know what needs to happen. But just because we know what needs to happen, we know the of the answers on how to be successful doesn't mean we cut everybody out of the system and the process. And we just, because I know all the answers, I'm just going to get us there. You know, I think it's just a process that's super important about bringing your team along and how do you
Jordan Ames (19:32.661)
Mm-hmm.
Ben Hunter (19:40.29)
develop and coach and mentor your team to find the way to the answer that you think you already have. And a lot of times, even if we think we have all the answers, because we've done something like this before, inevitably as leaders, we're going to learn something from our team when they come up with ideas that we didn't think about. I think having systems and processes within your organization that allow you to
get to mission success with your team and having those certain points to bring your team along to get insight and help them feel a part of the answer and get into the mission success.
Jordan Ames (20:27.755)
Yeah. Yeah, you mentioned about being humble and confident. So when we're so focused on being confident and wanting our team to see that confidence that we become arrogant, I think that's when, and I've seen it, that some leaders think that they have to
They have to present this facade, so to speak, of having all the answers, of showing no weakness, those type of things in front of their team. So if I made a mistake, and this is, I mean, the first group of people I'm thinking about are politicians. It's like, politicians do not like to apologize about anything, right? It's like,
Ben Hunter (21:26.498)
Yeah.
Jordan Ames (21:27.797)
And whatever. mean, that's just in my mind. That's what I'm what I'm thinking about. But for a leader who makes a mistake and can stand in front of their team and admit that mistake and then even like explain how they're going to rectify it or whatever the case. To me, that shows a whole lot more strength than the leader that's they recognize a mistake, but they're like, no, I'm not going to.
I'm not going to apologize for it because then that shows weakness and I can't show weakness in front of my team. They'll think I'm a whatever, a weak leader, I shouldn't be here. When really that's a lie we're telling ourselves. Really it's the opposite. If you communicate it the right way, it'll turn out in the opposite result is, this guy is real, which is what every person who serves underneath you
They want to see you as real. You don't need to have all the answers. You don't need to be the strongest. I tell people a lot. Whenever I was a commander of a Marine Special Operations team, was, including myself, there was 10 assessed, selected, special operator type. Been through the whole pipeline. And then we had some enablers jump on our team. There was 10 of us.
Arguably, and I'm fine admitting this, the other nine, the enlisted from E5 all the way up to E8, I'd be willing to bet I was, if we all took IQ tests, I was probably in the bottom third. Like I'm not even, like they were just very smart. They're smart, they were a little younger than me and strong and like all these things. Like for me to be like, because I'm the commander, I am.
the top special operator on this team would not only have been stupid for me to say that, but it also had been highly inaccurate. And it would have showed that I was fake because they know that. the people underneath you, whatever leadership position you serve in, they know you're probably not the best on that team when it comes to capabilities or whatever. But as a leader,
Ben Hunter (23:38.39)
Yeah. Yeah.
Ben Hunter (23:56.373)
Right.
Jordan Ames (23:57.767)
you're in that position, you have to lead. And part of that is showing yourself to be real. And that's where humility comes.
Ben Hunter (24:04.194)
Yeah, that's good man. You know, I think in a lot of, especially in the military, we can easily fall into that where we want the reward, we want the recognition, right? We want to be the best, that competitiveness, which is, know, in itself is not necessarily a bad thing to be competitive and wanting to be recognized for hard work and accomplishments, but you know, it's super easy.
especially when you're in a leadership position, you're making the final decision on things, it can be easy to almost unknowingly get into that realm of seeking recognition and praise over what's really important of influencing and serving
others and developing them over really the reward and praise and staying grounded in our mission of developing the team, developing the organization. It's the mark of a good leader.
Ben Hunter (25:30.463)
we can only accomplish a mission or at least we think we can only accomplish a mission if we are there and we are present. You know, at some point in time, you're going to have to not be available or there and have we developed our team, our organization to be able to be effective without us being involved in every decision, I think is another key piece of this, right, of thinking that we're so good that the only way
that we can reach mission success or to accomplish the goals is for me as the leader to be involved in all the things, you know. And really what that's coming from is a place of selfishness and, you know, seeking praise and reward for being the one that came up with everything as opposed to really diving into a deeper level of developing those around us and under us to make sure that they
have an opportunity to succeed and help see that their position and their role in the organization is critical and helps the organization get to where it needs to be. And that creates longevity, because we're not going to be around forever, especially in the military, where we're in these key positions only a year or two. And if we run an organization like that and we walk away from it
in a year or two and then we didn't develop those folks in the organization who are sticking around, know, that doesn't do the greater good for anybody, you know.
Jordan Ames (27:06.239)
Right. Yeah.
Ben Hunter (27:07.614)
Yeah, so good, man. So good. It's so easy for us to fall into that place where we think we are the most important, most critical, you when we're in a leadership position. If we don't, you know, make all decisions and we aren't that person making all the calls, it's easy to think that we are the only one that can make success when really what we are.
call to do is develop and serve and take care of those in the organization as opposed to taking care of ourselves and making sure we get all the praise and reward. Well Jordan, you got any final thoughts, man, before we close out this topic? It's so good and I'm hoping we get some comments on. Go ahead.
Jordan Ames (27:51.201)
Yeah, yeah, I was just-
Yeah, I was just thinking, as you were talking about, like in the military, we want praise, recognition. There's obviously a large award structure in the military with medals and ribbons and certificates and everything. And we want those things, and it's OK to want to be recognized. Like, we should be recognized when we do good things. It certainly doesn't mean we always will.
Ben Hunter (28:09.139)
Yeah.
Jordan Ames (28:24.801)
But it's good to recognize good accomplishments, performance. But I think where the military culture sometimes, if individuals aren't aware of it, they can easily crave that, and like you said, kind of put that over their actual leadership responsibility. And one thing that, I remember, I think it was probably my lieutenant time that,
that I acknowledge and wanted to commit to is understanding that as a leader, if I focus on my platoon, company, whoever I'm leading, if I focus on making them look good, and what I mean by that is, of course, a leader's top responsibility is mission accomplishment. So training them, giving them the opportunity, creating a culture.
where they can thrive and they end up being, I don't know, the top platoon, the top company. They're just awesome at what they're doing. If my focus is all there, they, because of how they're performing, how they're acting, accomplishing the mission, doing those things, it will make me look good. I don't, if I try, if my, you know,
Again, just because we're selfish, sinful beings that we naturally want to be like, I want to do good in this position. I want to be recognized. I want to leave this tour with whatever, this medal or that. I want to get promoted to the next rank, whatever the case. If that's our focus and it's not on, we're going to get more bossy, right, and arrogant. Hey, do this, do that. We need to do this better.
Ben Hunter (29:46.195)
that's a good point. Yeah.
Jordan Ames (30:14.655)
You guys are whatever, poor performing at this. And we get like that because our focus is, you're making me look bad. But if we don't forget about how you look, maybe right now, maybe there's times they make you look bad. Forget about that. Put all your effort and energy into, in a sense, making them look good. Making somebody from the outside looking at your team and saying, well, they are efficient. They're effective.
Ben Hunter (30:25.37)
Hmm.
Jordan Ames (30:44.479)
They accomplish every task that's asked of them. They do it at a high level. Do that, and people are going to be like, well, who's in charge of them? Who's the leader? And you're just automatically going to look good. That's the critical thing about leadership. And I think that's by godly biblical design, I think.
Ben Hunter (30:59.72)
That's good. Yeah.
Don't force it. Yeah.
Ben Hunter (31:08.862)
That's good, man. No, I appreciate that's such a good aspect man, and what a fun and good conversation To have so to kind of wrap things up for our listeners here You know remember for the leaders out there, maybe young young officers young leaders and organizations True influence comes from serving others rather than seeking praise or recognition I think that's kind of our going home stamp
phrase, right? you know, think about, we can all take a moment and think about Jesus as the Savior of the world riding in on a donkey. He didn't care about praise and recognition. What he wanted was to save the souls of the world. you know, obviously, like we talked about before this episode, before we started recording, Jordan, I there's a lot of very important
biblical and theological reasons why Jesus rode in on a donkey, but you know from a leadership perspective, you know, and people were shocked to see it and think, well, he can't be the, you know, the savior of the world. He's riding in on a donkey. He wasn't worried about validation from those folks. He was worried about what was really important and that was influencing
the souls of folks. It's such a great conversation and it's way easier said than done to maintain humility and focus on influencing and developing others and serving others rather than seeking praise and reward for ourselves. I hope this episode was a blessing to everyone listening. Like the podcast, follow our
Podcasts on Apple podcast follow our YouTube channel and we'll have lots more Content coming here soon We appreciate everybody listening and we hope you have a blessed day And I hope you really learned something from from this episode. Thanks Jordan. I appreciate your time,
Jordan Ames (33:14.539)
Yeah, every Tuesday.
Jordan Ames (33:21.593)
Hey Ben, one last thing I was just thinking. We need to start bringing on some other guests. know, people might be getting bored of hearing our voices. We might need to start bringing some people on.
Ben Hunter (33:28.741)
Yeah.
Ben Hunter (33:32.62)
Absolutely man, I've got, yeah, we've got to absolutely, and you know, it's funny, I thought, yes, we have some folks we need to bring on this show, and you we've had, both have had the privilege of serving with and under and for a lot of amazing leaders in the military and outside the military. You know who else we need to bring on this podcast? We need to have an episode with our wives.
Jordan Ames (33:59.201)
Is that?
man, that's, yeah, that'll be good.
Ben Hunter (34:03.288)
Yeah, let's do it. Let's do it. They'll tell our audience really how we lead the house and the family and our kids.
Jordan Ames (34:12.083)
Yeah, it'd be like one question, and then we'd end up becoming the guest, and we'd just get griffed.
Ben Hunter (34:18.843)
Yeah.
Yeah, man, but it's important. I'll be the first one to admit. I'll be the first one to admit, man. Probably, with all the measurements out there that they use, I've had a successful military career and led well in the military and teach, train, and mentor lots of young men and done it well. But what doesn't come easy for me, leading my wife really well. She's a very independent military wife.
Jordan Ames (34:23.847)
yeah.
Ben Hunter (34:51.757)
raised our kids in lot of ways by herself. When I try to interject and be the leader of the house, I don't do it real well a lot of times. The good thing is we can never stop being a good learner. We can always learn to do better. From a listener's perspective, I think they can get lot of insight from our spouses and how they've helped lead our home while you and I have been
Jordan Ames (35:08.043)
Yeah.
Ben Hunter (35:22.123)
out serving the country and doing other things and then kind of tips and tricks on how otherwise can help their husbands lead well as our helpers in our partnership. Spot on, man. Let's do it.
Jordan Ames (35:38.049)
For our listeners, know you're not going to say it, I want to say this. Ben's wife was the, I believe it was 2023 military spouse of the year. I guess one person in the military chosen for that, one spouse. That's incredible.
Ben Hunter (35:52.547)
Yes, she was. She sure was. That'll be the hook line. bring her in on, we're going to interview the Military Spouse of the Year. Yeah. All right. Well, this is a wrap. Yeah.
Jordan Ames (36:04.097)
Yeah.
Awesome. Yeah, that's All right, well, good. Yeah, I'll see you. We'll see you next episode.
Ben Hunter (36:17.368)
All right.
