01/28/2015

Trinity's mid-week blast for January 28, 2015

"It is What I Have in Me"

Captain Blaine Lee was flying his fighter jet on a mission over North Vietnam when his plane took a direct hit by an anti-aircraft missile. He had to make a split decision. On impulse, he first patted his chest to make sure his survival vest was there. Pilots wore a special vest that contained all kinds of survival materials - a flashlight, a flare, tubes of food, water purification tablets, a handgun, compass, knife, twine, matches, a small short-wave transmitter, and other things one needed to make it in an emergency. After feeling for his vest, he hit the ejection switch and immediately the cockpit cover blew off and ejected him out of the plane. The parachute opened as planned and he descended behind enemy lines. For two weeks he navigated his way out of danger and found his way back to U.S. forces in South Vietnam. In an interview he was asked how it was that he successfully avoided being captured and made his way back. He said, "It was not what I had on me that saved my life. It was what I have in me." In other words, what saved him were the inner characteristics of leadership.

During Trinity's recent J-Term I taught a course where we explored the nature of authentic servant-leadership needed in today's world, a course that worked to amplify the character of leadership through an immersion into Haiti. You are receiving this message while I am at the annual ATS (Association of Theological Schools) presidential conference, where the focus also is on leadership. There is consensus on what defines highly effective servant-leaders. It is not the things that the public generally imagines as the qualities of great leaders - charisma, powerful personality, persuasiveness, and strong willfulness. Nor is authentic servant-leadership really about having the right tactics or the right approach to certain situations. Moreover, it really is not about administration.

Authentic servant-leadership is about the core of a person. A great leader's words, strategic plan, or administrative savvy flow from a core of healthy self-definition, which includes integrity, courage, faith, and the resilience that ignites a leader's passion for mission and inspires vision.

A major question we wrestle with is whether true authentic leadership can actually be taught. Are leaders born, or do people become leaders because they are formed and nurtured? I believe that some people come to seminary already equipped with certain attributes that predispose them to be great leaders. They may have been born with certain God-given gifts, but they also were shaped by significant people, had the right role models, and had important people in their lives who expected great things from them. Others may not come to seminary with this formation, but I believe Trinity can provide that formation. It has to do with expectations and placing people in their lives who will be asset-builders and expect and demand great things from them. People generally will become what the most important people in their lives believe they can become.

At Trinity, we not only pay attention to the academic work and skills required of students, but to the development of the whole person, beginning with the core. After all, what is most important in leadership is not the "tool kits" we have on us, but what we have in us - a core defined by character and a resiliency and hope wrought by the empty tomb.

Trinity Lutheran Seminary really does form leaders for Christ's church at work in the world.

In the abiding hope of the empty tomb,

Rick Barger, '89
President
Trinity Lutheran Seminary