GreatRidge Station

I had the privilege to teach a course yesterday at the St. Paul Police Department. As a St. Paulite at heart (I live in a southern suburb, and not in the city proper), I follow St. Paul news and events with interest. Over the years, I’ve heard St. Paul police spokesman Tom Walsh present information many times, and I’ve seen Police Chief John Harringtonaddress friendly and unfriendly groups.

I had the good fortune to meet both of these gentlemen yesterday, and I am happy to say that their quality as people exceeded my expectations. They were friendly, delightful, and generally joyful. After I met Chief Harrington, Officer Walsh walked me to the classroom where I was to teach. On the way, he explained to me “That man is why I’m here.” He told me that the two had been partners in earlier years on the force, and that after he retired, Harrington accepted the role as Police Chief. That drew Walsh back to serve as Public Information Officer, and he told me that Chief Harrington is “the only person I would do this job for. I couldn’t do this for just anyone.”

These two men have exhibited great leadership over the years. It did me good to meet them–my level of respect for them has gone up even more.

Leadership like the kind at SPPD only happens when the persona expressed in the media matches the persona expressed through one’s day to day life. It was clear from a quiet conversation in the hallway, that these two men are the people of character  that we need in civic leadership. Citizens of St. Paul: You are in good hands.

When I think about my own technology dependence, I usually think about my computers, my digital camera, my audio equipment, my car, and so on. Jack Clayton Swearengen points out our high level of dependency on technology with the following, profound observation:

[Technology] would be useless without batteries, so we expect to be able to purchase them at retail outlets and recharge them at home. Without the proper batteries…our watches, cameras, TV remote controls, flashlights, powertools, thermostats and smoke alarms, toys, laptops, MP3s, cell phones, cordless handsets, garage door openers, and sprinkler controls all become useless.

Your first thought may be “whew, what a list,” but it doesn’t take much thinking to come up with many other things around our homes and in our lives that require batteries. We need them; we demand them; much of what we take for granted would come to a standstill without them.

There are a couple of things that we should consider, here.

• First, what are the practical implications of this. Batteries are but one example of service-based products that have insinuated themselves into daily necessities. Think about the “batteries” in your field, business, or discipline. What is essential to you, your clients, customers, or colleagues, and what might this mean to the way you do business? Could someone blind-side you by making those essentials more readily available?
• Second, consider the connections that exist in your own complex system of life. As leaders, we may take for granted the people who are the batteries, never considering how poorly we would do without them. Which contacts, business relationships, or strategic alliances define your leadership setting–perhaps without your awareness.

Do not take these ideas for granted. Swearengen is onto something when he points out that our industrial infrastructure essentially runs on batteries. What are the batteries that run our social, economic, ethical, or moral infrastructures? We better know that, or, like the world Swearengen describes, we’re vulnerable.

Bob Terry makes the following observation, in his book Authentic Leadership: Courage in Action:

From the holocaust to spiritual transformation, the range of human action reveals the most base and most glorious actions of the human species. Leadership, to be true to the full range of action, must acknowledge and embrace all of human action as it seeks to engage it.

Terry is not arguing that all human action is good, but rather that leaders must face their leadership world with eyes wide open. We may not like reality, but we dare not deny it; that would result in avoidance and inaction.

John 17, Jesus’s high-priestly prayer, tells us that Christians are to be in the world, but not of the world. This communicates the same idea–we are to face things fearlessly (and not naively) and be catalysts for change.

With all the difficulties, dysfunctional followers, and outright evil around us, it is difficult to avoid getting bitter and taking the cynical outlook that is so common to our society. The only way to avoid that is to have one’s life solidly anchored outside of the system you want to change. It is a spiritual echo of Archimedes statement that with a lever and a firm place to stand outside the earth, and he could move the world.

As leaders, we need that firm place to stand in order to effectively engage our world and lead effectively. Those of us who are Christians recognize that the only real, firm place to stand is in our Lord Jesus Christ, where we stand by grace and by faith. As the Apostle Paul noted in 1 Corinthians 15:58:

…stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain. (NIV)