A Lesson On Leading

Y-LEAD participants worship together in Martin Chapel
Photo by Laura Amstutz

By Tom Mitchell

When Kirby Dean addressed his young audience of 30 at Eastern Mennonite Seminary, he spoke with a seasoned sense of urgency.

Dean’s clinic on "Leading with Integrity" on Friday at the Y-LEAD Conference drew from events of his past, including moments that ranged from a memorable sports film to more forgettable flashes.

"The dictionary defines integrity as a firm adherence to a moral code," said Dean, men’s basketball coach at Eastern Mennonite University. "I have my own definition."

Dean’s interpretation of leadership cedes control to one’s conscience.

"It’s doing the right thing when you could easily do the wrong thing and realize that nobody would know the difference," said Dean.

Guests at Dean’s clinic were mostly students spending the week at EMU as participants in Y-LEAD, a 3½-day Christian leadership event geared for Mennonite youth. The program concluded Sunday.

The Y-LEAD conference consisted of various worship, seminars, group interaction and other activities of fellowship held every other year at a Mennonite university or college. Y-LEAD draws students who attend Mennonite high schools in Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana, as well as students from other schools who attend Mennonite churches.

Life’s Lessons

Dean’s 75-minute seminar chronicled times in his own life when people he knew abruptly departed, and also exposed his own flaws. For one visual aid, Dean used a chain of keys to convey the importance of giving God control of one’s life.

"When I was in high school, I gave God all but three keys to my life," said Dean, 36. "I kept some of the keys to my personal life."

Reality, Dean said, taught him much about the importance of reaching out to others. During his last year as an assistant men’s basketball coach at Virginia Military Institute, a former VMI player who Dean helped coach, Chad Kenna, died in his sleep three months after graduation. Soon after Dean took the EMU job, James Thomas, a promising player he’d successfully recruited, collapsed and died in a pickup game.

Just weeks ago, at Dean’s basketball camp, a youth suffered a seizure and lost consciousness. An alert trainer revived the boy, but the event reminded Dean of life’s brevity.

Matters more vital than longevity should guide aspiring leaders, said Dean, who still second-guesses himself for not witnessing to Kenna and others he knew who passed.

"You all will know a Chad Kenna or James Thomas," said Dean. "You have people all around you who are dying spiritually. There is a sense of urgency for you to get God to people and people to God."

Much of the clinic featured clips from the 1985 movie "Hoosiers," which Dean used to make points about leadership.

‘Influencing Others’

Students at the clinic said that, while "Hoosiers" effectively touts leadership, their own ideas about leading already were fixed.

"Leadership is pretty self-explanatory," said Dan Foote, a rising junior at Lake Center Christian School in Hartville, Ohio. Foote, 16, serves as worship leader at his church.

"I think that leadership means being able to influence others or impact lives or what they do," he said.

Said Emily Thomas, a rising junior at Kidron Central Christian School in Kidron, Ohio, who last year played junior varsity soccer for her school: "I don’t think my idea of leadership has changed."

Thomas, 15, believes that strong leaders adapt to their surroundings.

"If you can be comfortable [leading] people you don’t know, then you can be comfortable with people you know," she said.

Ultimately, says Dean, one’s skill to lead depends on that person’s ties to Christ.

Said Dean: "If you have that, you’ll be a person of integrity."

— article by: Tom Mitchell, Daily News-Record; posted July 31, 2006