If you are reading this newsletter, it is likely that you have some sort of affinity or relationship with the central mission of Valparaiso University: to “prepare students to lead and serve in both church and society.” You may enthusiastically support this mission. You might live this out, or know people who live this out, in your own life. You might wonder what the words actually mean, or what leading and serving look like in real life.
One of the many privileges that come with working at the Institute for Leadership and Service here at Valpo is that we don’t have to pretend that we fully understand these big words that make up the title of our office – “leadership” and “service.” Rather, we get to investigate them, interrogate them, problematize and try to operationalize them. What do these words mean? What actions and values make them up? Are they related to each other? Opposites?
With our student workers, we at ILAS have wondered lately: what exactly about serving others can be understood as leadership? We’ve had ample opportunity to bring this question to our shared work and life so far in 2026.
Lutherans and faith communities of all stripes have been in the news recently for serving others. We have seen them praying, marching, providing food and rides to people in need. We have seen them being arrested as they pray for the safety of their neighbors. From behind-the-scenes and in newsroom headlines and front-page photos, we have seen lay people as well as clergy act out of love and concern for their neighbors. Their service has been a witness to a different kind of vision for the world than the one they have been responding to.
Setting a vision, and living it out – that sounds like leadership. But aren’t they just serving where they see a need?
It turns out there are over 1,500 definitions of leadership and more than 40 leadership models out there in the world. As we ask ourselves what service has to do with leadership, we can’t engage with all of these definitions and models in a newsletter. However, we can start with one model that might be helpful: servant leadership. Robert K. Greenleaf’s 1970 essay, The Servant As Leader, provided fodder for ILAS student staff discussion last week. Despite writing over 50 years ago, Greenleaf’s call to identify true leaders by their service to others causes us to sit up and listen today:
I am hopeful for these times, despite the tension and conflict, because more natural servants are trying to see clearly the world as it is and are listening carefully to prophetic voices that are speaking now. They are challenging the pervasive injustice with greater force and they are taking sharper issue with the wide disparity between the quality of society they know is reasonable and possible with available resources, and, on the other hand, the actual performance of the whole range of institutions that exist to serve society. A fresh critical look is being taken at the issues of power and authority, and people are beginning to learn, however haltingly, to relate to one another in less coercive and more creatively supporting ways.
A new moral principle is emerging which holds that the only authority deserving one’s allegiance is that which is freely and knowingly granted by the led to the leader in response to, and in proportion to, the clearly evident servant stature of the leader. Those who choose to follow this principle will not casually accept the authority of existing institutions. Rather, they will freely respond only to individuals who are chosen as leaders because they are proven and trusted as servants. To the extent that this principle prevails in the future, the only truly viable institutions will be those that are predominantly servant-led.
This sounds a lot like Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s sermon on the Drum Major Instinct. In this speech, King counseled us on what a leader looks like:
And [Jesus] said, "Yes, don't give up this instinct [to be first - to lead]. It's a good instinct if you use it right. (Yes) It's a good instinct if you don't distort it and pervert it. Don't give it up. Keep feeling the need for being important. Keep feeling the need for being first. But I want you to be first in love. (Amen) I want you to be first in moral excellence. I want you to be first in generosity. That is what I want you to do.”
The winner of the 2026 Valparaiso University MLK Day Drum Major Instinct Award was this year’s Convocation speaker, State Representative Ragen Hatcher.
You can watch the MLK Day message from Ragen Hatcher here on the University Youtube channel. Hatcher closed her speech with these words: “I leave you with this charge. Turn darkness into light by telling the truth. Turn despair into hope by showing up. Turn promise into progress by refusing complacency and choosing courage. If we do that, if we answer Dr. King’s question with action, then we do more than honor his legacy. We extend it.”
From these three sources, Greenleaf, King, and Hatcher, we hear about a kind of leadership that is grounded in values of service:
- See clearly
- Listen to prophetic voices
- Challenge injustice
- Relate to one another in creative, not coercive, ways
- Be first in love
- Be first in moral excellence
- Be first in generosity
- Tell the truth
- Show up
- Refuse complacency
- Choose courage
Across campus students are preparing to set on Spring Break Service Trips in March. We at ILAS will be leading, for the second time, a “trip” to our own region of Northwest Indiana (read insights from our 2025 trip here). We are going to learn about historic issues related to race and the environment, as well as do hands-on service with a number of organizations that work on food access, clean air, community green spaces, land conservation, and more.
As we prepare for these trips, this year ILAS is partnering with the College of Engineering and the Education Program to put on a Humanitarianism and Community Development Symposium on February 6. This will be a time to hear about effective service (humanitarian and development work at home and abroad), as well as understand when service might be ineffective or even harmful.
If you consider yourself primarily a servant, I encourage you to see how your service is actually leadership. If you consider yourself primarily a leader, I encourage you to reflect on how love, generosity, truth-telling, moral excellence, and courage inform your leadership.
– Deaconess Kat Peters
Assistant Director, Institute for Leadership and Service
