take character development seriously, you will severely limit your sphere of responsibility and influence.
What is character? Character is being honest and true, through and through, in my whole person. In ancient times, unscrupulous potters would sometimes cover over the cracks in their clay pots with wax to disguise the pot’s imperfections. On the outside, the pot would look smooth and sound. But once you poured hot water into it, the wax would melt, and the pot would begin to leak. As a result, honest potters started labeling their pots “sin cere”—literally, “without wax.” When you bought a sin cere pot, you could be confident that the way the pot looked on the outside was a fair picture of its true character. A sin cere pot was made only with the earth’s rich, dark clay, well-crafted and fired, through and through. Like the clay pot, the character we want is whole and complete, with integrity between what shows on the surface and what is hidden underneath.
Most of the conversations around character have been narrow in their scope. Character is often reduced to moralism and personal lifestyle choices. We focus on how well young people follow “the rules” of good behaviour. Instead of asking “What are you learning in your life?” “How are your friendships?” or “What are your hopes for what you will become?” we’re more concerned with the old-school trio of sex, drugs and alcohol. In other words, we’ve often defined good character by what people don’t do, rather than what they do. Whenever we do this, we reduce character to moralism—and we miss an opportunity to truly see young people for who they are.
We also reduce the fulsome meaning of character when we define it as who you are when you are alone, when no one else is looking. True, character is sometimes revealed behind closed doors and in the dark without the spotlight of public view. However, character is not only who I am when I am alone; it is also who I am when I am active in the outside world with my friends and strangers looking on. One of the greatest challenges for young people in this generation is to find that match between who I am when I am alone and who I am when I am active and on show in the world. Because the value of acceptance reigns so supreme in the ethos of today’s young people, they typically have little problem “giving permission” to others to be who they are and behave as they will. However, for a young person to “take permission” to be who I am and behave as I believe is right, especially if it is in contradiction to others around me, is far more challenging. Emerging leaders are likely to disguise their real selves for the sake of letting their audience hear what they want to hear, rather than what they need to hear. In the age of acceptance, for a young person to stand up and say “This is right” and “You are wrong” is social suicide. Developing character means facing questions like not only “Who am I when I am alone?” but also “Who am I when I’m in front of people?” “What am I when I am not in a leadership position?” and also “Who am I as a leader in front of people whose opinion I care about?”
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