I received a shocking Father’s Day present today. And it is a lesson for everyone about authority.

A phone call telling me that my 18-year-old daughter had been abandoned at the Toledo train station after midnight by her boss Pastor Joe Ottinger, Camp Mojaven Director and leader in the Ohio Conference of Seventh-Day Adventist.

Before, I get into the post. Let me say this first. Happy Father’s Day to everyone who serves in a fathering role. Fatherhood is not defined only by biology. It is defined by the willingness to protect, guide, encourage, and care for others when they need it most. It is found in fathers, grandfathers, uncles, mentors, coaches, teachers, and countless others who choose responsibility over convenience and compassion over indifference.

Now back to the story.

My daughter Lucia was abandoned early this morning at the Toledo train station.

I was seven hours away dropping my son off at a different summer camp.

At approximately 2:00 a.m. today, while trying to understand what was happening, I spoke with an Ohio sheriff. During that conversation, the sheriff described Toledo as one of the nation’s major human trafficking corridors. I think it’s easy to say that my daughter faced immediate danger under the grim circumstances she was placed in by the Pastor.

This was a nightmare happening in real time. Hearing my daughter’s scared voice in the middle of the night on the phone made me feel like I’d failed my daughter on Father’s day and I cried.

Lucia in the Toledo train station at 3am.

This is not a hypothetical story. This is not a Harvard leadership case study in a book. This happened to us today. Today!

As a father, my first thoughts were not about policies, procedures, or organizational rules. My first thoughts were about safety. Was she okay? Who was in the train station? How long would she be there at the train station? What would happen if transportation fell through? What could I do from seven hours away? Those are the questions that filled my mind from midnight until 4am.

As the night unfolded, the situation became even more complicated. The father of another young camp counselor notified me that he was able to immediately begin driving to pick her up because he was within three hours drive. However, along the way he struck a deer and totaled his vehicle. Rescuing teenagers is dangerous in the middle of the night for adults too. The transportation plan I expected to work suddenly disappeared. Now two young people were sitting in a train station with no parent present and no immediate way home.

I have spent decades studying leadership. I have served as a director, associate chair, dean, and provost. I have supervised employees, made difficult decisions, and carried responsibilities that affected other people’s lives. Those experiences taught me something important. Leadership is not defined by authority. Leadership is defined by responsibility. Anyone can exercise power. Anyone can make decisions. The harder question is what responsibility we accept for the people affected by those decisions.

That question sits at the center of what scholars call the ethic of care. The ethic of care begins with a simple recognition that people are not problems to manage. They are human beings whose wellbeing matters. It asks leaders to see the person before they see the policy. It asks leaders to consider human safety before they consider convenience. Most importantly, it asks leaders to imagine what they would want if the person affected by a decision were their own child. That question changes everything.

The more I reflected on today, the more I realized that fathers often practice an ethic of care instinctively. They make one more phone call. They stay up a little longer. They search for another solution. They keep asking questions until they know their child is safe. They do these things not because a handbook requires it. They do them because care requires it. Today I found myself wishing that more leadership decisions were guided by the same instinct.

Institutions often ask whether an action is permissible. Parents ask whether it is caring. Institutions ask whether expectations were met. Parents ask whether their child is safe. Institutions ask whether a process was followed. Parents ask whether someone showed compassion. Those are not always the same questions. Nor do they always produce the same answers. An ethic of care requires leaders to ask the questions that parents ask.

Every employee is someone’s child. Every student is someone’s child. Every camp counselor is someone’s child. Every volunteer is someone’s child. Behind every name on an organizational chart is usually a family that loves that person and worries about that person. Behind every administrative decision is a human being who must live with the consequences of that decision. An ethic of care asks leaders never to forget that reality. It asks leaders to remember that people are more important than just a process.

Today is Father’s Day. Today my daughter sat in a train station in unnecessary duress until 4am because of a decision someone with authority made. Today I was reminded that leadership is not ultimately about titles or power. It is about whether we treat people with dignity when they are vulnerable. It is about whether we take responsibility for the human consequences of our decisions. It is about whether we are willing to do a little more when someone else’s child needs our help.

What troubles me most is not simply the decision Pastor Joe made. It is what that decision revealed about his understanding of leadership. A leader’s responsibility does not end when the minimum obligation has been met. Leadership is not about asking, “What can I get away with?” It is about asking, “What is the right thing to do for the people entrusted to my care?” His response to me why he did this to my daughter when asked in a phone call was that he was “too tired” and “too busy.”

As a father, I cannot separate this moment from the reality that the young person affected was my daughter. In the middle of the night, while she was trying to figure out her next steps, the adult who held authority over her had a choice. He could treat her as a someone to abandon in a train station after midnight in Toledo, or he could have treated her as a young person deserving of care, dignity, and protection. The fact that this situation unfolded the way it did leaves me with a profound sense of disappointment.

What makes this especially painful is that leadership is ultimately revealed in moments of inconvenience. Anyone can speak about values when doing the right thing is easy. The true test comes when compassion requires extra time, extra effort, or personal sacrifice. Those are the moments that define character. Those are the moments people remember long after policies and procedures have been forgotten.

I do not question whether Pastor Joe had authority under the law to abandon my child at a train station because she was 18. He clearly told me on the phone he had the right to do so. I question whether he exercised that authority with the level of care that leadership demands.

Years from now, I suspect few people will remember the details of this incident because my daughter was able to return home safely today. If she had been harmed or trafficked this would be a different conversation according to my lawyer. What will remain is a much larger question: when faced with a choice between convenience and care, what kind of leader did Pastor Joe choose to be? From where I stand as a father, the answer to that question is heartbreaking. It is difficult to reconcile the responsibility he was given with the care he demonstrated. And that gap between authority and humanity is precisely why this story deserves to be told and is a lesson for people with authority everywhere.

Note: I reached out the Ohio Conference of Seventh-Day Adventist President Bob Cundiff for comment and there was no reply.

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