Exploring the Transition Experience for the First Time Local Conference Presidents in the North American Division of Seventh-day Adventists: Narratives from Conference Presidents\u27 Career Transitions

The position of the president of a conference in the North American Division of Seventh-day Adventists (a senior leadership role) has currently no policy stipulating leadership training prerequisites. Leaders transitioning into the president’s position typically are selected from a pool of successful pastors, departmental directors, and executive secretaries by a constituency meeting of delegates from local churches and conference institutions. This qualitative study probed the transition of 12 first-time local conference presidents. The information was gathered by recording in-depth interviews. Eight themes surfaced from the exploration. Leaders experienced the transition as overwhelming, challenging their spirituality, involving new constellations of relationships, and a shifting of identity. They also noted its impact on their family. Other themes dealt with the leaders’ prior job experience, intentional leadership preparation, and mentors. The findings suggest the need for more intentional leadership and managerial training, including knowledge of basic business principles and financial management. There is also a need for gender diversity training and for support in the form of mentors, assessments, and cohort groupings

Exploring the Transition Experience for First Times Local Conference Presidents in the North American Division of Seventh-day Adventists ...

this qualitative study probed the transition of 12 first-time local conference presidents. the information was gathered by recording in-depth interviews. Eight themes surfaced from the exploration. Leaders experienced the transition as overwhelming, challenging their spirituality, involving new constellations of relationships, and a shifting of identity. they also noted its impact on their families. Other themes dealt with the leaders’ prior job experience, intentional leadership preparation, and mentors. the findings suggest the need for more intentional leadership and managerial training, including knowledge of basic business principles and financial management

Chief of Military History (ret.)

University ofCalHomia at Los Angeles Terms expiring 199

Bandwagonistas: rhetorical re-description, strategic choice and the politics of counter-insurgency

This paper seeks to explore how a particular narrative focused on populationcentric counterinsurgency shaped American strategy during the Autumn 2009 Presidential review on Afghanistan, examine the narrative’s genealogy and suggest weaknesses and inconsistencies that exist within it. More precisely our ambition is to show how through a process of ‘rhetorical redescription’ this narrative has come to dominate contemporary American strategic discourse. We argue that in order to promote and legitimate their case, a contemporary ‘COIN Lobby’ of influential warrior scholars, academics and commentators utilizes select historical interpretations of counterinsurgency and limits discussion of COIN to what they consider to be failures in implementation. As a result, it has become very difficult for other ways of conceptualizing the counterinsurgency problem to emerge into the policy debate