The Roles of Leadership
Military Leadership Development and its Role in Natural Disaster Management: A Case Study of the 2016 Earthquake in Ecuador
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Sandra Dennis
The social and economic devastation from natural disasters takes an enormous toll and the resources to rebuild can take decades and consume much of the aid directed to these countries. The humanitarian principles of humanity, impartiality, neutrality and independence are discussed in light of military intervention in the face of natural disasters. On April 16, 2016, the west coast of Ecuador suffered a major earthquake. A case study of events and the actions of the country’s military are documented in a firsthand account. Recommendations are made for military actions for future events which could also be extrapolated to other countries. The need for contingency plans to be formulated and consistent policy making to be in place in anticipation of natural disasters is advanced. Leadership development is shown to be crucial in emergency situations, along with strong project management skills..
Know Where You Stand Before You Do Anything: Staff Self-Assessment for Successful Public and Nonprofit Programs
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Aziza Zemrani, Cynthia Lynch
Diversity is more than just ethnicity and gender, and cultural competency is more than just being able to say hello in another language. Diversity and cultural competency are also about how we think and our attitudes towards others. Understanding our attitudes about and towards others is particularly important for public sector and nonprofit programs. Intervention programs designed to serve the public are doomed to fail if the program designers fail to culturally identify with the population they are serving. Equally, program evaluators are likely to miss the failures of the program to meet the needs of the population it is intended to serve, if they are also culturally insensitive. Massive, nation-wide diversity training initiatives such as the one Starbucks embarked on in 2018 are necessary but not sufficient to make a significant difference in consciousness raising to foment lasting organizational change. One-size-fits all diversity training initiatives, without prior knowledge of where each trainee fits on the culturally competent spectrum, ends up being understood by many participants as a lecture on “political correctness” rather than a deep learning experience, and results in a collective data dump as they cross the threshold of the training room at the end of the session. This paper uses a case study of a Hawaiian nonprofit organization’s failure to understand and culturally identify with the population they were charged with serving to illustrate the fundamental need to do employee cultural awareness self-assessments prior to program implementation and evaluation.
Heterogeneity in the Transition and Challenges of First-time Managers
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Xavier Mundet, Renate Osterchrist
Among studies of the transition of employees into a first-manager role a pervasive assumption is that the starting point for the transition is similar. It is of high importance to understand if and how the heterogeneity of starting points that new managers face is associated with different challenges they confront. We rely on over 70 hours of interviews with 45 managers of multinational companies in the time that immediately followed their transition into managers. We study what characterized their starting points and what challenges they were confronted with. Our preliminary findings show key differences in the challenges they face that are associated with the starting point the new manager has. We explore implications on what companies can do to support a successful transition.
