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Impact of Terrorism, Insurgency, and Other Human-caused Catastrophes on Pivotal National Leaders’ Vision Statements

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Abstract

Vision statements articulated by seven pivotal national leaders before and after a catastrophe were examined for changes in moral reasoning stage, moral reasoning orientation, explanatory style, and rumination. Established two-stage structured content analysis methods were used and a perspective of shared leadership. Five leaders showed no significant change in moral reasoning stage but two showed a statistically significant reduction following overt attack on their homeland. After a catastrophe, six showed significant change in moral reasoning orientation, four showed less positive or negative explanatory style, and all seven showed high rumination. From an organizational systems perspective, an impact of human-caused catastrophe was adjustment of these four variables in pivotal national leaders’ vision statements as if they are systems levers.

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Notes

  1. The reference labels “pessimism” and “optimism” usually associated with explanatory style analysis at individual level are replaced for this study by the terms “negative” and “positive” that are more meaningful for analysis at the organizational level.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported entirely by the author and is based on a dissertation plus post-doctoral research. Portions were presented at the Adult Development Symposium of the Society for Research in Adult Development in San Diego, California, April 11–12, 2004, and at the 30th Annual Conference of the Association for Moral Education in Dana Point, California, November 10–13, 2004.

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  1. School of Human and Organization Development, Fielding Graduate University, Santa Barbara, CA, USA

    Carl R. Oliver

  2. P.O. Box 4888, Thousand Oaks, CA, 91359, USA

    Carl R. Oliver

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Correspondence to Carl R. Oliver.

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Oliver, C.R. Impact of Terrorism, Insurgency, and Other Human-caused Catastrophes on Pivotal National Leaders’ Vision Statements. J Adult Dev 14, 66–79 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10804-007-9014-7

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