An Adventist educational leader in Asia : a narrative inquiry

Abstract

Adventist higher education has a great need of excellent leaders. This study describes the life story of an exemplary Adventist educational leader in Asia. It aims to understand his life experiences to inspire current and future Adventist leaders. It was conducted using a narrative inquiry design with one purposefully selected participant. The data was collected through interviews, observations/shadowing, documents, and literature review. The data was reported using Robert Clinton’s emergence theory, which suggests that 6 phases of leadership development extend across a lifelong timeline of the leader (Clinton, 1989). The participant of this study applied his spiritual gifts and leadership skills that he obtained throughout his training in different fields of his work-life experiences. As a result, he made vast contribution to the development of the institutions that he served. The recommendation of this study is that aspiring leaders should accept God’s calling as it comes, regardless of the position, time, place, monetary benefits, or other things. This study is in line with leadership emergence theory, which argues that leadership development is a process; and that leaders are made, not born.