Following the strongman presidencies of Russell and Rutherford the Watchtower organization began a slow transition toward more collective leadership. Changes in teaching during the successive administrations of Nathan Homer Knorr and Frederick W. Franz often resulted from power struggles among their underlings at Brooklyn headquarters. Thus there was a softening of the sect’s stand on several issues during the mid-to-late 1970s while Raymond Franz (President Fred Franz’s nephew) and his liberal associates