The nonprofit leadership deficit: A case for more optimism

Recent headlines claim that a looming nonprofit leadership crisis will soon be precipitated by retiring baby boomers. Analysis of baby boom demographics, using national census data on the age distribution and other demographic characteristics of top leaders by sector, confirms the aging nonprofit workforce. However, the issue of whether the aging workforce portends a nonprofit leadership crisis, when analyzed within a theoretical framework of supply and demand in the market for nonprofit executives, reveals flaws in most commentaries about the leadership crisis. Workings of the labor market and nonprofit organizations themselves suggest trends that could be expected to affect labor supply and demand and mitigate a leadership deficit. Reasonable—and likely—market and organizational adjustments, including higher executive pay, increased labor force participation of older workers, skill acquisition of younger workers, possible consolidation of nonprofit organizations, board and volunteer skill sharing, and even venture philanthropy, can be expected to moderate the shock of baby boom retirements, much in the way that schools, job markets, and housing markets have accommodated the movement of this “bulging” generation through earlier decades of their lives.     

The gender pay gap in nonprofit executive compensation in South Florida

In general, systemic imbalance in pay between men and women is well established, but the literature on pay imbalance is mixed for nonprofit executives. Difference in organizational size could be a relevant factor in explaining pay imbalance, as previous research suggests average female nonprofit executives lead smaller organizations. The present study examines the role of governance accreditation on the gender gap in chief executive pay, using a 2 × 2 analysis of covariance to control for organizational size (as measured by annual revenue) when comparing samples of accredited and nonaccredited organizations in South Florida. We found a wage gap for gender, with female executives averaging 12% less compensation than male executives, after controlling for organizational size. No significant effect was found for accreditation; although the only significant difference between genders was in the nonaccredited sample, the findings hint that any trend towards pay equity would be due to a pattern of the male executives in the accredited sample being paid less than their counterparts in nonaccredited organizations.     

Pursuit of mission: The rise and fall of elite nonprofit leadership

The University Circle Development Foundation (UCDF) was created in 1957 to implement a master plan for the development of Cleveland's University Circle district. Run by the presidents of three major institutions, UCDF was successful in coordinating land use and construction projects in its early years. However, its elite authority structure proved insular and inflexible when dealing with students, faculty, and adjacent neighborhoods, and it was dissolved in 1970.     

The trickle‐down effect of ethical leadership in nonprofit soccer clubs

Nonprofit soccer clubs are currently facing many ethical challenges, such as abuse, doping and match fixing. While research suggests that organizational (board) ethical leadership may be effective to tackle these ethical issues, empirical support in the context of sport remains limited. Drawing on the perceptions of a sample of nonprofit soccer players (n = 438) and coaches (n = 106), we indicate that the coaches play an important mediating role regarding the associations between board ethical leadership and ethical climate. The theoretical underpinnings of ethical leadership—formed by social learning theory and social exchange theory—and the social distance between the board and the players in nonprofit soccer clubs provide support in this regard. In sum, our results demonstrate that the influence of board ethical leadership in nonprofit soccer clubs partly trickles down to the players via coach ethical leadership. Finally, practical implications for nonprofit soccer club management are discussed.     

Cooperative power relations between nonprofit board chairs and executive directors

Nonprofit organizations face increasing pressure to change their governance practices. Some scholars propose a check‐and‐balance relationship between the board chair and the executive director. However, empirical evidence for this proposition remains lacking. Employing actor‐centered institutionalism, this comparative case study analyzes the preferences and capabilities of the board chair and the executive director given environmental and organizational pressure. The article compares the results of two main and two replicated cases that underwent significant processes of governance change, which led to a replacement of the board chair and the executive director. After the replacement we observe in all cases a similar pattern in the governance power relation: This power relation is characterized by the actors' equivalent capabilities and complementary preferences. The article concludes by introducing a cooperative power relation model that specifies the concept of checks and balances between the board chair and the executive director.     

Transformational leadership,organizational culture,and innovativeness in nonprofit organizations

This is an exploratory study of leadership, organizational culture, and organizational innovativeness in a sample of nonprofit human service organizations: Associations of Retarded Citizens. Although leadership has been held out as one of the most important predictors of innovation, this study found it was not correlated with organizational innovativeness. Examination of the relationships between leadership and cultural variables provided some alternative explanations for this finding. Positive relationships among transformational leadership, organizational values, and cultural consensus (degree of agreement among employees on those values) indicate that leadership practices employed in this sample created strong cultural consensus around values that may inhibit innovation. These findings suggest that examining the link between leadership and organizational culture is important for understanding how leadership and innovation are related. This article sets out practical implications, based on the results of the study, that may help nonprofit managers create workplaces supportive of innovation.     

Inclusion and commitment as key pathways between leadership and nonprofit performance

Given the projected growth of workforce diversity in the United States and the fact that heterogeneous workforces result in both positive (increased retention and performance) and negative (increased conflict and turnover) organizational outcomes, nonprofit leaders are faced with the challenge of effectively managing their workforces. Findings ways to ensure positive workplace outcomes, such as employee commitment (an emotional attachment to the organization) and performance, is especially critical for the overall functioning of nonprofit organizations. Using longitudinal multilevel path analyses, this study examined whether transformational leadership influenced work group performance through both creating a climate for inclusion and increasing employee affective commitment in a diverse nonprofit health care organization. Results indicate that transformational leaders help increase perceptions of inclusion, which improves employee commitment to the organization, and ultimately enhances perceived work group performance. This suggests inclusion and affective commitment as key factors for how leaders can increase nonprofit performance.     

Jane addams and hull house: Historical lessons on nonprofit leadership

Jane Addams, founder and head of Hull House, a social settlement in Chicago at the turn of the century, offers an intriguing model of a nonhierarchical, value-oriented manager and leader. As the head resident of a group of some twenty volunteer residents—the staff of the settlement—Addams created an organizational culture and structure that encouraged individual initiative and self-governance. Addams herself taught by example the value of tolerance and the meaning of social democracy, the moral goals whose attainment she sought.     

Corporate political strategy: A framework for understanding nonprofit strategy

Nonprofit organizations operate in environments characterized by institutional demands for legitimacy. The authors argue that, given this environment, corporate political strategy is critical to a nonprofit's ability to achieve its goals, gain access to resources, and achieve a sustainable advantage. The authors develop this thesis by providing a conceptual argument that corporate political strategy is critical given the institutional nature of the environment, the conflicting demands of multiple stakeholders, and the role of the funder; and by providing contextual evidence of the role of corporate political strategy in nonprofit strategy.     

Culture and human resources management: Selecting leadership in a nonprofit organization

This article examines the influence of culture in a nonprofit organization on a major human resources management decision: the selection of a new leader. Specifically, this article investigates the recent selection of the national executive vice president (known as EVP, the highest-ranking, paid staff member) in the American Cancer Society and details how three particular aspects of the culture influenced the structure, process, and outcome of the selection decision.     

Power in and around nonprofit boards: A neglected dimension of governance

In this article we propose five patterns of board governance based on the distribution of power in and around boards of nonprofit organizations. The typology proposed grew out of our findings in in-depth case studies in which the dispersion of power became the critical variable for making sense of the patterns of governance observed. These governance patterns were then incorporated into a survey of boards in the voluntary sector. We present the results of this latter phase of the research by focusing on the associations between the five patterns and the background characteristics of board members, organizational and environmental variables, and board and organizational effectiveness. The results of the study suggest that power is an important while largely neglected aspect of board governance in the not-for-profit sector.     

Enhancing volunteers capacity in all‐volunteer nonprofit organizations: The role of volunteer leaders' reliance on effective management processes and (de)motivating leadership

All‐volunteer nonprofit organizations rely solely on the commitment of volunteers to support their operations. As such, it is important that leaders of these organizations, even though they are volunteers themselves, rely on professional skills in order to optimize their organization's volunteers capacity. In the present study, we investigated how volunteer leaders' reliance on effective management processes and a (de)motivating leadership style related to volunteers capacity. To this end, we relied on the Competing Values Framework (CVF) and Self‐Determination Theory (SDT), respectively. Results revealed a positive (unique) association between (the sum score of) the management processes of the CVF models, as well as (the sum score of) the motivating leadership styles and volunteers capacity. Bivariate analyses indicated that the management processes of each CVF model (i.e., human relations model, internal process model, open system model, and rational goal model) and each motivating leadership style (i.e., an autonomy‐supportive and a structuring leadership style) related positively to volunteers capacity. These findings have important practical implications as they revealed that it is crucial for volunteer leaders to implement effective management processes, while adopting a motivating leadership style.     

Outstanding leadership in nonprofit organizations: Leadership competencies in Roman Catholic religious orders

Effective leadership is essential for nonprofits to focus their energies beyond survival and toward accomplishment of their unique missions. This article describes a study of the leadership competencies of a sample of outstanding and typical leaders of Roman Catholic religious orders. The authors present a framework for understanding the characteristics that define excellence in the leadership of nonprofits.     

Exploring a model of servant leadership,empowerment, and commitment in nonprofit organizations

This study examined a model of servant leadership's relationship to organizational commitment through structural and psychological empowerment, focusing on leader–follower dyads in a nonprofit organization. Survey data was collected from 128 employees of a nonprofit organization in a northeastern U.S. city. After model re‐specification, a well‐fitting model emerged, indicating that structural empowerment mediates the relationship between servant leadership and organizational commitment. Moreover, the model suggests that structural empowerment's effect on organizational commitment is both direct and indirect—the latter occurring through the meaning dimension of psychological empowerment. This study provides initial support for structural empowerment being a mechanism through which servant leadership impacts organizational commitment in nonprofits. In addition, the role of meaningful work is highlighted as an antecedent to organizational commitment for nonprofit employees. Servant leaders are suggested to create structurally empowering working environments, which support employees' stronger commitment to the organization.