LEADERSHIP THEORIES AND STYLES

Leadership Theories and Styles

Leadership Theories and Styles

Introduction

An executive director (ED), sometimes called a chief executive officer (CEO), of a nonprofit organization is typically the most highly paid and the top hierarchical staff member in the organization. He or she is responsible for leading and managing the organization while ensuring the proper stewardship of resources as expected from a tax-exempt organization held in the public trust.

As managers tend to respond to change, leaders initiate and develop the culture for change. Leaders foster a culture for innovation beyond the problem solving of managers. Some maintain that managers focus more on efficiency while leaders focus more on effectiveness (Alaimo, 2008, 78).

Mission

This common goal that drives the operations of the organization and defines its purpose is the organization's mission. The mission of a 501(C) (3) nonprofits organization embodies its primary (charitable) purpose or reason for being. This primary, charitable purpose allows it to attain tax-exempt status by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and places it in the public's trust to carry out that purpose. The mission represents an entrepreneurial idea resulting from a person or group of people determining that a specific need in society has not been sufficiently met or met at all. It serves as the foundation for stakeholders to rally around, as well as a guideline for how the organization will serve the public.

Vision

Another common focus for the organization that drives its operations, helps define its purpose by supporting the mission, and helps charts the course and direction for the organization is the vision. The organization's vision describes what successful work toward its mission looks like and typically describes how the organization plans on getting to that point of success.

Consensus for the organization's vision is important for successful work toward transitioning the organization from its current to its desired state or condition. The ED is charged with soliciting, encouraging, and rewarding stakeholder input for the organization's vision to gain such consensus and a common focus for moving the organization forward. Some suggest that discussions about the vision, visioning exercises, and the development of vision statements come at the beginning of strategic planning to set the course for the process and the direction for the organization. Others such as Bryson suggest that visioning come later in the process to ensure it is detailed, fully understood by stakeholders, and more likely to be successfully carried out (Jeavons, 2005, 89).

Values

A nonprofit organization's mission, strategies, and programs developed to meet a societal need are inherently based on values. Values embody what the organization stands for and are initially established by the founders. Some examples may include respecting the consumers they serve as unique individuals, social justice, privacy and confidentiality, quality of life, and health and wellness or dignity as mentioned in the DCM mission statement. The ED of a nonprofit demonstrates ethical leadership when he or she imbues the stakeholders and the community in which the ED resides and serves with the values of the ...