Leadership in Nonprofit Organizations: Lessons from the Third Sector

Leadership in Nonprofit Organizations is about exemplary leadership as found in both corporate and nonprofit organizations. The authors take a fresh approach to the study of leadership: they perform research in nonprofits both to understand and appreciate their complexities, and to reachconclusions about the nature of leadership in any context, including for-profit and governmental entities. Moving from nonprofit to for-profit in this way reverses the flow of ideas as represented in the mainstream literature of leadership. The authors′ journey leads through case studies of remarkable leaders succeeding in complex situations. The book explores contemporary versions of leadership as embedded in American culture. It develops the concept of good fit between the leader and circumstances in which she or he must lead; it reveals predictable leadership dynamics and cycles; it explains how leaders can increase the readiness for change in their organizations; it describes the felt experience of flow when successful leaders are lost in the moment. Although each chapter employs a different lens, the object is the same throughout-leadership as the practice of alignment. The result is a multifaceted view of leadership as a complex system of shifting interrelationships that yields insights useful to students, researchers and leaders themselves.

Features and Benefits:

• Critical review of literature on leadership which encourages diversity in leadership models and approaches.
• Case studies of nonprofit leadership which affirm public-minded, mission-driven leaders and acknowledge their contributions.
• Chapters on leadership constructs such as fit, dynamics, readiness and flow which provide useful insights and methods to enable success.
• Overarching concept of alignment which reframes leadership as an active process where the awareness of and response to the interplay of multiple, relevant factors matters more than charisma, pedigree or power.

Author: Barry Michael Dym, Harry Hutson
Publisher: Sage Publications, Inc
Published: 01/04/2005
Pages: 248
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.73lbs
Size: 8.96h x 6.30w x 0.52d
ISBN: 9780761929246

About the Author
Dym, Barry Michael: - Barry Dym is an organization development consultant, executive coach, psychotherapist, and entrepreneur. His clients range from small nonprofits, high tech start up companies, and both public and private school systems to large corporations, such as State Street Corporation, The Boston Globe, Honeywell, and Massachusetts Financial Services (MFS).

He was the co-founder of the Family Institute of Cambridge (1975) and the founder and Director of both the Boston Center for Family Health (1985) and WorkWise Research and Consulting (1997). For fourteen years, he served as a Lecturer at the Harvard Medical School.
He has written three previous books, Leadership Transitions, Couples, and Readiness and Change in Couple Therapy, co-founded a professional journal, Families, Systems, and Health, and newsletter, Collaborative Family Health Care, and has also written many articles, including "Utilizing States of Organizational Readiness" (with Harry Hutson), winner of the Larry Porter Prize as the best article on organizational development, 1998-99, "Resistance in Organizations: how to Recognize, Understand and Respond to It," "Integrating Entrepreneurship with Professional Leadership," and "Forays: The Power of Small Changes."Hutson, Harry: - Harry Hutson, is a leadership and organization consultant whose practice focuses on the human side of strategic change. He designs and leads system-wide planning events, results-focused workshops and team-building exercises. In addition, he provides individual coaching for executives.

He performed in senior human resources roles for more than twenty years at three multinational corporations--Cummins Engine, Avery Dennison, and Global Knowledge Network. A former secondary school teacher in Moorestown, NJ, High School, his doctoral research explored relationships between the views of influential people in a local community and what was being taught in the public schools. He has served for many years on the Board of Directors of the New England Center for Children, a school for autism and other disabilities, where he is the Vice-Chairman.

His publications include articles on teambuilding methods, continuing education, community building, readiness for change, and the relevance of hope for organizational renewal. He has presented workshops at professional meetings sponsored by organizations such as Training Magazine, Organizational Development Network, New England Human Resources Association, Learning Conference (UK and US), Association for Quality and Participation, and Pegasus/Systems Thinking.