Good Leaders Jibe With Organization’s Culture and Mission, Write Authors

Leadership in Nonprofit Organizations
by Barry Dym and Harry Hutson

What makes a good nonprofit leader? Barry Dym and Harry Hutson, both consultants, write that effective leaders all have one thing in common: Their personalities, styles, values, and objectives complement those of the organizations they are running, and of the people they are working to help.

The authors use several case studies to demonstrate how managers can “align” themselves with their organizations and the people they serve. A chapter on Casa Myrna Vazquez, a shelter in Boston for domestic-abuse victims, describes how a string of executive directors clashed with the organization’s informal structure, until the shelter tapped a new leader who shared its emphasis on community values and could embrace its mission.

Another chapter describes how the leaders of the Community Therapeutic Day School, in Lexington, Mass., are encouraging, kind, and respectful—the very attributes they try to cultivate in staff members and in their students.

The book also offers instructions for achieving a “good fit.” The authors discuss how managers and staff members can negotiate, shaping and adapting to one another. They also provide a road map for new directors in assessing an organization’s readiness for change and initiating dialogue designed to foster alignment.

Ideally, the authors write, leaders will initially match up well — but not perfectly — with an organization. The movement toward alignment becomes “a creative act, not an effort to consolidate the status quo,” they say.

Publisher: Sage Publications, 2455 Teller Road, Thousand Oaks, Calif. 91320; order@sagepub.com; http://www.sagepublications.com; 233 pages; $69.95; ISBN 1-4129-1446-9.