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The Sustainability of Nonprofit Leaders: Principles and Practices that Encourage and Restore Personal Wellbeing and Professional Effectiveness

Frey, Jeffrey Daniel
http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0316-9816
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1559916763158355

Abstract Details

2019, Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, Management.
The personal sustainability of a Chief Executive Officer (CEO) influences their effectiveness and thus, their organization’s performance. Leaders whose personal mission is too closely intertwined with their organization's professional mission are at the most risk of experiencing diminished sustainability; defined as personal wellbeing and professional effectiveness over time. Suggestions have been made on combatting the issue, but the phenomenon of low sustainability persists among nonprofit leaders. Through studying nonprofit organization leaders, the purpose of this research is to elevate and preserve the personal wellbeing of nonprofit organization leaders while contributing to a growing body of knowledge on professional effectiveness. Using mixed methods, a qualitative study was followed by a quantitative study at two time periods. Critical incident interviews for the qualitative study were conducted with twenty "sustainable" and ten "unsustainable" CEOs of diverse nonprofit organizations, as identified by trusted third party raters. Interviews were also conducted with fifteen spouses. A true focus on the organization’s mission, mastery over relationships, and self-care significantly differentiated the sustainable and unsustainable CEOs. Building off those findings, 107 nonprofit executive directors and CEOs were administered a survey in the quantitative study combining the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (Avolio, Bass, & Jung, 1999), Personal Sustainability Index (Goleman, Boyatzis, & McKee, 2013), Relational Climate Survey (Boyatzis & Rochford, 2015), Satisfaction with Life Scale (Diener, 1984), and Reputational Effectiveness Survey (Tsui, 1994). Portions were administered to the spouse and a direct report for validation. Personal sustainability practices, both the intensity and variety of renewal activities engaged in by leaders in relation to stressful activities, had a positive impact on leadership effectiveness. The qualitative survey was also taken a year later with 54 of the original 107 participants and confirmed the decline of sustainability and the consistency of the factor relationships. In addition, IRS Form 990 data from the nonprofit organizations represented was trended and included as a dependent variable revealing that personal wellbeing, mediated by leadership effectiveness, has an impact on organizational performance. This work contributes to the streams of research about personal wellbeing and leadership effectiveness and has practical implications for leaders and stakeholders of nonprofit organizations.
Richard Boyatzis, Ph.D. (Committee Chair)
David Aron, MD, MS (Committee Member)
Christopher Burant, Ph.D., MACTM (Committee Member)
Melvin Smith, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
138 p.
Behavioral Sciences; Business Administration; Health; Management
burnout; board of directors; ceo; energy; leadership effectiveness; life satisfaction; longevity; mission; nonprofit; performance; renewal; sustainability; sacrifice; self-care; stewardship; stress; transformational leader; unsustainability; wellbeing

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Frey, J. D. (2019). The Sustainability of Nonprofit Leaders: Principles and Practices that Encourage and Restore Personal Wellbeing and Professional Effectiveness [Doctoral dissertation, Case Western Reserve University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1559916763158355

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Frey, Jeffrey. The Sustainability of Nonprofit Leaders: Principles and Practices that Encourage and Restore Personal Wellbeing and Professional Effectiveness. 2019. Case Western Reserve University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1559916763158355.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Frey, Jeffrey. "The Sustainability of Nonprofit Leaders: Principles and Practices that Encourage and Restore Personal Wellbeing and Professional Effectiveness." Doctoral dissertation, Case Western Reserve University, 2019. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1559916763158355

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

case1559916763158355
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© 2019, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by Case Western Reserve University School of Graduate Studies and OhioLINK.