Leadership Practices and Organizational Performance

OBJECTIVE
The purpose of the proposed study was to examine the correlation between leadership practices and organizational performance in non-profit organizations providing human services.

METHODOLOGY
Data was collected from participants in the Southern and Southeastern regions of the United States, recruited from the online community, SurveyMonkey, and Product Advance. There were 87 respondents from 26 states, with men representing 59 percent of the sample, 86.7 percent Caucasian, with 60 percent having more than 10 years of employment with a non-profit, and the majority were 55 years of age or older. Each respondent completed the Leadership Practices Inventory. The researcher removed one statement from each LPI scale, and the resulting internal reliability coefficients were all greater than 0.71. Organizational performance was assessed by annual average revenue, number of programs, and average number of performance measures met in two time periods (between 2006 and 2008 and between 2009 and 2010 – the break between these two periods was to minimize the impact of a recession in 2008).

KEY FINDINGS
Multiple regression analysis did not show any statistically significant relationships between non-profits’ average revenue between 2006 and 2008 or between 2009 and 2010, and a model containing the five leadership practices. The same was true for number of programs between 2006 and 2008 and between 2009 and 2010 and the five leadership practices.