Strategic Leadership in the Nonprofit Sector: Opportunities for Research

Abstract

The field of strategic leadership, or the study of how top-level leaders influence organizational performance, has not yet been widely extended to the nonprofit sector. Prior research on nonprofit leadership suggests strategic leadership theory is applicable in nonprofit organizations. However, the exercise of nonprofit strategic leadership may differ from that found in the for-profit sector. Drawing from the literature on both strategic leadership and nonprofit leadership, propositions are offered to explain the ways in which nonprofit strategic leadership contributes to organizational performance. Propositions developed to explain organizational performance concern learning capacity, capacity for change, managerial wisdom, organizational context, organizational innovation, and mission trajectory.