Double-edged sword: A comparative case study of leadership styles among women CEOs in the faith-based nonprofit sector.
This study explored the lived experiences of women CEOs within the faith-based
nonprofit sector and their ability to influence donors and volunteers through the lens of
Bernard Bass’ (1985) transformational leadership theory. The purpose of the study was to
review the lived experiences of women leaders within the faith-based nonprofit sector to
understand their attitudes toward inspiring donors and volunteers to support their
organizational missions. The findings from this study contributed to the existing research
on women in leadership, social-role theory and transformational leadership theory within
the faith-based nonprofit sector. The results of this study also provided insight useful for
understanding the strategies used by women to identify, recruit and retain donor and
volunteer support for faith-based mission attainment. Qualitative methodology was used
by individually interviewing eight female CEOs within the faith-based nonprofit sector.
This methodology enabled the exploration, examination and the formulation of
explanations by the researcher to describe the participants’ experiences from their
perspectives and in their own words. The Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ)
Self Rating tool was also used to assess the participant’s perception of using a
transformational leadership approach compared to the norm population. The MLQ
measured the five aspects of transformational leadership. These aspects include Idealized
Attributes (IA), Idealized Behavior (IB), Inspirational Motivational (IM), Intellectual
Stimulation (IS) and Individual Consideration (IC). This MLQ instrument also measured
two subsets of transformational leadership. These subsets include Contingent Rewards
(CR) and Management by Exception: Active (MBEA).