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LODJ
35,6
Visionary leadership and its
relationship to organizational
effectiveness
566 Colette M. Taylor
Department of Educational Psychology and Leadership, Texas Tech University,
Received 9 October 2012
Revised 12 February 2013 Lubbock, Texas, USA
9 April 2013 Casey J. Cornelius
Accepted 9 April 2013
Department of Sociology, Delta College, University Center, Michigan, USA, and
Kate Colvin
Department of Educational Psychology and Leadership, Texas Tech University,
Lubbock, Texas, USA

Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between visionary leadership
and the perception of organizational effectiveness in nonprofit organizations. Leaders with high levels
of transformational leadership were predicted to be reported as having more effective organizations.
Design/methodology/approach – Data from 135 executive organizational leaders and 221 of their
subordinates were collected from 52 various nonprofit organizations across USA. Leaders completed
measures of leadership behavior and perceived organizational effectiveness, while followers provided
ratings of their perspective leaders’ leadership style, organizational effectiveness, and organizational
change magnitude.
Findings – Significant relationships were found between visionary leadership and perceived
organizational effectiveness. Regression analysis also showed some significant correlations between
high leadership behaviors and perceived organizational effectiveness. Visionary leaders with high
leadership skills facilitated the greatest perceived organizational effectiveness in their respective
organizations.
Practical implications – Leaders wishing to improve their organization’s effectiveness may wish to
adopt a visionary leadership style. Visionary leaders develop practices through executive training and
development that would hone their skills to significantly impact organizational effectiveness.
Originality/value – This paper contributes to the existing literature focussed on the relationship
between leadership styles and organizational effectiveness. Different aspects of these variables were
tested in order to provide a wider and more comprehensive understanding of the factors affecting
nonprofit organizations and their employees.
Keywords USA, Nonprofits, Organizational effectiveness, Visionary leadership
Paper type Research paper

Introduction
Leadership theories, alternatively referred to as “transformational,” “charismatic,” or
“visionary,” have been the focus of organizational behavior researchers for the past
two decades. Recently, transformational leadership has been shown to improve
follower performance (e.g. McColl-Kennedy and Anderson, 2002) as well as an
Leadership & Organization organization’s success (e.g. Waldman et al., 2004). Leaders, whether transformational,
Development Journal
Vol. 35 No. 6, 2014
charismatic, or visionary, inspire others to move beyond their self-interests to what is
pp. 566-583 best for the group or organization. Leadership helps an organization adapt to its
r Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0143-7739
environment by eliminating ineffective patterns of behavior and replacing them with
DOI 10.1108/LODJ-10-2012-0130 new ones. Organizational leaders provide direction, support, guidance, and assistance
to the organization in order for it to fulfill its mission. In short, leaders play an integral Visionary
role in an organization’s effectiveness. leadership
Despite this, limited empirical research has been conducted regarding the relationship
between leadership style and organizational effectiveness. House and Aditya (1997)
pointed out, “There is little evidence that charismatic, transformational, or visionary
leadership does indeed transform individuals, groups, large divisions of organizations,
or total organizations, despite claims that they do so” (p. 443). The purpose of this study 567
is to determine if visionary leadership helps explain executive director behavior relating
to the perceived effectiveness of the organization and to determine which leadership
behaviors or characteristics are most conducive to success in a nonprofit environment.
Thus, the theoretical framework of this study builds on two major areas of research: the
nature of visionary leadership and organizational effectiveness.

Visionary leadership
Leaders need to help organizations develop a greater sense of purpose by linking
efforts to successful outcomes. According to Bass (1996), transformational leadership
assists leaders in creating an atmosphere enhancing follower performance beyond
individual self-interest. In fact, visionary leadership, a form of transformational
leadership, offers opportunities to foster the capacity of an organization to meet the
needs of its constituents. This occurs in creative ways, despite complex and uncertain
times, by providing a framework that can become a touchstone for setting goals;
determining priorities; aligning structures, policies, and beliefs with principles; and
assessing progress.
Transformational and transactional leadership, as conceptualized by Bass (1985)
contrasts Burns (1978) ideals, who considered transformational and transactional
leadership on opposite ends of a scale. According to Burns (1978), transactional leadership
occurs when a leader approaches followers for the purpose of exchange, while
transformational leadership requires more than just the compliance of followers (Kuhnert
and Lewis, 1987). Bass (1985) alternatively explains that most leaders tend to display both
transformational and transactional leadership styles. Yukl et al. (2002) classify leadership
behaviors into three categories: task, relationship, and change-related behaviors. Task and
relationship behaviors are categorized as transactional, while change-related behaviors are
categorized as transformational. In other words, transformational leadership augments
transactional leadership. Transactional practices do little to bring about the enhanced
commitment and extra effort required for change, which will occur when the members of
an organization experience transformational leadership (Leithwood et al., 1996). Ultimately,
a leader must demonstrate a flexible, adaptive leadership style to address varying levels of
change within a situation and the leadership behaviors that are relevant for it (Yukl, 2008).
Visionary leaders, as opposed to transformational leaders, utilize vision on the
basis of their work. Visionary leadership has been defined as the ability to create
and articulate clear visions providing meaning and purpose to the work of an
organization (Nanus, 1992; Sashkin, 1992). Visionary leaders develop their own
personal vision then merge it into a shared vision with their colleagues. Communication
of the vision is what empowers people to act. When people do not act, it tends to be
because the vision has not been clearly communicated; people spend their time
trying to figure out what direction to go, which makes them tired and unresponsive
(Heath and Heath, 2010).
Transformational leaders have been found to exhibit behaviors and characteristics
that garner follower dedication (Connaughton and Daly, 2004; Kark et al., 2003;
LODJ Luhrmann and Eberl, 2007; Yukl, 2006), and it is important to note that visionary
35,6 leaders utilize transformational behaviors and characteristics. However, according to
Sashkin and Sashkin (2002), visionary leaders also display behaviors (i.e. confidence,
pro-social power behaviors, and organizational capabilities) that are “necessary for
followers themselves to have the knowledge, skills, and abilities” (p. 129) to achieve
organizational goals. In addition, visionary leadership theory offers an understanding
568 of an individual’s leadership style as it relates to the organizational context and
effectiveness (Sashkin, 1988; Sashkin and Fulmer, 1988).
Researchers have examined exceptional or “visionary” leaders who have been
accountable for notable growth in the success of their organizations (Bass, 1985; Bennis
and Nanus, 1985; Luhrmann and Eberl, 2007; Martin and Epitropaki, 2001). These
studies reported that well-respected leaders were perceived to have the ability to
articulate visions or missions to their followers, then inspire and empower those
followers to engage in and derive rewards from a change in organizational function
and growth. Visionary leadership (Zhu et al., 2005) creates high levels of cohesion,
commitment, trust, motivation, and enhanced performance in the new organizations.
The impact of a leader’s effectiveness can be used to measure organizational
effectiveness (Hogan and Kaiser, 2005).

Organizational effectiveness
Organizational research has been dominated for over a century by the quest to identify
the components of organizational effectiveness (Collins and Porras, 1994; Fayol, 1949).
Some researchers contend that effectiveness is not a concept, but rather a construct.
The construct of effectiveness is not a real property of any organization, but rather
a label, which people use with varying degrees of agreement. For multiple reasons, the
effective label is applied both to people and organizations (Herman and Heimovics,
1990). Often, the label is applied when a particular organizational action achieves
a specific desired outcome. Au (1996) further clarified by stating that effectiveness
refers to the degree of correspondence between the actual and desired outputs
of an organization.
Recently touted as one of the 40 most important frameworks in the history of
business, the Competing Values Framework (CVF) originally describes the conflicting
nature inherent in organizational environments and the convolution of choices faced
by managers when responding to competing expectations. Quinn (1988) and other
theorists argue that a multi-dimensional world requires a multi-dimensional model.
The CVF describes several effective leadership roles by aligning pairs of roles with
specific organizational environments. Individuals who embrace the innovator and
broker roles use creativity and communication skills to bring about change and acquire
the resources necessary for change management within an organization. Individuals
utilize the monitor and coordinator roles to maintain organizational processes and
structures while the director and producer roles are used to achieve goals (Quinn, 1988).
Finally, the facilitator and mentor roles tend to assist leaders with motivating a work
force driven by commitment and involvement. Quinn (1988) categorizes each of these
roles into transformational roles (facilitator, mentor, innovator, and broker) and
transactional roles (monitor, coordinator, director, and producer). Drawing from
a variety of researchers (Forgus and Schulman, 1979; Driver and Rowe, 1979;
Mitroff and Mason, 1982; Quinn and Rohrbaugh, 1983), Quinn (1988) also identifies
information processing approaches in the CVF. Each approach represents a certain
interwoven morality and value system which precedes the assumptions that people
make about what is good or bad, effective or ineffective. Executives and managers Visionary
are expected to play many roles within these approaches, while balancing differing leadership
expectations and competing demands (Belasen and Frank, 2008; Quinn, 1988; Yu
and Wu, 2009).

Conceptual model of visionary leadership and organizational effectiveness

Leadership has been found to serve as an essential link between an organizational 569
effectiveness and individual performance ( Judge and Piccolo, 2004; Keller, 2006; Wang
and Howell, 2010). A leader’s influence on individual performance may not necessarily
indicate that leader’s influence on performance at the organization level, but some
researchers have indicated that aggregated employee attitudes and behaviors relate to
organizational performance (Estes and Wang, 2008; Wang et al., 2011). Some evidence
suggests that transformational leadership behaviors relate to organization-level
performance (Martı́nez-Campillo and Fernandez-Gago, 2011). These researchers
found that management style of the CEO influenced the relationship between firm
performance and type of diversification strategy. In addition, transformational leadership
has been found to have a positive relationship with organizational innovation
( Jung et al., 2003).
On the other hand, researchers have also failed to relate transformational leadership
behavior with organization-level effectiveness (Agle et al., 2006; Ensley et al., 2006;
Waldman et al., 2001). Supporting the contradiction, Fenwick and Gayle (2008) have
concluded current findings of the link between organizational effectiveness and
leadership is inconclusive and difficult to interpret.
In an attempt to contribute to a better understanding in this area of research, this
study is designed to expand the current literature investigating the relationship
between visionary leadership and organizational effectiveness. Specifically, it strives to
determine if the theory of visionary leadership helps to explain executive director
behavior as it relates to perceived effectiveness of a nonprofit organization and to
determine which leadership behaviors, characteristics, or effects are most conducive to
success in a nonprofit environment (see Figure 1). The following hypotheses ground
this study:

H1. The measures of visionary leadership style are strongly related to

organizational effectiveness measures as outlined by the Competing Values
Scale.
H2. Leaders and their associates perceive levels of visionary leadership and
organizational effectives similarly.
H3. Perceptions of organizational effectiveness can be predicted by the level of
visionary leadership behaviors.

Methodology
Participants
In total, 275 nonprofit executives and 550 directors and managers of those respective
organizations were invited to participate. Perspective participants were randomly
sampled from a cross-section of nonprofit organizations, including small, medium, and
large size nonprofit organizational settings and representing all geographic regions of
North America. In total, 300 local nonprofit organizations were randomly selected
for this study from local mailing lists of executive directors and staff members for the
LODJ
35,6 Visional Leadership
Behavior
Visionary Visionary Leadership
Leadership Characteristics,
Visionary Culture Building

570
Competing
Values
Framework

Leadership Role
Organizational Perceived
Effectiveness Approach Organizational
Effectiveness
Figure 1.
Model of organizational
effectiveness in
nonprofit organizations

18 nonprofit organizations. A letter of invitation along with packets containing

questionnaires and stamped return envelopes were mailed to executives and two
subordinates of all selected organizations.
In total, 135 executive directors voluntarily completed the research surveys,
representing a 64.9 percent response rate. In addition, 221 associates from the
participating organizations-primarily senior managers or middle managers-completed
the subordinates’ survey packets. Therefore, of the subordinate survey packets recoded
in this analysis, this represented a 42 percent response rate of return.

Demographics
Table I provides descriptive demographics of the participants, including gender,
ethnicity, educational background, and level of nonprofit experience. Of the total
respondents, 171 (48.0 percent) were females and 185 (52.0 percent) were male.
Of the 135 executive directors, 61 (45.2 percent) were female and 74 (54. 8 percent) were
male. The gender breakdown for the 221 subordinates was 110 (49.8 percent) female
and 111 (50.2 percent) male. The median number of years in the nonprofit sector
was 15.2 years.

Measures
The instruments used in the study included; a demographic inventory, the CVF
(Quinn, 1988), and the Leader Behavior Questionnaire – Revised (Sashkin, 1996). The
demographic inventory solicited information from participants with regard to age,
racial/ethnic background, gender, length of nonprofit experience, type of nonprofit
organization, and educational background.

Competing Values Scale

The Competing Values Scale addresses Quinn’s (1988) CVF. Employing a
multi-dimensional view of the roles required of organizational leaders who function
in a multi-dimensional world, the Competing Values Scale has two parts: leadership
Variable n %
Visionary
leadership
Title
Executive directors 135 37.9
Associates 221 62.1
Total 356 100.0
Gender 571
Male 185 52.0
Female 171 48.0
Total 356 100.0
Ethnicity
Hispanic 33 9.3
African-American/black 24 6.7
Caucasian 238 83.7
Asian 0 0.0
Other 1 0.33
American Indian 0 0.0
Total 356 100.0
Educational background
Bachelor’s degree 144 40.4
Master’s degree 147 41.3
Doctorate or other professional degree 12 3.7
Other 38 10.7
No response 14 3.9
Total 356 100.0
Current years in position
o1 year 7 2.0
1-5 years 144 50.3
6-10 years 89 25.0
11-14 years 33 9.2
414 years 48 13.5
Total 356 100.0
Years in nonprofit sector
o1 year 0 0.0
1-5 years 34 9.3
6-10 years 79 22.2
11-14 years 89 25.0 Table I.
414 years 154 43.2 Descriptive statistics –
Total 356 100.0 frequencies

role and organizational effectiveness approach. In the leadership roles section,

executives are asked to indicate on a Likert scale between 1 (very infrequently)
to 7 (very frequently) how often they engage in 16 behaviors. Responses describe
eight roles leaders tend to perform: producer, director, coordinator, facilitator,
innovator, mentor, monitor, and broker. Part Two of the Scale, organizational
effectiveness, describes organizational performance by how often the particular
situations occur in the organization outlining eight possible ways to define
organizational effectiveness.
Cronbach’s a scores, which measure scale reliability, show a high reliability
regarding the items measured on the Competing Values Scale. The a score measuring
the eight roles from previous studies show a range between 0.90 and 0.73 (Quinn, 1988).
Data analysis suggests that there is discriminate validity, and reliability scores are
high (Quinn, 1988).
LODJ Leadership Behavior Questionnaire-Revised (LBQ-R)
35,6 The LBQ-R (Sashkin, 1996) measures leadership behaviors, personal characteristics,
and organizational context (Sashkin and Rosenbach, 1993; Van Velsor and Leslie,
1991). Constructed as a measure of organizational leadership, the instrument claims to
measure three characteristics of visionary leadership: visional leadership behavior,
visionary leadership characteristics, and visionary culture building. An important
572 aspect of the LBQ-R is that it measures transformational leadership from both the
perspective of the respondents (the executive) and their associates.
Scores from the first five minor subscales; Clear Leadership, Consistent Leadership,
Caring Leadership, and Creative Leadership are summed to provide a cluster score for
the Visionary Leadership subscale. Three scales-Confident Leadership, Empowered
Leadership, and Visionary Leadership are totaled to glean a cluster score for Visionary
Leadership Characteristics subscale. The final two scales, Organizational Leadership
and Cultural Leadership, provide the cluster score for Visionary Culture Building
subscale. The Visionary Leadership total score is made up of the nonweighted sums of
all 10 scales.
The original leadership behavior questionnaire (LBQ) was developed by Sashkin in
1987 and has been undergoing an evolution to what is now knows as The Leadership
Profile (TLP) in order to quantify and assess the aspects of visionary leadership.
Sashkin (1996) developed the LBQ-R, which was utilized in this current study, to
measure leadership behaviors, personal characteristics, and organizational context
(Sashkin and Rosenbach, 1993; Van Velsor and Leslie, 1991). The most recent evolution,
the TLP, measures three aspects of leadership: transactional and transformational
behaviors as well as culture. All of these instruments (LBQ, LBQ-R, and TLP) demonstrate
high validity and reliability (Rosenbach et al., 1996; Sashkin, 2004; Sashkin et al., 1992) and
were used also in a wide variety of research studies.

Results
Data were analyzed in four phases:
(1) an analysis of descriptive statistics used for the demographic profile;
(2) a correlational study to determine the degree to which there was a relationship
between visionary leadership behaviors;
(3) a Mann-Whitney U-test, as a nonparametric alternative to the independent
groups t-test, to evaluate significant differences between the nonnominal
variables of the LBQ-R and the Competing Values Scale; and
(4) a multiple regression analysis because the dependent variable, leadership
behavior, is affected-simultaneously by multiple independent variables.
This allowed the researchers to isolate the source(s) of significant relationships
between visionary leadership behavior and effectiveness.
Analysis of data for phases 2 through 4 was used to assess the hypotheses revealed
the following:
H1 stated that the measures of visionary leadership style are strongly related to
organizational effectiveness measures as outlined by the CVF. Results found
significant relationships between visionary leadership, as described by the LBQ-R, and
perceived organizational effectiveness, as the described by the Competing Values Scale.
Table II demonstrates significant roles were innovator roles (r ¼ 0.206, p ¼ 0.17),
the coordinator (r ¼ 0.243, p ¼ 0.017), broker (r ¼ 0.260, p ¼ 0.002), director (r ¼ 0.344,
Leadership roles (x) Leadership behavior (y) Correlation (rxy)
Visionary
leadership
Facilitator VLB 0.020*
VLC 0.132*
VCB 0.186
TLBQ 0.045*
Innovator VLB 0.197 573
VLC 0.158*
VCB 0.118*
TLBQ 0.206
Producer VLB 0.068*
VLC 0.357
VCB 0.077*
TLBQ 0.116*
Coordinator VLB 0.195
VLC 0.266
VCB 0.076*
TLBQ 0.243
Mentor VLB 0.092*
VLC 0.138*
VCB 0.085*
TLBQ 0.007*
Broker VLB 0.117*
VLC 0.393
VCB 0.206
TLBQ 0.260
Director VLB 0.359
VLC 0.175
VCB 0.085*
TLBQ 0.344
Monitor VLB 0.314
VLC 0.155*
VCB 0.173 Table II.
TLBQ 0.261 Pearson product moment
correlations between
Notes: VLB, visionary leadership behavior; VLC, visionary leadership characteristic; VCB, visionary LBQ-R and competing
culture building; TLBQ, total leadership behavior. *These variables were not significant at p40.05 values leadership roles

p ¼ 0.000), and monitor (r ¼ 0.261, p ¼ 0.002) when compared to the total LBQ-R scores.
In examining the relationship between LBQ-R “Self ” scores and the eight organizational
effectiveness approaches among executive directors, the documentation and information
management approach (r ¼ 0.259, p ¼ 0.002) was statistically significant.
When examining the relationship between LBQ-R scores and the eight Competing
Values Scales organizational effectiveness approaches among associates significant
approaches were found. Positive correlations between five organizational effectiveness
variables (participation and openness, innovation and adaptation, commitment
and morale, external support and growth, and direction and clarity) were found (see
Table III for more details).
H2 stated that leaders and their associates perceive levels of visionary leadership and
organizational effectives similarly. Overall, the findings from the LBQ questionnaire
(Sashkin and Burke, 1990) show that participating executive directors self-impressions of
their leadership styles demonstrated transformational leadership characteristics and
do not differ greatly from the observations of their subordinates, The mean score for the
LODJ total LBQ score from the executive directors was 214.2 while the total LBQ score was
35,6 203.3 from the subordinates. Table IV shows the means, standard deviations, and ranges
for the three subscales and the LBQ totals for executive directors, while Table V shows
the means, standard deviations, and ranges for the LBQ scores of the LBQ scores of the
associates rating their executives. A Mann-Whitney U sample t-test was used to compare

574 Organizational effectiveness approaches (x) Leadership behavior (y) Correlation (rxy)

Participation and openness VLB 0.221

VLC 0.197
VCB 0.230
TLBQ 0.223
Innovation and adaptation VLB 0.291
VLC 0.251
VCB 0.297
TLBQ 0.285
Productivity and accomplishment VLB 0.008*
VLC 0.110
VCB 0.051*
TLBQ 0.051*
Stability and control VLB 0.166
VLC 0.114
VCB 0.042*
TLBQ 0.137
Commitment and morale VLB 0.285
VLC 0.277
VCB 0.224
TLBQ 0.286
External support and growth VLB 0.355
VLC 0.277
VCB 0.300
TLBQ 0.330
Direction and goal clarity VLB 0.357
VLC 0.301
VCB 0.273
TLBQ 0.335
Table III. Documentation and info management VLB 0.093*
Pearson product moment VLC 0.016*
correlations between VCB 0.006*
LBQ-R scores and TLBQ 0.059*
competing values
organizational Notes: VLB, visionary leadership behavior; VLC, visionary leadership characteristic; VCB, visionary
effectiveness approaches culture building; TLBQ, total leadership behavior. *These variables were not significant at p40.05

LBQ score Mean SD Range

VLB 105.9 8.7 43.0

Table IV. VLC 64.2 4.8 22.0
Means, standard VCB 43.3 3.3 12.0
deviations, ranges LBQ total 214.2 14.5 71.0
for LBQ scores of
nonprofit executives Note: n ¼ 135
“Self ” and “Other” scores on LBQ questionnaire (Sashkin and Burke, 1990). There Visionary
were significant differences on five of the following subscales: Clear Leadership with a leadership
p-value of 0.03, Consistent, Confident, Organizational, and Cultural leadership with p-values
of 0.000.
The U statistic determined that executive directors scored themselves significantly
higher in the listed subscales than did their associates. Within the three subscales, the
VCB had a p-value of 0.000 and VLC had a p-value of 0.011, making them significant 575
at the 0.05 level. The VLB had a p-value of 0.411. The LBQ-R totals had a p-value of
0.079. Therefore, no significant differences were found between the “Self ” and “Other”
ratings.
H3 stated that perceptions of organizational effectiveness can be predicted by the
level of visionary leadership behaviors. Table VI displays the results of the multiple
regression analysis which indicates a significant linear relationship between visionary
leadership, as described by the LBQ-R, and perceived organizational effectiveness, as
described by the Competing Values Scale with R ¼ 0.460 and R2 ¼ 0.211.
The multiple R shows substantial correlation between six variables (participation
and openness, innovation and adaptation, stability and control, commitment and
morale, external support and growth, and direction and clarity), and two variables did
not meet entry requirements (productivity and accomplishment and documentation
and information management). The direction of influence for five of the Competing
Values is positive, while the direction of the stability and control approach is negative;
suggesting the higher transformational leadership scores the less the stability and
control approach is utilized. This may be explained by the fact that visionary leaders
tend to retain a work plan centered on the expressed vision by linking it to
superordinate and subordinate goals (Wofford and Goodwin, 1994). This provides

LBQ score Mean SD Range

VLB 101.9 16.7 56.0 Table V.

VLC 60.9 9.2 32.0 Means, standard
VCB 40.1 6.5 25.0 deviations, ranges for
LBQ total 203.2 31.6 105.0 LBQ scores of nonprofit
associates rating their
Note: n ¼ 221 executives

Variable B SE B b p

Participation and openness 8.1 3.52 0.122 0.022

Innovation and adaptation 4.82 2.15 0.139 0.026 Table VI.
Productivity and accomplishment* 3.27 2.31 0.073 0.157 Summary of multiple
Stability and control 6.38 1.83 0.224 0.001 regression analysis for
Commitment and morale 5.63 2.49 0.139 0.024 variables predicting
External support and growth 7.81 2.02 0.220 0.000 organizational
Direction and goal clarity 6.75 2.27 0.192 0.003 effectiveness using total
Documentation and info. management* 1.17 1.76 0.034 0.506 visionary leadership
behavior as the
Notes: n ¼ 356. *These variables were not significant at p40.05 dependent variable
LODJ followers with an action-oriented road map to structure their activities, rather than the
35,6 leader needing to coordinate those matters in a detailed manner.

Conclusion and practical implications

Organizations of all types are looking for ways to produce successful outcomes.
Visionary leadership is an often-researched concept, which has the potential to produce
576 long-lasting positive outcomes that are desired. The findings demonstrate that leader
actions can result in positive perceptions of employees, which increase the likelihood that
long-term successes might be met by the organization. Visionary leaders provide
guidance, encouragement, and motivation. Visionary leader also comprehend the outside
environment, react appropriately, and are instrumental in shaping and affecting
organizational practices, procedures, products, and services (Nanus and Dobbs, 1999).
These leaders are instrumental in activating organizational vision and must be involved
in the organization to bring about and sustain excellence while preparing and leading
the way to success. Therefore, those in authority positions will need to have better
understanding of leadership, organizational change, and effectiveness.
Rowold and Rohmann (2009) found that transformational leadership styles were
more strongly related to effectiveness than transactional leadership styles in German
voluntary choirs. Similarly, the current study results suggest that visionary leadership
has a positive effect of perceived organizational effectiveness in the nonprofit setting
and is consistent with previous research findings. Participation and openness,
innovation and adaptation, commitment and morale, external support and growth, and
direction and clarity are each positively correlated with a leader’s visionary actions.
Hooijberg (1996) researched the impact of the leader’s performance on the perceptions
of effectiveness by the leader’s subordinates, peers, and superiors. He also found strong
support for leaders having a broad range of leadership roles, which are seen as more
effective by those subordinates, peers, and supervisors. Other studies (Hater and Bass,
1988; Waldmen et al., 1990) have shown leadership effectiveness positively and
significantly related to transformational leadership behaviors and negatively related to
managements by exception. The visionary leadership styles that evidence themselves in
this study illustrate the ability to intervene in the social environment through advocacy,
fostering innovation, and policy change as well as acquiring political savvy. The future
of nonprofit organizations depends upon the ability of executive directors, directors, and
managers to continually communicate with their multiple constituencies as well as
question and challenge the assumptions and parameters that frame their behaviors
(Menefee and Thompson, 1994). Each of these processes requires the ability to evolve a
vision into an action state, the highest form of visionary or transformational leadership
(Barach and Eckhardt, 1996). Therefore, those in authority will need to have better
understanding of leadership, organizational change and effectiveness.
Today’s nonprofit enterprise, as it grows to meet the needs of a rapidly changing
world, has to adjust to the rapidly changing realities of what nonprofits are, what
nonprofits do, whom nonprofits serve, and how nonprofits conduct their activities.
Nonprofit leaders face a variety of pressures from “increasing numbers of agencies
seeking support, shifting government funding, and the presence of for-profit
organizations in human services” (Chetkovich and Frumkin, 2003, p. 564). To be
successful in this type of environment, visionary individuals need to lead and execute
their bottom-up strategic process in partnership with their teams.
In this sample, nonprofit executives were perceived as effective leaders of their
agencies, employing transformational leadership skills as well as transactional skills to
produce results. Executive directors, as suggested by findings from the Competing Visionary
Values Scale, employed transactional roles such as producer (6.36) and director (5.70). leadership
Scoring highest in the producer role, executives viewed themselves as responsible of
initiating actions, being task oriented and work focussed. While executive directors in
this study demonstrated the use of producer role in organizational effectiveness, which
is a transactional role, the pre-dominate organizational effectiveness role of executive
directors were transformational in nature as outlined by Quinn (1988). 577
In addition, subordinates in this study perceived their executive directors to be
innovative and adaptive in their leadership roles, indicating that these leaders
effectively used their visionary leadership skills in their organizations. Executive
directors also perceived themselves to be innovative and adaptive in their leadership
roles in this study.
Nonprofit leaders have to become more creative and efficient to pool their efforts of
support and ways to better serve their clients. In order to respond to changes in the
marketplace of nonprofit organizations, executive directors need to be innovative and
adaptive when adjusting to their diverse funding sources, changing needs and services
for the clients, and increased governmental accountability. Despite their high level of
transformational leadership roles, executive directors in this study also demonstrated
high-level affiliation with the productive leadership role. As the “producers,” executive
directors enhance their organization’s success, by being both internally and externally
focussed and creating the paradox of competing values. The conclusions reached in
this study have implications that should be considered by researchers working on
understanding leadership behavior, particularly in nonprofit organizations. Despite
begin focussed on the nonprofit, the researchers believe study results can be applied to
the business sector.
Thach and Thompson (2007) suggest that there is universality to leadership skills
regardless of for-profit and public/nonprofit organizational status. Specifically,
leaders from both sectors indicated the importance of leadership skills for achieving
business results. The findings of this study demonstrate how executives working
in today’s challenging environments have to be “value-added.” This means that
executives must add value to the resources of their organizations at all levels,
with higher-level leadership requiring the ability to navigate uncertainty, manage
risk, and assimilate complex information (Fiedler, 1996). The visionary leadership
styles that evidenced themselves in this study illustrate the ability to intervene
in organizational environments through advocacy, fostering policy change, and
acquiring political savvy.
Because of the important role of organizational leaders and their ability to lead
organizations with their vision, the finding of the current study outlines specific
professional knowledge needed for organizational leaders. In the USA, the concepts of
management are often integrated into business schools, public management schools,
distinctive nonprofit management programs, and even into specific fields (arts
administration, health administration, etc.). Many of these programs are solely
focussed on business skills rather than leadership development (Hwang and Powell,
2009). Based on the results of this study, current leadership programs, for the nonprofit
and business sector alike, should strive to reach beyond accentuating visionary leader
traits. Leadership programs should prepare future executives to engage styles which
emphasize mutual goals of the participants and accomplish recognized outcomes.
An increased understanding of how visionary leadership enhances an organization’s
effectiveness is not only appealing for the future of leadership research, but necessary
LODJ to improve competitive advantage in both the nonprofit and business sectors. As Gold
35,6 et al. (2001) outlined organizational effectiveness allows organizations to have an
improved ability to innovate and coordinate work efforts. In addition, organizational
effectiveness gives businesses a greater ability to facilitate rapid commercialization of
new ideas and products to the marketplace.
Future research could expand on the findings presented in this study in several
578 ways. This study focussed on the executive leaders and their subordinates; therefore
an evaluation of superordinate or board member perceptions would be useful. Because
management, organizational effectiveness, and leadership practices are intertwined,
and competing demands and values often create a greater managerial intensity, more
fine-grained studies of the impact of specific leadership behaviors on decision making
would be useful. Comparison case studies of leaders whom have adopted visionary
leadership behaviors in the business sector and nonprofit sector could expand the
understanding of how these behaviors impact organizations. In addition, case studies
could examine if nonprofits’ efficiency in advocacy, political mobilization, or
community engagement is increased by widespread adoption of visionary leadership
and new managerial practices. Additionally, consideration of leader traits (race, gender,
age, etc.) and perceptions of visionary ability should be considered. Future studies need
to address the question of potential cultural differences, which may account for the
impact of visionary leadership on organizational performance. The above findings
provide a springboard to examine relationships between these variables and
perceptions of visionary leadership and overall organizational success.

Study limitations
This research is conducted acknowledging several limitations. First, this study was
limited to nonprofit executives whose institutions were collaborating partners with
colleges and universities in the USA. This provides a limited view of the affiliated
organizations that provides only plausible explanations for the observed relationships
between visionary leadership behaviors and perceived organizational effectiveness
variables. In addition, the fact that this study was conducted within the context of
nonprofit organizations in the USA raises a question about the extent to which the
findings would hold in other countries. Second, the leadership behavior data collected
for this study were obtained from nonprofit staff members only – no data were
obtained from superordinates, advisory boards or peers. Those engaging in the act of
leadership will consistently search for new and innovative ways to achieve collective
goals for their organizations. Despite the limitations described above, the applicability
of this study adds to the literature as it relates to visionary leadership from both
theoretical and practical standards.

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Dr Colette M. Taylor can be contacted at: [email protected]

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