This blog entry is an introduction to transformational leadership theory. The core elements of transformational leaders are that they inspire followers to extraordinary performance and to a shared sense of commitment to a vision for the organization; encourage and challenge followers to be creative and innovative in their efforts to solve organizational problems; and focus on the development of the leadership skills of others through coaching, mentoring, and other forms of support.

I would like to spend some time examining a number of approaches to leadership (aka leadership models). These approaches, while no doubt grounded in one or more theories of leadership, can be distinguished from theories in that they attempt to place the concepts into more applied frameworks. That is, they attempt to describe leadership theories in a way that is meant to facilitate the application of the ideas.

Reason’s whole pleasure, all the joys of sense, Lie in three words — health, peace, and competence. ~ Alexander Pope Alexander Pope penned those lines of iambic pentameter in the first half of the 1700s. But I wouldn’t be surprised if I heard them from a stressed-out 21st century nonprofit executive director. Imagine the conversation. …

Introduction to Leadership Competencies It is clear that competencies have become a dominant method for the selecting, developing, and directing the efforts of leaders in organizations. My current definition of competencies is that they are the qualities most strongly associated with advanced levels of leadership and desired outcomes in an organization.

My leadership development journey began in 1961, when I popped into the world as the first CEO of the Donna and Jim Fabris Family. (I’ll use the organization’s acronym, DAJFF.) Jim and Donna founded DAJFF less than a year earlier. They were 23 years old. Jim says he’d been planning DAJFF since he was about …

In many ways, the key to the design of an effective leadership development process is to assure alignment with the organization’s culture, strategic direction, and the business initiatives considered most critical to future success.

I came to the overlapping fields of Leadership Development and Coaching through the stage door. I studied Theatre in college, have a graduate degree in Acting and started my adult life performing in Chicago’s Off-Loop theaters. Like my father in the newspaper business, I’ve grown up right alongside both the coaching profession and the field …

In her recent (April 16) blog, “To Lead” vs. “To Manage” (see: https://management.org/blogs/leadership/), Julia Fabris McBride observed that “Organizations need leadership AND management.” That made me realize that … up to now, I’ve been talking about fundraising from the perspective of “management – the role of the director of development – managing the volunteer leaders …

There is a wide and ever growing variety of theories to explain the concept and practice of leadership. I will provide a brief overview of the more dominant or better known theories. It is important to note that this submission attempts to provide an overview of leadership theories versus models. I view models as attempts to functionalize the more theoretical aspects of leadership and make them easier to put into play by organizations and consultants. This is, in and of itself, an important activity.

The word management means many different things to people. For example, it is sometimes conceptualized as a discipline, as is medicine or engineering. It is also commonly viewed as a set of specific, or not so specific, behaviors. And for many, management is the same thing as the role of manager, which is seen as a certain job level or classification.