Leadership for Promoting Sustainable Development: A Study of Nongovernmental Organization Leaders in Haiti

Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have played an increasingly important role in global governance. Since the end of the Second World War, they have been involved in every aspect of social, economic, environmental, and institutional life in the whole world. The presence of NGOs has been seen as a necessity for the developing world, but much more so for low-income countries such as Haiti. The amount of scholarship dedicated to the post-2010 Haiti earthquake revitalization indicates that Haiti must heavily rely on the leadership of nongovernmental organizations so that the country can achieve its sustainable development goals by 2030. However, significant delays in progress to date makes one question NGO leaders’ readiness for leading sustainable development initiatives. Since achievement of sustainable development requires certain characteristics and acumen among the NGO leaders, more must be known about the NGO leadership. This research study examined the relationship between leaders’ characteristics—leadership experience, knowledge of sustainable development, internalized moral perspective, balanced processing of information, and relational transparency—and the impact or location of their organizations. MANOVA results revealed significant group differences. The difference was that low impact NGO leaders reported higher levels of leadership experience and knowledge of sustainable than their medium and high impact counterparts. This study contributes to the NGO research literature by shedding light on some leader characteristics that should be emphasized in NGO leadership development programs in Haiti