So, who\u27s in charge?! : Managing Differences in Perceived Leaders Among Volunteers

Volunteers contribute greatly to the success of many organizations in the nation; this is especially true for nonprofit organizations that often find themselves stretched thin financially. Interestingly, although the importance of volunteers is generally acknowledged, there is little research investigating volunteers\u27 perceptions of their leaders. When it comes to volunteers, expectations for leadership may be different than for employees. To address this gap in the literature, we take a step back and seek to understand the underlying nature of leadership for volunteers in nonprofit organizations. Studies have often bypassed the usefulness of qualitative research in examining new phenomenon. In an effort to avoid simply drawing comparisons between volunteers and employees, we sought to understand how volunteer leadership looks to volunteers by analyzing the perceived strengths and weaknesses of their leaders through a series of open-ended questions. Given previous robust work on leadership in organizations, we anticipated that we would see different leadership styles emerge across different organizations. The responses to the open-ended questions were coded for emergent themes which were then analyzed. We found evidence that volunteers\u27 perceptions of their leaders primarily align with task- and relations-oriented leadership styles. This study provided insight to how volunteer leadership looks to volunteers in nonprofit organizations. The results of this study highlight the importance of gaining a deeper understanding into how leadership is perceived by volunteers in nonprofit organizations, as well as how this perception may differ from paid employees in other organizations