A wide-reaching study on non-governmental organisations operating in India reveals that most NGOs rely on almost a personality-cult style of leadership which they are finding difficult to replace for a multitude of reasons.
What could also be particularly worrying for the NGOs is an acceptance that a second rung of leadership is absent, and also of the fact that not much is or can be done to remedy the problem.
The study, however, falls short of revealing a chasm between an average Indian NGO’s top leadership and a second-tier one.
The findings have been published in a study done by The Bridgespan Group in association with the Omidyar Network titled “Building the Bench at Indian NGOs”. The study has been authored by Pritha Venkatachalam and Danielle Berfond, who have spoken with close to 250 NGO members, including funders, intermediaries, and executives from the industry to get a broad picture.
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“A full 97% of survey respondents say leadership development is vital to their organisations’ success, a belief echoed by funders. But practitioners and funders also say they invest little time and resources in cultivating leaders. Indeed, more than half the NGOs polled do not believe they are capable of recruiting, developing, and transitioning leaders. And more than 50% report their organisations have not received any funding to develop leaders in the past two years,” says the study.
The survey adds that the consequences of this lack of investment have resulted in an “overdependence on individual leaders, often founders, lack of a second line of leadership and limited organisational leadership skills.”
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The fact is reflected in the 53% of those surveyed saying that they do not feel anyone from within the organisation who would be able to lead it in the absence of its senior most leaders.
How to go about addressing the lack of leadership is also lacking in most NGOs, the study shows. Organisations see “development” of leadership more in terms of sending employees to conferences and organising training programmes.
“The gap between the founder or senior leader and the rest of the organisation is often very wide,” Daniel Lobo, director of Leaders’ Quest is quoted saying.
“There usually isn’t a conscious effort to develop the capabilities of people on the second rung.”
As consequence, NGOs are also seen to be able to retain their senior-most employees with poaching another high-level executive proving to be difficult. “NGOs find it hardest to recruit senior leaders, due to low compensation packages, lack of internal resources, and a limited talent pool,” says the study.
Partha Pratim Rudra, director of programme and programme development at Smile Foundation, tells the researchers that “at the senior and mid-management level, retention is quite good. There is this sense of a deeply shared vision and camaraderie.”
“Less than 30% of NGOs believe they are adept at recruiting high quality leaders; approximately 40% concede that they ‘struggle’ with it,” says the study.
