Leadership styles and decision-making models among corporate leaders in non-profit organizations in North America

This research seeks to study the relationship between leadership styles (selling, telling, delegating, and participating) of non-profit executives and their preferred decision-making models (rational, intuitive, dependent, spontaneous, and avoidant) used operationally in managing non-profit outfits striving to survive in turbulent economic situations. The General Decision-Making Style Scale instrument and the Leader Behavior Description Questionnaire were the instruments used for this study, and 109 out 500 randomly selected executives and leaders responded to the surveys. Data analyses used for this study were the Pearson correlation coefficient and the two-way analysis of variance. Findings showed that there was a significant positive correlation between initiating structure leadership style and rational decision-making and between initiating structure leadership style and dependent decision. Other findings also show a significant relationship between leadership style and the rational decision-making model, gender and leadership styles and the intuitive decision-making model among others. Findings may be useful in further understanding the placement of individuals with particular leadership styles in identified decision-making roles. For instance, multiple comparisons results show that no matter what the demographic variables were, gender and age, corporate leaders who used the participating leadership style tend to use the dependent decision-making model.