NGOs lack quality leadership programs

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Exceptional NGOs rely on exceptional leaders. In the Indian social sector, a senior team’s competence is often the make-or-break factor in an organisation’s ability to make strides toward such ambitious goals as providing equitable healthcare, ensuring high quality education for children, or providing access to safe water and basic sanitation. Yet widespread doubts persist about whether there is sufficient investment in NGO leadership teams to achieve these important outcomes.

Against this backdrop, The Bridgespan Group, with support from Omidyar Network, undertook what we believe is the first data-driven study of NGO leadership development in India: “Building the Bench at India NGOs: Investing to Fill the Leadership Development Gap.”

Surveying approximately 250 leaders from Indian NGOs and the Indian offices of international NGOs, the study looked into NGOs’ efforts to strengthen their leaders’ skill sets and build their leadership bench. This is the sixth in a series of key findings:

Insufficient group learning opportunities
Leaders want full senior teams to attend leadership development programs

Feedback on the current landscape of leadership development programs consistently pointed to the need for more targeted and higher-quality programs. For example, 58 percent of NGO leaders want leadership programs to include senior staff from throughout their organisations, while most programs serve individual leaders.

Their rationale: Group learning can promote team trust and collaboration, as well as foster collective decision-making and a shared responsibility for championing change.

This is the last chart of a 10-part series from The Bridgespan Group. Read the introductory post here. Watch this space for a new chart of their survey findings every Friday. Click here to view the first nine charts of the series

Pritha Venkatachalam is a partner with The Bridgespan Group in Mumbai and co-author of the report, 'Building the Bench at Indian NGOs'. Danielle Berfond is a Bridgespan Group manager and co-author of the same report.

The thoughts and opinions shared here are of the author.