Flameout at the Top—Executive Calamity in the Nonprofit Sector

Abstract

Summary This paper deals with the issue of nonprofit executive problematics, which can be defined as behaviors that executives engage in that cause harm to themselves and their organizations such as inappropriate personal use of agency resources, embezzlement, and sexual acting out. It expands the study of “derailment” by exploring cases where through their misbehavior executives do extensive damage to themselves, their families, and their agencies. The paper will explore contributing personal causes as well as those inherent in both the formal and informal organizational structures of nonprofit organizations, and identify possible solutions. In many cases, such causes stem from an executive's strengths that become weaknesses when over applied, especially in conditions where the executive is used to success (hence a predisposition to continue using the strength), has no observing ego (and hence is poor at self control), and controls a weak board (hence external controls are limited). The study of executive problematics, especially the most egregious cases, is of the utmost importance because in the nonprofit sector, when a chief executive engages in any form of problematic behavior, it reflects badly not only upon his or her own organization, but upon the sector and even to the philanthropic and social service world as a whole.