Ideological Influences on Nonprofit Leadership

This position paper begins by briefly examining the nature of ideology from Antoine Destutt de Tracy in 1796 to postmodern and hermeneutic approaches, such as Ricoer. The influence of ideology on individuals, organizations, and society is discussed using the thoughts of Karl Marx, Max Weber, and George Herbert Mead. Ideological Influences on nonprofit organizations and their leadership are then examined for these three areas: 1. inclusion considerations, 2. programming, and 3. collaboration. Ideology is shown to consciously or unconsciously influence nonprofit organizations and Mindful leadership is suggested for dealing with its influence. The characteristics of mindful leadership discussed are compassion, self-awareness, equanimity, reflection, focus, deep listening, nonjudgement, and ego regulation. These characteristics are applied to the aforementioned areas of inclusion, programing, and collaboration to illustrate how mindful leaders can create positive and outcomes for their nonprofit organization by fostering a deeper connection between leaders, followers, and the organizational mission.