As the number of charities and foundations has exploded over the past decade, nonprofit boards have struggled with the challenge of finding qualified individuals to lead their organizations to the next level. In Leadership in Nonprofit Organizations Barry Dym and Harry Hutson, executive coaches and organizational development consultants, have drawn from their experiences as well as those of colleagues and leaders they've known to produce a research-driven analysis of how nonprofit leadership differs from leadership in other sectors.

Through case studies, histories, and exercises, Dym and Hutson explain that effective leadership is about more than finding a person with the requisite skills to lead an organization; it's about finding talented executives whose values are closely aligned with those of the organizations they lead.

How does an organization do that? Dym and Hutson recommend an interview technique known as "360-degree feedback," in which an interlocutor (typically a management consultant) speaks with board members, senior executives, and the leader's direct reports. The result is a well-rounded view of the leader —— warts and all ——— that reveals how and when a leader's values and style are a good fit for the organization — and when they aren't.

In addition to the relationship of leaders to their organizations, the authors also discuss the interaction between leaders and their followers. In effect, they write, the patterned interactions between leaders and followers form the "DNA of leadership." "[At the outset,] leaders and followers do not relate to one another as constants. Rather, they change in relation to one another, as they negotiate, as they try to bend each other to their many and complex ends, and as they try to grow more competent in dealing with one another."

Written in a text-book style suited to a graduate-level course on management, Leadership in Nonprofit Organizations is organized into clearly delineated chapters and sections that enable readers to quickly skim the contents and zero in on what they need. Throughout, the authors offer up (and encourage) a range of leadership models and approaches, as well as critical reviews of the literature.

At the end of the day, Dym and Hutson recognize that leading a nonprofit in the United States is less like conducting an orchestra than it is like jamming with the band. "As Americans, we dislike and mistrust efforts to ignore differences or to merge people into a single standard in which one type of person is said to be better than others," they write. "We appreciate the jazz of life ——— free-form within form." Indeed, isn't that why so many talented people choose to work in the nonprofit sector in the first place? Dym and Hutson surely would say yes.