Risks are an inherent part of life and in nonprofit organizations (NPOs) in particular. Nonprofit organizations struggle to respond to changes imposed by external and internal environmental influences. These influences revolve around the myriad social, cultural, political, environmental, and economic changes and their attendant challenges. The NPOs now face yet another challenge, which is a significant managerial leadership deficit. The purpose of this quantitative study is to examine whether nonprofit leaders’ risk-taking propensity (RTP) is associated with their managerial leadership styles (MLS). Furthermore, the study will examine if age, gender, level of education, size of an organization, and number of employees have any effect on a leader’s style and his or her propensity for risk-taking.
The study utilized a quantitative correlational research design. This was appropriate, as the purpose of this study was to measure the correlation between two variables. Of the 82 NPOs invited to participate, 125 leaders responded positively to the request. The 73 valid survey responses received were complete. This represents a 58.4% valid response rate for this study. Findings indicated that nonprofit leaders who participated in this correlational study considered themselves to utilize transformation leadership style, and the most common risk domain is the ethical domain. Also, a positive significant relationship between leader’s risk-taking propensity and his or her transformation leadership style
