Being a leader at NGO doesn’t come without a challenge, as a matter of fact; the performance of the NGO is reflected almost entirely by the performance of its leader. Such leaders need to have specific characteristics and features. So without any doubt, being the leader of a certain NGO should go beyond the management of tasks and getting results, to inspire and make a change on his team thus the NGO as a whole.
This type of leaders is called transformational leaders because they “Enable ordinary people to achieve extraordinary results” (Peters & Waterman, 1982; Bass, 1985). Accordingly such leader engages others through his care and modesty and doesn’t simply recite orders. Another skill NGO leaders ought to have is the ability to know which style to adopt depending on their pinpointing skills and decision to pick the most suitable; factors such as the environment must be assimilated in one’s decision.
A successful NGO leader should balance the two extremes of being a tough figure and a very participative one as managers, not only that, but also learns how to complement those two and make them compatible. Therefore, he/she should be at ease with showing their cooperative style as well as their leading role within the organization. Additionally to leadership styles and attitudes, comes emotional intelligence: in order to be effective at an NGO, the leader must have high levels of emotional intelligence because this is what determines their performance, it is how well they control their emotions and at what level of maturity their emotions are. Self-awareness is also related to emotional intelligence since individuals who show a great deal of self-awareness can manage themselves and others, therefore a wide variety of relationships. Another category of leadership skills falls under the development leader that tends to be both receptive and responsive and