Leader–Member Exchange and Employee Performance in Nonprofit Organizations

LMX

LMX represents a unique approach to understanding leadership and leadership effectiveness. In LMX, leaders develop different types of relationships with subordinates based on similarities, shared values, and personality styles (Pellegrini, 2015). Within this LMX conceptualization of leadership as exchange between leaders and followers, leader–follower relationships can be categorized in two broad ways, as being either high quality or low quality.

High-quality LMX is characterized by an in-group relationship between leader and followers (Pellegrini, 2015). In-group relationships have the leader and followers share a relationship wherein they associate with one another and the organization as a whole. As a result, employees have increased access to resources, as well as mutual trust, respect, and loyalty with their managers (Pellegrini, 2015). On the contrary, low-quality LMX is characterized by an out-group relationship. In this type of relationship, there is more of an “us and them” mentality driving a leader and his or her followers. Thus, the resulting relationship is defined only in terms of interaction pertaining to the employee’s job description and financial relationship with the organization (Pellegrini, 2015). Therefore, high-quality LMX is similar to the theory of transformational leadership, in which transformational leaders are said to empower their followers, care about them and their interests, lead by example, inspire them to sacrifice self-interest for the sake of an organizational vision, and challenge them intellectually (Bass, 1985). In turn, low-quality LMX is more comparable with transactional leadership, a less active style of leadership wherein leaders lead primarily through the exchange of rewards and by compensating employees for their services (Thompson et al., 2018).

Nonprofit human services organizations that provide services and support to individuals with disabilities rely upon their employees to accomplish organizational missions (Reed & Henley, 2015). Like any organization, NPOs desire better organizational outcomes, while mirroring the organizational structure of a for-profit organization. Most NPOs consist of supervisors who oversee the employees doing the basic work of the organization (Sargeant & Day, 2018). LMX can therefore be used to understand the types of relationships between leaders and followers in the NPO setting wherein leaders develop different quality relationships with followers in different teams (Sargeant & Day, 2018). This pool of findings is vital information in the context of examining the role of LMX in terms of employee outcomes in the specific context of human services NPOs serving individuals with disabilities.

Leadership in NPOs

In NPOs, tactical—or direct supervisory-level—leadership has three main functions. These are to serve as developers, to be inspirational figures for their followers, and to be agents of change within the organization and the social context of the NPO (Hess & Bacigalupo, 2013). All three of these roles naturally play toward the strengths of transformational leadership. Most NPOs seek some sort of social goal, hence their “nonprofit” nature. Therefore, the transformational leader’s inspirational leadership style matches this context and may help to remind employees of why they were drawn to the NPO instead of a for-profit organization, thereby contributing to commitment and retention (Moore, 2019; Osula & Ng, 2014). As a result, multiple studies (e.g., Allen et al., 2013; McMurray et al., 2012) have found transformational leadership to be the most effective form of leadership for NPOs as opposed to transactional and laissez-faire. In the context of an NPO, transactional leadership would rely more upon a financial incentive to inspire employees to work hard. As NPOs often have a limited budget, leaders are unable to rely upon a transactional relationship. Laissez-faire leadership also presents its own complications making it inappropriate for NPOs. Laissez-faire gives employees the opportunity to do what they wish free from leadership interference; however, NPOs often rely upon a structure to keep employees and volunteers engaged in their work thereby creating a negative relationship between employees and leadership (Allen et al., 2013).

Human Services NPOs

Although NPOs as a category are united by their pursuit of something other than profit of financial success, the term covers a huge variety of specific organizations. As the name suggests, human services organizations can serve a wide range of clients, including the elderly, orphaned children, or those with disabilities. This study focused specifically on the context of human services NPOs that provide services to people with disabilities. Human services NPOs that provide services to people with disabilities is a context in which LMX may be particularly relevant in terms of organizational outcomes.

The organizational structure of this type of NPO is somewhat unique as well, as it is typically characterized in one of two ways. In this context, supervisors can be middle or upper management, while a direct service employee is an employee whose primary function in the organization is to provide services to individuals with disabilities. Direct support employees assist clients with daily needs such as bathing, preparing meals, shopping, completing housework, managing finances, obtaining medical care, and accessing recreation (Firmin et al., 2013).

The relationship between supervisor and direct service employee can be at times characterized in the traditional way, with the supervisor administering from a centralized administrative site while the direct service employees provide care in various places (Gray & Muramatsu, 2013). In other cases, the supervisor instead works out of the same site and may also spent part of his or her time doing direct service work in addition to administrative duties (Gray & Muramatsu, 2013). These differing leadership functions have the potential to affect the way leader–follower relationships develop.

Research Gap

In general, LMX is considered to be a good predictor of positive workplace outcomes. The majority of existing LMX research has been in the context of for-profit organizations in the traditional leadership structure. While NPOs are adopting more business-like practices today, human services NPOs represent a unique context, both in terms of the motivations of the organization and in the leadership form. Furthermore, research suggests that LMX may play an important role in motivating and otherwise shaping the work outcomes of the type of employees drawn to NPO work (Griep et al., 2016). This makes the relative dearth of LMX research in the NPO context relevant to both theory—whether or not LMX is actually a good theory to apply in NPOs—and practice.

When LMX is studied, it is usually looked at as a single construct: as present or absent (e.g., Dienesch & Liden, 1986; Unnu & Kesken, 2014). LMX is always present to some degree because there is always some interface between leaders and followers. The more germane question, therefore, is to ask what the effects of different types of LMX are, since high-quality and low-quality LMX can have significantly different and equally important effects (Furunes et al., 2015). By approaching the issue from an open-ended, qualitative perspective, it should be possible to determine whether this idea of high- and low-quality LMX is relevant in practice or perceived in the actual application of LMX in human services NPOs and, if so, how. Answering this contributes to the understanding of how LMX should most accurately be described within the context of human services NPOs.

Research Purpose and Research Questions

The purpose of this study was to examine how LMX can affect workplace outcomes in NPOs and to understand and explore how the quality of the professional relationship between leader/supervisor and employees who provide supports and services to individuals with disabilities in an NPO may affect the employee. To serve this purpose, a qualitative, exploratory case study was carried out. As per the conventions of case study research, the study drew data from multiple data sources, including interviews with two participant groups and archival records (Yin, 2017). Two research questions guided the study:

Methodology and Design

The general research approach used for the study was qualitative because of the nature of the research questions (Merriam & Tisdell, 2015). Limited prior research has examined the effects of LMX in the NPO context in the form of a narrow quantitative study interested in LMX’s effect on specific outcomes (Rowold et al., 2014). A quantitative approach to these research questions would reduce the perceptions of the participants, thereby limiting management’s and the employees’ views of LMX theory. In turn, qualitative research excels at allowing a researcher to elicit a full range of possible responses from the study’s participants (Merriam & Tisdell, 2015). Firmin et al. (2013) adopted a qualitative methodology to look at what factors NPO employees consider when deciding whether or not to quit, illustrating the applicability of this approach. By contrast, although the quantitative approach offers considerably stronger conclusions, it also necessitates a considerable narrowing of the response range, which requires a strong a priori knowledge of the issue. A qualitative approach focuses on questions of “how” and “why” (Yin, 2017). By asking these types of qualitative questions, the research is more open-ended, allowing the researcher to further explore the thoughts and perceptions of managers and employees in human services NPOs as it pertains to LMX.

Within the qualitative realm, the specific design was an exploratory case study. Case studies are one of the central approaches to qualitative research, and ideal when the phenomenon is complex, multidimensional, and/or deeply grounded in its specific context (Yin, 2017). LMX is by nature a multidimensional phenomenon because it entails the bidirectional relationship between leader and follower. In addition, the phenomenon of LMX cannot be anything but contextual in nature because context plays such a role in determining the nature of leader–follower relationships. For example, management can take two forms; in some cases, the administrators are merely more highly ranked employees still working out of the same sites and performing administrative duties on top of their work; alternately, managers may administrate from a centralized administrative office where managerial tasks are their primary focus (Gray & Muramatsu, 2013). These two forms of leadership would necessarily create different dynamics. Although relying heavily on theory, this study rejected the grounded theory approach as no new theory was being created. In addition, phenomenology was also considered but denied as the researcher was not immersing himself into the phenomenon. Therefore, faced with such complexities of LMX, a case study was the clear choice.

Participants and Sampling

The overall study population consisted of employees of two nonprofit human services organizations who fulfilled both direct support and management roles. This population was chosen because understanding LMX requires looking at both leaders and followers within the specific context of the organization under study. Direct support positions included Direct Care Professionals, Medicaid Service Coordinators, and Quality Intellectual Disability Professionals. Manager titles include Program Managers, Program Coordinators, and Directors. Participants were limited to those who have been employed with the organization for at least 1 year. The purpose of this requirement was to ensure that participants had sufficient time to develop relationships with their supervisors, as this relationship was of primary interest within the current study. Race/ethnicity, gender, age, and other such factors played no role in consideration.

Sampling used a combination of convenience sampling and purposive sampling. NPO organizational sampling was convenience as the researcher had colleagues working in Organization A and B, facilitating recruitment. Within the organizations, however, sampling was purposive. The sample included roughly equal numbers of participants from Organizations A and B (14 and 18 respectively), and roughly equal numbers of managers and direct service employees for a total of 32 participants (see Appendix B). It was predicted that a sample of 20 to 30 would have been adequate for this study (Mason, 2010). However, data saturation occurred at 32 participants. The 32 participants were divided roughly evenly between direct service employees and supervisors, so as to give both sides of the LMX equation equal weight in terms of the results. Both organizations provided services to individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

Purposive recruitment within these organizations was carried out by posting flyers that included a description of the study and the researcher’s contact information, which were distributed to employees by the researcher’s colleagues. Interested employees were encouraged to contact the researcher by email or phone, at which time the researcher verified that they met inclusion criteria for the study, and sampling continued until saturation was achieved. No incentive of compensation was offered for participation. The Walden University Institutional Review Board approved this study.

Data Collection

Data collection took three forms: interviews with direct service employees, interviews with managers, and document collection from participants. Once a potential participant’s eligibility was confirmed, the researcher scheduled an interview, which was conducted in a private location that was conveniently located for the participant. Prior to the interview, the participant was provided with (and required to sign) informed consent documentation. Participation was voluntary and participants were free to withdraw at any point prior to publication. Each interview was audio recorded and transcribed by the researcher for analysis purposes. At the close of the interview, the researcher also requested relevant documentation from each participant, allowing for the document collection data source for triangulation purposes. Interviews were carried out based on an interview guide (see Appendix A), while documents were reviewed based on a predetermined protocol as well (see Appendix B). These guides and protocols were developed to ensure consistency across data collection for each participant (Stuckey, 2013). The interviews were semistructured, allowing both structural consistency between the different participants and also the freedom to ask follow-up or probing questions where appropriate to ensure all relevant data were collected (Stuckey, 2013).

Analysis Procedure

Data analysis consisted of coding and thematic analysis, and was assisted by NVivo qualitative data analysis software. The general steps of the analysis were as follows. First, the researcher carefully reviewed the data to ensure a strong base familiarity with them. Second was open coding, wherein codes from an existing list based on the literature—along with any relevant emergent codes—were assigned to the data to categorize responses broadly (Malterud, 2012). This allowed for a general set of overall themes to be identified in terms of relationships between the codes as the next step. Fourth, this initial list of themes was examined and cross-checked against the data through cross-sectional coding to check for subthemes and emergent themes (Malterud, 2012). After this, the triangulation analysis was carried out by comparing results from the interview data and the document collection (Yin, 2017). This was done with the primary goal of detecting convergent themes to strengthen the results or divergent themes to determine where they might differ.

Demographics

Participants were 32 employees of two NPOs who filled either direct support or management roles; Table B1 provides demographic information.

Organization A (14 participants) is a nonprofit with the mission of offering independence to those with special needs. The organization utilizes resources and support strategies for those with developmental disabilities as well as their families. The organization provides the opportunity for those with disabilities to live and work within their community. The purpose of the organization is to allow those individuals the opportunity to integrate into society by putting the person first while working as a team. Services include residential, family support, employment and day services, and self-advocacy groups. The organization empowers individuals to live independently in homes or apartments aimed to their needs, create employment opportunities, create friendships, maintain health, and learn everyday skills.

Similarly, Table B2 illustrates the relevant demographics for 20 participants drawn from Organization B; however, Participants B3 and B5 were removed from the study by the researcher because they had been with B for less than 1 year, and therefore may not have had time to establish a stable LMX with their supervisors.

Organization B is also an organization which focuses on improving quality of life for those with special needs and their families. These special needs can include intellectual and developmental disabilities. The organization notes that to provide these needed services, they must be funded by financial curators. Organization B is composed of adult services, preschool services, family support services, and nursing services.

Both organizations had a mixture of degrees and experience within their employee ranks and NPO management. However, this is not to say that management is not left without its own difficulties. Traditionally, many employees look upon the transfer to management as an opportunity to reduce physically taxing workloads; however, within these NPOs, it is not always the case. Management often has to step in to help with caseloads along with their supervisory duties. In addition, due to the nature of the NPO, it was much often easier to promote from within rather than go through the hiring process of new managers who might demand more money or know the intricacies of their organization. Yet, there was still no guarantee of promotion within the organizations if the workload became too much as many times, supervisors and management must be the ones to mitigate the case differences.

Theme 1: Loyalty

The first theme to emerge from the data was that of loyalty, which includes data indicating that trust, honesty, and respect for confidentiality between managers and employees had a positive effect on staff’s job performance. In perhaps the strongest support for the importance of loyalty, Participant A14 expressed the view that “loyalty means everything to me as an employee.” While other participants may not have expressed this idea so emphatically, they still tended to agree that being loyal was an important part of the bond between supervisor and employee. For example, Participant A4 directly addressed how loyalty could improve outcomes: “That’s loyalty. Like, where we can put this disagreement aside and know that at the end of the day. It’s me, you and we got this.”

Participant A2 considered trust between supervisors and employees to be a necessary condition for effective functioning of the organization: “If there’s not a trust between both the staff and the supervisor, you’re not really going to get much done.” This idea of trust as a necessary condition was also expressed by Participant A5, who said,

Without loyalty I probably wouldn’t be able to work here, because how can I feel safe? . . . I know my boss has my back. There’s never been a way where I feel like she’ll throw me under the bus or she’s only looking out for herself. I always felt that she has my back.

Supervisors were also likely to emphasize the importance of loyalty in terms of enabling the organization to accomplish its goals. Trust enabled these supervisors to effectively delegate tasks and trust that loyal subordinates would accomplish them, as in the words of Participant A13:

Loyalty for me is very important in that respect because I like to think that no matter what happens, people who work for me would walk across coals to get something accomplished that we need to accomplish, because they’re loyal to me or the organization. I think loyalty on the reverse side, so my loyalty to my employees, if I’m not loyal to them I’m not going to get it back.

Loyalty could also serve as an inspirational or motivational factor for employees, according to participants such as A1, who expressed that “I guess in tale that means that there’s loyalty to us, because if we’re performing, we’re doing what we’re supposed to be doing, then she’s got our back.” This view was also expressed in Organization B, as per Participant B1, who said,

I always tell my assistants, if you do the right thing, I’ll have your back, but if you do the wrong thing, then don’t expect my name on the line, on the line for you. I guess I do the right thing, so I would like to think that [my supervisors] have my back.

In sum, both employees and supervisors across both organizations reported that trust was important. Trust played three roles for the participants. First, trust acted as an enabler of organization efficiency, thereby improving employee outcomes by making things smoother. Second, trust was considered a necessary condition for effective delegation of responsibility from supervisors to employees. Finally, loyalty and trust could be seen as a way to inspire followers to do their jobs more effectively so as to live up to the expectations placed upon them. No responses directly spoke of consequences of a lack of trust.

Theme 2: Respect

The second theme, respect, includes participant responses indicating that mutually respectful relations between managers and employees were associated with effective job performance. For example, Participant A6 directly linked respect to performance:

I think respect plays a big role in how people act or how they feel and how they perform because, just as little as knowing somebody’s name or acknowledging the fact that you know that this person works for this department makes a huge difference.

Participant A9 also spoke to the fact that respect can be a powerful motivator for going above and beyond: “With lack of respect, I’ll do bare minimum. With respect I might be willing to take on a volunteer.” Like Participant A9, Participant B16 equated respect with appreciation and saw her supervisor’s respect for her work as a reason to do more than the minimum; she stated that a lack of respect kept her, “Just doing what I have to do, put it that way. I ain’t doing no extras, because they don’t appreciate what you do.”

A lack of respect, on the contrary, elicited equally strong negative responses, such as Participant B13:

There is that lack of respect because when we come in, and this happens often here, we do a supervision observation and everything is perfect but the reason why we went in there is because the teacher said, “No one’s listening to what I tell them to do. They’re not following the schedule. They’re not doing this. They’re not doing that . . . ” that teacher is getting frustrated and just feels that lack of respect.

Participant A6 also expressed this sentiment:

But when a worker comes in and you have to introduce yourself every time you meet somebody, they’re like wow you don’t even know what I do. You don’t even know how important I might be to your department. So I’ve seen how that also has played a big decrease in how a lot of workers perform.

Respect—and avoiding a lack thereof—was also linked to facilitating more open communication by Participant A12:

If the manager ask nicely, “I understand,” you may not want it or something in that aspect, and ask in a way that you say, “You know what? I’ll do it,” but if you ask me, “You know what? I know you are the assistant manager, I need you to do this,” I have the choice to say, “You know what? I don’t know how to do it.” In that aspect, I feel like since that is disrespectful—I don’t like it—I can choose not to do it. With my staff, I tell them with respect, “Can you do this?” “Okay, I can do it,” or, “No, I cannot do it.” “I understand you cannot do it, but can you tell me why you can’t do it?”

A few participants did, however, express ambivalence toward respect. Participant B4 said of the influence of her manager’s respect for her on her job performance, “It doesn’t matter.” Participant A10 spoke of making a conscious effort to avoid issues relating to a lack of respect:

I try not to let [a lack of respect] affect my ability to do my job because my job, is not about the money, it’s not about the finances but it’s about my heart. It’s how I feel about the people I serve and for me, if my stuff is happy, the people am supervising, they’re happy, they’ll do their job a 100%.

And Participant A8 said of her manager’s respect for her,

I really just could care less about . . . Because, I will just do what I have to do anyway, so whatever people feel is not worth it . . . So, she can piss me off; I’m still going to do it.

In sum, respect was an important theme in both the positive and negative senses. Participants spoke of mutual respect as a powerful motivating factor that could cause them to be willing to go above and beyond the requirements of their job. On the contrary, a lack of respect was almost more strongly prevalent. A lack of mutual respect between supervisors and employees was directly linked to workplace outcomes by a significant number of participants. However, a few did express ambivalence toward whether or not mutual respect was present.

Theme 3: Communication

Data related to the third theme, communication, include participant responses indicating that employees had to be clear and open about their needs with managers—but like respect, this went both ways, and the perception was that both sides need to be clear about their needs for work to get done effectively. Communication was perhaps most strongly addressed as a basic necessity for things to function. For example, Participant B10 expressed frustration with a lack of communication and how this could hamper work:

What is bad about it is like if something is going on [at Organization B], we don’t really get informed the way we’re supposed to and it’s like we get informed at the last minute. It’s like we don’t have a communication, when they hold the meetings, [supervisors] know what’s coming, they know what’s going to happen but we never get information, only at the last minute . . . then you don’t get it done right away, of course it’s going to affect whatever the situation is.

Further underlining this role of communication as a facilitator of outcomes, Participant B17 spoke of how a lack of communication could undercut respect:

I think communicating and complimenting them will go a long way. It will make them eager to want to do more. If not, then that’s stagnant, and they feel like they’re not doing as much as expected. If you communicate as often, and even if you’re not happy with things, you need to let them know. That way things can be amended.

As detailed in the following section, document collection also provided further importance for the theme of communication at the organizational level. In terms of the interviews, though, the importance of communication was almost exclusively expressed in the negative. That is to say, communication was seen as an essential facilitator of outcomes, and therefore the importance of good communication was characterized not in terms of the advantages of good communication, but rather the problems that arise from bad communication.

Theme 4: Mutual Respect and Understanding

Except for Participant A14, all of the 32 participants—supervisors and direct service employees both—were united in their support for the idea of mutual respect and understanding between leaders and followers as a positive effect of LMX on NPO employees. Essentially, the idea that this theme represents is that leaders and followers have different jobs, but that both sides of the issue are equally valuable and important. Accordingly, managers need to respect a degree of autonomy and competence on the part of their followers, avoiding either micromanagement or aloof disinterest.

As an example of this, Participant A12 illustrated how a manager might be able to achieve this balance through a combination of direct personal experience and willingness to engage in direct work on occasion: “Everything they do, I do the same thing too, so I see the frustrations. By them seeing me on the floor doing the same thing that they are doing, I feel like they feel more relaxed.” Participant A10 also suggested that managers are in a position to help their followers/employees with personal crises, although this too could involve some willingness to engage in direct work:

If I hear somebody talking on the floor and they sound frustrated, I’ll tell them. I’ll say, “Come here, I don’t know what’s going on this morning you don’t have to tell me, [ . . . ] but for now at this minute and this moment, I need for you to get off the floor, go take a walk around the corner, go get yourself a cup of coffee, I’ll stay here with the individual till you get back and you feel better.”

Participant B11 expressed the idea that sometimes engaging in direct work this way could also foster understanding:

As I know about the staff’s role, I have huge respect for them. That’s not an easy job. Once I started familiarizing myself with the DSP’s role, it’s an extremely challenging job, and they do not get paid enough money for it, for all the work that they do.

More generally, though, direct service employee participants reported on the way a lack of respect from supervisors could hurt them, such as Participant A9:

In my previous job, there was a person that would bark orders, watch you sweat. [ . . . ] Never would get down, but couldn’t tell you what to do, was not willing to do it herself, and I had no respect for her because of that. I mean, she made a lot of people want to leave the company, because she was . . . she had no humanity about her.

Participant A4 expressed similar feelings:

I feel disrespected, because all the work that I put in and then you just brushed it off like it was nothing. And, then you’re coming back to me to redo it. I already did it the first time and it was done correctly the first time.

In addition, disconnects between management and direct employees could lead to mutual disrespect, as evinced by Participant A4’s view of managers without on-the-job experience:

But, they don’t require a lot of experience to become management. So, you’ll have a staff that has 15 years of experience in this field but then you have a manager who graduated from college six years ago. And, no experience in this field.

Participant A6 expressed similar ideas with respect to age:

It’s so hard because a lot of the times, especially when you first start supervising somebody they’re like wow you’re so young and it’s like avoiding that conversation becomes really hard. Especially when the person is clearly 20 years older than you.

Participant A14 was the only respondent who felt that her supervisor’s understanding of her duties was irrelevant to how well she performed and how supported she felt. Asked whether her supervisor’s understanding of her duties influenced these outcomes, she responded, “Not really. I still do my job [to] the best of my ability.” Participant A14 did, however, express the belief that her supervisor was obligated to understand her duties, “because he’s my supervisor and he’s the one that actually assigned [the] responsibility to me.”

Theme 5: Positive Interactions

The fifth theme to emerge was that high-quality LMX could arise from positive interactions between supervisors and direct service employees. This theme is related to the previous theme in the sense that mutual respect and understanding share a bidirectional relationship with positive interactions. On one hand, as evinced in a reply from Participant A10, having respect and understanding can lead to positive interactions. On the other, positive interactions—such as Participant A12’s account of motivating employees by sharing their burdens—can lead to a situation of mutual respect and understanding. It is intuitive that positive interactions between leaders and followers should create high-quality LMX, but the results demonstrated this more solidly.

For example, Participant A6 reported that sharing a space with her supervisor led to an improved relationship:

I feel like ever since we started to share an office my relationship with her has gotten better because [ . . . ] we sat in meetings together, I knew she was the coordinator but we didn’t have that like the sense of actually knowing each other. Now that we sit together we literally are getting to know each other. Not just on a professional level but you know kind of on a personal level where it’s a good relationship balance. So like I know that if I need help with something, maybe I can’t make it to something, I can ask her and I’m not scared like oh my god I cannot make it to this meeting.

Participant A2 also expressed that he had been positively affected by positive interaction with his supervisor:

I mean for me personally, I had a great relationship with my manager . . . We worked together, like communicating daily . . . We was on the same page, talking like pretty much every day. [ . . . ]. We were just up to date on what we were doing from day to day. Without that little communication it probably would have fell [sic] apart . . .

One of the key results in this theme was that positive interactions made employees feel good. According to Participant B11,

I have a lot of positive experiences with my supervisor. For instance, we were at a large team meeting, several of our large team meetings. He always speaks highly of the behavior department. He always highlights a lot of the things that we are doing and asks that the other supervisors and the other staff really try to observe what we’re doing and follow what we’re doing. So that always feels good, and he does that a lot.

Similarly, B19 expressed positive feelings as a result of positive interaction: “Makes me feel good . . . Just knowing that if I had a question, I’m not being turned away. There is a open door policy with all of the supervisors that I’ve dealt with here.”

Thus, the overall idea of this theme is that positive interaction is good, but should be moderated and merited. That is to say, while most of the employee participants reported that positive interactions with their supervisors had a good effect on them, this was not unilaterally true. Too much interaction, even if positive, could feel like micromanagement.

Theme 6: Communication

Following somewhat naturally from the first two themes for the second research question is communication. Communication is a central idea in LMX because communication is a prerequisite for the exchange part of LMX. Therefore, in light of both the theory of LMX and the prior themes, the importance of communication is intuitive. It was strongly supported in the analysis: 28 of the participants indicated that better communication between managers and employees would have a positive effect on employees, while no participants stated that better communication between supervisors and employees would have a negative or neutral impact on employees.

In some ways, communication emerged in terms of something that should happen, though, as opposed to something that necessarily does. For example, Participant B18 spoke to communication as something that both staff and supervisors could do better with: “The staff should report things to the supervisors better. Then the supervisors should listen. They should listen to the staff better.” Better communication, Participant A9 noted, could also serve to create improved understanding between employees and supervisors, thereby fostering stronger mutual respect:

I think your supervisor, if he explains his job duties to you . . . ’cause sometimes you think, “Oh, my supervisor’s doing nothing all day.” And maybe if you’re actually saw like a detailed thing what they do you would understand why they’re equally busy, or why they need the things from you the way they need them.

Participant B11 also put a strong emphasis on the necessity of communication: “Communication. Huge. Must communicate. Even if you’re overcommunicating, I think it’s better than no communication. Feels really terrible to be the last one to know something, because you don’t feel a team if you’re always the last to know.”

Managers were more likely to report that communication was already present, though. For example, Participant A3 reported that “Supervisor, like I said, they got to have a conscience. They got to . . . You got to take out that five minutes and find out. How are you doing today?” On the contrary, managers could also feel that employees did not communicate well enough with supervisors when problems arose, according to Participant B13:

What happens is they sometimes still feel like, “I don’t want to come to her with this. This is immature. I should be able to work this out myself.” We know, I’ve seen it, they can’t. Sometimes it doesn’t, so we ask them to come to us for that help . . .

As with the other two themes, a lack of communication could have adverse effects. For example, Participant A9, an employee, reported that

I mean that’s been the reason why I’ve wanted to leave certain organizations where it’s just lack of communication, total lack of appreciation, overcritical. You know, total inability to empathize or even care about your job, about what your day is. Or the fact that you are stressed. Some supervisors don’t care.

In general, both direct service employees and managers supported the importance of communication, and although both sides were somewhat biased toward the notion that the other party should listen to them more, they could also acknowledge that the need to listen better is essential to communication. Therefore, the overall takeaway from this theme was the need for open, two-way communication between both parties, which both managers and direct service employees felt could have a positive effect on employees.

Limitations

The limitations of this study were primarily a result of its methodology, the limited scope of the research, and the potential for bias. The reasons that a qualitative approach was more appropriate for this study were discussed previously, but this approach bring certain disadvantages with it as well. Namely, while the results provide exploratory, open-ended insight into how the constructs that characterize LMX are important to leaders in NPOs, the nature of qualitative results is such that they lack any statistical power and are limited in how much they can be generalized. Therefore, future research is needed to test the actual strength of the effects uncovered in this study. In addition, the study was limited to two specific organizations. The researcher had no reason to believe these organizations were nonindicative of the general population, but the possibility that the results were for some reason limited to these two specific contexts cannot be entirely discounted. Bias was a concern because the researcher is the acting CEO of a human services NPO similar to those included in the study. However, careful attention was paid to avoiding such bias. To this end, all the themes in the Results section were supported liberally with direct quotes from participants, allowing the quality of the analysis to be observed directly by the reader. In addition, care was taken to be aware of biases and avoid their effects at every stage of the research.

Another limitation was that 32 participants in the nonprofit sector of disability human services establishments were not enough to make sweeping claims about LMX and nonprofits. Considering the limited number of participants, it is difficult to understand how these results may pertain to other nonprofits. A wider sample would provide greater transferability, thereby allowing nonprofits to use the findings of this study in their day-to-day activities.

Finally, it was unknown the level of education and experience each participant had. This makes it hard to discern labor market advantages to shift to an employee’s preferred role that may offer increased pay, that is less taxing, or that provides an opportunity to move up the nonprofit ladder within the organization. Middle management was also not focused on thereby creating a limitation. This lack of knowledge regarding middle managers prevented the study from covering whether middle managers were expected to take up further direct service caseloads in addition to their managerial duties.

Future Directions

The most obvious future direction for this line of research would be to quantitatively test the effects identified in this study. By choosing instruments to measure loyalty, trust, and communication and regressing them against employee outcome variables like productivity, job satisfaction, burnout, or turnover intention, it should be possible to see how strong the effects are and generalize them to a larger population. Similarly, a quantitative approach could determine the strength of mutual respect and understanding, positive interactions, and/or communications’ effects on employees’ mental health, psychological well-being, burnout, or other relevant outcomes. Another possibility would be to adopt an experimental design and test an intervention that could be demonstrated to meaningfully improve one or more of these factors. This would be more difficult to orchestrate, but would provide quantitative validation for the causal side of the relationships that the employees and supervisors in this study perceived. As the results of the study only evince the perception of these issues, it would be useful to see if empirical evidence supports that perception.

On the qualitative side, one way in which future studies might expand these results is to apply a multiple case study design to explore the differences between LMX in nonprofit and for-profit organizations. While NPOs have increasingly drawn on business approaches in recent years, there remain important differences between the two forms. It could be interesting, for example, to see how the ideas of mutual respect and understanding compare. Is it more necessary to foster these in NPOs while they are taken for granted in the for-profit context? Broadly speaking, there also needs to be more attention—both qualitatively and quantitatively—on the division between high- and low-quality LMX. This study suggested the importance of this distinction, where communication emerged almost entirely as a theme of what should happen, not what does happen.