Management- Stewardship and Governance

Running head: MANAGEMENT- STEWARDSHIP AND GOVERNANCE
MANAGEMENT- STEWARDSHIP AND GOVERNANCE
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MANAGEMENT- STEWARDSHIP AND GOVERNANCE1
Introduction
Majority of approaches to not-for-profit organizational leadership has been borrowed
from the for-profit business sectors. However, these leadership models usually show
incompetence for successfully addressing the issues which typically non-profit leaders encounter
(Ewest & Weeks, 2018). Thus, they call for new framework in support which has been
embedded in historical precedent and biblical values and standards which should show utmost
appropriateness for the non-profit contexts. The non-profit sector has been recognized as a major
employer of paid as well as volunteer employees in Australia. As per reports, in Australia there
are over 1.6 million tax-exempt organizations in 2018, which estimated for around 14 million
paid and around 10.5% of the workforce. Number of studies of the non-profit organizations in
Australia has thrown light on the repeated challenges of employee attrition and elevating rates in
leadership transition because of ageing (Simpkins & Lemyre, 2018). According to Bordas
(2016), non-profit sector has distinctive leadership encounters that intensely put forward the need
for a specialized approach to leader development and training. Thus, steward leadership model
has been proposed by Wilson and Block which explains leaders’ roles as stewards or trustees and
not as an authoritarian. Block reviews the accountability of leader as an act of service. The
following paper will evaluate Block’s model of stewardship in the organizational context of
Headspace, one of the renowned non-profit organization in Australia.
Discussion
Block’s model of stewardship accentuates aspects related to equal empowerment or
providing employees all levels of choices over the way they would prefer serving clients by
leading with an approach of service instead of showing dominance or by redistributing authority,
purpose and capital. However, a flaw identified in Block’s model of stewardship reflects its

MANAGEMENT- STEWARDSHIP AND GOVERNANCE2
strong bias towards servant hood along with the reallocation of power where the leaders tend to
retain insignificant level of authority in the end that is to offer service to subordinates comprising
only redistributed power. In the view of Waldkirch and Nordqvist (2016), Block’s model of
stewardship significant distinction between leadership and stewardship significantly depend on
the misinterpretation of the legitimate role of authority and liability in stewardship. Waddock
(2015) has noted that Block’s Stewardship Model has developed an exceptional approach to the
leaders as steward by shedding light on four contrasting pairs of leadership abilities. However,
Block’s model of stewardship exhibit the way leaders in non-profit leaders in organizations like
Headspace establish an affirmative cycle of intergenerational interchange by unveiling
stewardship behavioural patterns that are in service of safeguarding the welfare of upcoming
generations within the organization. One of the most beneficial factors of Block’s model relies
on the fact that leaders in non-profit organizations like Headspace can illustrate accountability to
prospective generations in order to place the continuing most effective benefits of other
individuals rather emphasizing on self-interests (Totleben & Deiss, 2015). By drawing relevance
to this aspect of Block’s Stewardship model, non-profit leaders can efficiently inculcate
stewardship in their followers, which is considered as an effect that is likely to be countered as
the subordinates within the organizations develop as the future generation of leaders.
While evaluating stewardship theory in non-profit organizations like Headspace, it has
been noted that individuals under agency controls capitalized more on profit-maximization
replacements and superior investments, while individuals under stewardship switches made less
significant reserves and did not capitalize on profits to similar degree (Domínguez-Escrig et al.,
2018). Headspace being a Christian non-profit organization depends greatly on contractual and
incentive controls on policymaking performance in a non-profit setting where financial as well as