Affiliated Institution
I understand Fiduciary responsibility as the responsibility that the management owes to the stakeholders of the organization in an ethical perspective. This refers to the duties of care that lead an organization’s management into objectivity rather than subjectivity in decision making. This implies that the management has to always be trustworthy, unselfish, and honest in the undertaking of their responsibility in the organization. However, they are often subjected to the differences in the requirements and demands of the stakeholders of the organizations they manage. In my view, Fiduciary Leadership is subjected to the pressures of the different groups of stakeholders with their different demands from the organization. While exercising their responsibilities within the organization, the management has to consider the needs of the stakeholders and ensure the adherence to the legal requirements that govern the management and operations of the organization.
I learned that leaders in the management of non-governmental organization have to exercise reasonable care in decision making. At the same time, they have to ensure that they do not put the organization under unnecessary risk based on their decisions. For this reasons, their decisions have to be evaluated both internally and externally. This is because the leadership of non-profit organizations has to be accountable to those they serve and those that provide the finance to operate the organizations. From the discussion, In order to pass the different evaluation that they are subjected to, they have to set a goal aimed at making decisions that are meet the organization aims and objectives. However, since the organization evaluation processes are often more subjective than they are objective, the management may be caught between the politics of the different stakeholders. This may hinder the operability of their plans for the organizations and may lead to deviation from objectivity. In such cases, the management is often pushed towards evaluating the effectiveness of the organization based on the perceived goals, which may be very difficult to measure.
I felt that evaluation of the organization effectiveness faces difficulties due to the complications of the proposed methods of evaluation. For example, the goal attainment method for measuring effectiveness faces the problem of goal vagueness in measurement. Another problem may be the existence of contradicting goals. Due to these difficulties in the methods of measuring the effectiveness based on the results, researchers suggest the use of the management practices that lead to the success of non-profit organizations. However, this method too has its difficulties and problems. Therefore, the management has to take into consideration the external and internal stakeholders’ needs and expectations in order to make the organization effective. This implies the management has to take into consideration the needs of the owners of capital, the human resource, and the customers or those that use the services of the organization.
The consideration of all stakeholders and their subjective views may bring difficulties in management. In our HNO, it will mean that the management will have to incorporate the needs of the stakeholders in the decision-making process, which may sometimes conflict. However, Fiduciary leadership enables the management to incorporate the ethical requirements of the organization to its stakeholders while putting into consideration the legal requirements. In my understanding, the managers have to ensure that stakeholders are comfortable with the decisions made and that their needs are met. This is because the stakeholders expect the management to observe and respect their needs as part of the organization.
