Investigating the Influence of Leadership Capabilities on the Survival Instincts of Faith-Based Organizations in Nigeria

In this paper, an attempt is made to investigate the extent to which leadership capabilities influences the survival instincts of faith-based organizations (FBOs) in Nigeria. Leadership capabilities are dimensions used by a leader to anticipate events, envision possibilities, maintain flexibility, and empower others to create strategic change to ensure organizational survival. The top leaders form decision-making bodies in FBOs that play a critical role in selecting and implementing organizational strategies. The challenges of failure and vision/goal accomplishment continue to threaten the existence and sustainability of many FBOs. In this study, purposive, stratified and simple random sampling methods were used. Out of 499 copies of the distributed questionnaire only 432 were returned, which is a response rate of 86.6%. The study used structural equation modeling (SEM) with SmartPLS 3.0 as a statistical tool for the analysis. Results show that demographic characteristics moderate the relationship between leadership capabilities and survival instincts of faith-based organizations. The present study made a tentative attempt to expand the appeal of concepts in new geographical boundaries in an empirical context, thereby making an important, original contribution to the Nigerian religious sector and literature on strategic leadership management, particularly on leadership capabilities and organizational survival. Based on the results, it is recommended that implementation of leadership capabilities should be consistently checked and controlled in line with organizational trends for sustainable survival of faith-based organizations.