2. Ethics, Leadership, and Ethical Leadership

I owe this illustration to my colleagues John Drury and Tim Perry who both provided it, but in different contexts from each other and separate contexts from leadership studies.

This illustration is one of the general maxims presented in Covey’s book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People: Restoring the Character Ethic (2004).

Peter Northouse uses the same taxonomy in his book Leadership (2007).

Oliver O’Donovan has an extensive critique of the subjectivity of conscience and how conscience might be misleading as an ethical guide. See Resurrection and Moral Order : An Outline for Evangelical Ethics (1994).

We will explore Kant’s impact on ethics and theology more fully in the next chapter. For now, I will simply introduce how it has been used in leadership ethics.

We could also consider transformational leadership in light of the follower as the Other to be valued. The Other might complicate leadership even while making it clear that something must be done and leadership is necessary. See Ron Heifetz, Leadership Without Easy Answers, 1994.

While Mendonca and Kanungo develop more the philosophy of personalism, it emerges, they note, from the theology of Karol Wojtyla who would become Pope John Paul II.

Mendonca and Kanungo (2007) describe the leader’s role as being the “soul of the organization” and to bring “legitimacy and credibility to vision” (3).

Knights and O’Leary (2006) mentioned that such dilemmas are why laws help give clarity, but they say they do not succumb to Levinas’ openness to deontology (laws are grounded in duty and moral obligation that is universal).

Knights and O’Leary (2006) take this approach.

One might also consider Otto Scharmer, Theory U: Leading from the Future as It Emerges, 2009.

Wendell Nekoranec (2007) agrees that there is a relationship between ethics, leadership, and effectiveness. Through conducting interviews with executives, Nekoranec found that leaders believe integrity, honesty, responsibility, and trust as integral to their leadership. Yet these values were only expressed in doing the right thing for others, the situation, and themselves—in this order.

Eisenbeiss (2012) combined religion, philosophy, and social scientific research.

While Eisenbeiss (2012) claimed to consult Christian faith in this development, there are openings in her summarizing chart that reveal further consideration of Christian Scripture would be appropriate. Under the orientation of sustainability and responsibility, Eisenbeiss did not list Christian faith whatsoever. However, Christian leaders would be expected to ground part of their approach to leadership as being made in the image of God, which includes a component of creation stewardship. (For a recent treatment, see Norman Wirzba, From Nature to Creation 2015.) For example, Beale (2004) argued that the Garden of Eden is described as a sacred space that is a forerunner to the temple. The mission of human beings when placed in Eden is not to remain in Eden but to turn the rest of creation into a sacred space resembling Eden from where human beings emerged. This kind of leadership includes appropriate care for the creation because it is affirmed as good. We will explore this more fully in the chapter on human beings as leaders.

For more on social learning theory, see Albert Bandura (1971).

One can sense here Ciulla’s (1995) affirmation that ethical leadership is concerned with effectiveness.

This has become the most cited definition of ethical leadership for empirical, quantitative research. For more research on the use of this definition, see Eisenbeiss (2012) and Hunter (2012).

Ciulla (2014) points out the philosophical deficit in this consideration of ethics and leadership: “The name ‘ethical leadership’ is somewhat misleading in that the instrument used in these studies only measures people’s attributions of ethical leadership to their leaders. Again, the fact that the majority of people attribute ethical qualities to a leader is not sufficient to say that the leader is ethical” (25, italics mine).

This is not to say that theology has been silent. For more on how theology has entered the leaders conversation, see Chris Bounds, “A Theology of Leadership for Wesleyans;” Don Howell, Servants of the Servant; Skip Bell, Servants and Friends: A Biblical Theology of Leadership; Arthur Boers, Servants and Fools: A Biblical Theology of Leadership.

Greg Waybright, in a presentation on science and theology at the Conference for Pastoral Theologians in 2017, described intellectual hospitality—not simply being civil to other points of view, but welcoming other points of view. Again, this was not to value a kind of radical relativism, that truth is an illusion because all perspectives are equal, but to value the pursuit of truth.