Wise and Virtuous Leadership: The Contribution of Confucian Values to Business Leadership

Leadership is deemed as a highly context-based, complex outcome of dynamic interaction between the leader, follower and situation; and it continues to be a highly researched, yet elusive topic. Since the industrial revolution, with the advent of the modern economy and globalisation, the practice of leadership has more often been linked to effectiveness and efficiency in promoting organisational performance and profits (Nahavandi, 2000), and as a result of such emphasis, business researchers and practitioners often tend to focus on business leaders’ competences that directly relate to promoting business profits as the most important, or even the only, criterion for good/effective leadership. Unfortunately, the mainstream of leadership theories of the twentieth century, including trait theory, behavioural theory, situational theory, contingency theories and so forth, has not placed sufficient emphasis on the ethical aspects of leadership. Following Enron and other prominent ethical scandals in almost every type of organisation in recent years, people are asking, what is wrong with our business leaders?