Moral Leadership

Moral leadership in a business and society context involves directing corporate activities toward socially responsible ends. The premise for this type of leadership is that corporations are granted power and status in society because of their ability to serve the greater good. William Frederick conceives of this ability broadly as economizing and ecologizing, the former referring to the ability to efficiently convert inputs to outputs through competitive behaviors and the latter to forging cooperative, collaborative linkages with society that function adaptively to sustain life. Because the economizing function of the firm is widely recognized, executive managers are sometimes referred to as stewards of society's scarce resources, which are transformed into goods and services in the business sector, subject to government regulation and social norms. Given ...