Morality, Moral Leadership

Morality, ethics, and values are all terms used to indicate what is right or good. Some scholars distinguish moral from ethical by using moral to describe the rightness or wrongness of particular conduct or character, and ethical to refer to a more universal understanding of standards and principles. It is common to discuss personal morality in contrast to professional ethics, for instance. The term values is sometimes used interchangeably with principles, but some researchers and scholars define values as nonmoral preferences, opinions, beliefs, and attitudes that people hold in a relative sense. For educators, the notion of moral agency is a powerful one. Hugh Sockett defines moral agency in terms of an individual's capacity to consider the interests of others while being grounded in a clear set of virtues or principles that guide action. Elizabeth Campbell discusses moral agency both in the context [Page 674]of how educators treat students and in reference to what educators teach students.

These concepts have been applied variously to leadership. Two classical leadership theories stand out as ones incorporating a moral or ethical standpoint. They are James MacGregor Burns's theory of transactional leadership and transformational leadership and Christopher Hodgkinson's values typology. Burns differentiated between transactional leadership and transformational leadership based on which values were at work in each instance. In transactional leadership, modal values such as honesty, responsibility, fairness, and the honoring of commitments form the basis of the relationship between leader and follower. Such interactions can contribute to human purpose in the realization of individual goals within an organization. Transactional leadership involves an exchange of goods or services between leader and follower that results in the mutual satisfaction of independent objectives. On a higher level, transformational leadership deals with such end values as liberty, justice, equality, and equity. Transformational leaders are concerned with collective purpose and the common good. Both kinds of leadership include a moral dimension with attention paid to the role of the leader in helping to encourage followers through the stages of moral development. Burns argues that as leaders and followers both progress through the individual stages of needs, values, and morality, a broad base is formed for collective responsibility and common goals. Seeking success in this common enterprise encourages in leaders and followers the development of more principled judgment and better citizenry.

Hodgkinson posited that there are four motivational bases informing individual values, beliefs, attitudes, and actions. These are personal preference, consensus, consequences, and principles. He divides these into three categories of subrational, rational, and transrational. Personal preferences, including the concept of what is good, are grounded in self-interest and thus are subrational; consensus guided by expert opinion or peer pressure is rational, as are consequences, which include intentional action to bring about a desired outcome; and principles, at the top of Hodgkinson's hierarchy, informed by ethical codes or religious beliefs, are transrational, not scientifically verifiable. Since leaders operate primarily in the context of organizations, Hodgkinson argues that they are unlikely to be aware of their own consciousness, individuality, or will. All is subsumed by the interests of the organization. Nevertheless, as a human actor, the leader has the capacity to make conscious and free choices to advance the human potential within organizational limitations. To achieve this, leaders must engage in reflection, introspection, and self-observation to increase their moral awareness.

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