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18. Moral Stewards

As Americans know all too well, attributions of leadership effectiveness and greatness may not always go hand-in-hand, but they should. Great leaders identify and transform the various deontological perspectives of their constituents into an enduring moral praxis that shapes and guides their motives and behaviors, and ultimately, organizational work. Ethical behavior is understood and evaluated in terms of both valued means and desired ends. Likewise, it is understood that good outcomes derived from bad practice (or intentions) stains the integrity of the enterprise and those who work within it. However, as we noted earlier, the greatest challenge for leaders is not in choosing between right and wrong, but in choosing between right and right. Schools and school systems are fraught with disorienting and intractable dilemmas that are rarely solved and at best managed. The ability to parse out and choose among the subtle and nuanced qualities that differentiate reasonable alternatives to complex dilemmas requires the ability to recognize the penumbral characteristics of such dilemmas and their comparative moral justifications. In so doing, the great leader recognizes his/her biases and motives, understands how these can distort and obstruct effective leadership behavior, and moves beyond them in pursuit of the common good (Sergiovanni, 1992).

19. Emotionally Intelligent

Great leadership is a passionate and intensely emotional endeavor. Great leaders understand the role and importance of exercising emotional expressions in the workplace and learn to regard their raw emotions as data rather than instructions. To do this well requires a degree of dispassion, patience, restraint, and an internal locus of control. Of course, this is much easier said than done. But, a leader who fails to manage his or her emotions well quickly loses the trust and confidence of others. Great leaders also understand that through expressions of emotion and behavior, they possess great influence over the emotional status of others within the organization. They read people, social environments, and extant circumstances with thoughtful precision and express their emotions with tactful and artful subtlety (Goleman, Boyatzis&McKee, 2004).

20. Meta-cognitively Aware

Great leaders understand how they think, how they learn, why they feel as they do, and why they respond as they do to various stimuli (internal and external). The meta-cognitively astute leader never surrenders to feelings of uncertainty, self-consciousness, or personal weakness, but neither does she/he permit an unbridled ego to hijack forthright self-reflection and honesty. Great leaders know their strengths, weaknesses, and emergent abilities; they find ways to capitalize on their strengths and compensate for their weaknesses (Gardner, Avolio,&Walumbwa, 2005).

Final comments

“Educationists should build the capacities of the spirit of inquiry, creativity, entrepreneurial and moral leadership among students and become their role model.” (Dr. Abdul Kalam)