This module is based on the hypothesis that moral exemplars make good--even excellent--leaders. It is a derived copy of a module published previously on moral exemplars. This module explored this topic as a gateway to virtue ethics and as an alternative to the big-news / bad news approach to business ethics. This derived copy adds three layers of content: (1) a brief discussion of business leadership taken from Petrick and Quinn's outstanding book, Management Ethics: Integrity at Work. Next, it adds a discussion of two historical figures, Thomas More and Thomas Cromwell. More was portrayed as a moral exemplar in Robert Bolt's play and the movie, A Man for All Seasons while Cromwell was his Machiavellian opponent. Recently, Hilary Mantel has reversed Bolt's assessment in her two books, Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies. Mantel's More is a religious fanatic while Cromwell, the central character in these novels, is presented as a humanitarian political administrator. An exercise based on these portrayals will provide an opportunity to examine whether there are multiple models or paradigms of moral exemplars. Finally, an attempt has been made to update and expand the list of moral exemplars available for study. Carmen Segarra (portrayed in This American Life), Sallie Krawcheck (profiled in the PBS Online News Hour), and Vandana Shiva (also portrayed in the News Hour) provide an interesting array of moral exemplar candidates for the modern scene. These layers built upon the core module on moral exemplars provide a resource ideal for integration into introductory business courses. Consistent with the past, this module originated as a part of an NSF-funded project, "Collaborative Development of Ethics Across the Curriculum Resources and Sharing of Best Practices," NSF SES 0551779. It is also being deployed in the context of two more recent grants, GREAT IDEA (NSF/EESE 1033028) and Cultivating Responsible Well-Being in STEM (NSF SES 1449489)
Business leadership
First, consider an argument that is frequently made. Hitler was a bad--in fact a horrible--person. But he was a good leader. Even though he led in the wrong direction, toward the wrong goals, for the wrong reasons, he led effectively. He got things done. In other words, he was adept at devising effective and efficient means toward already determined ends.
The starting (and finishing) point of this module is that a business leader--or any other leader--cannot be a good leader without, at the same time, being a moral or ethical leader. To illustrate this point, we will look at the analysis of leadership given by Joseph A Petrick and John F. Quinn in their book,
Management Ethics: Integrity at Work (Sage,1997: 210-214).
Petrick and Quinn provide the following definition of leadership: "
Leading is the intended, coordinated, emergent and realized pattern of decision processes and actions that induce or influence the character and conduct of organizational members in appropriate directions by using appropriate resources. " (210) They proceed to unpack this definition by means of a series of useful lists (212).
