Focus Paper - Strategic Leadership

What Does Ethics Have to do with Leadership?

Michael P. Levine • Jacqueline Boaks

Received: 24 October 2012 / Accepted: 6 July 2013 / Published online: 27 August 2013

� Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013

Abstract Accounts of leadership in relation to ethics can

and do go wrong in several ways that may lead us too

quickly into thinking there is a tighter relationship between

ethics and leadership than we have reason to believe.

Firstly, these accounts can be misled by the centrality of

values talk in recent discussions of leadership into thinking

that values of a particular kind are sufficient for leadership.

Secondly, the focus on character in recent leadership

accounts can lead to a similar error. The assumption here is

that because good character is often a locus of descriptions

of leaders, such character is necessary and sufficient for

leadership. Thirdly, we can fall victim to an observer bias

that colors our accounts of the leaders we admire and thus

wish to either have or be, which in turn leads to the fourth

way in which accounts of leadership can go wrong in their

description of the role of ethics in leadership. Through

inattention or through wishful thinking accounts of lead-

ership can become merely prescriptive and stipulate that

ethics is requisite and at least partly constitutive of lead-

ership. Keeping in mind these ways in which accounts of

leadership commonly go astray, we can say that any ade-

quate account of leadership must, at least in the first

instance, be able to differentiate not only between leader-

ship and good ethical character, but also between leader-

ship and power, authority, influence, managerial ability,

and charisma. Taking a closer look at some of the ways that

the relation between leadership and ethics is misconstrued

is necessary to better understanding both leadership and its

connection to ethics. It is, however, just a first step. Asking

whether we have reason to think of leadership as an

Aristotelian virtue should, we think, enable us to give a

more accurate and useful account of the complexity of the

relation. It also captures underlying reasons for wanting to

see the two as intrinsically connected.

Keywords Leadership � Virtue � Ethics � Machiavelli � Aristotle

…the definition question in leadership studies is not really about the question ‘‘What is leadership?’’ It is

about the question ‘‘What is good leadership?’’ By

good, I mean morally good and effective. This is why

I think it is fair to say that ethics lies at the heart of

leadership studies. 1

Leaders worthy of the name, whether they are uni-

versity presidents or senators, corporation executives

or newspaper editors, school superintendents or

governors, contribute to the continuing definition and

articulation of the most cherished values of our

society. They offer, in short, moral leadership. 2

Introduction

What is the relationship between leadership and ethics?

One of the key questions (or in some cases assumptions) in

the literature on leadership is regarding the nature of the

relationship between leadership and ethics.

M. P. Levine � J. Boaks (&) School of Humanities M207, The University of Western

Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Perth, WA 6009, Australia

e-mail: [email protected]

M. P. Levine

e-mail: [email protected]

1 Ciulla (1995), p. 17.

2 Gardner (2006), p. 121.

123

J Bus Ethics (2014) 124:225–242

DOI 10.1007/s10551-013-1807-y

Most accounts and discussions of leadership start with

what Ciulla refers to as ‘‘the definition question’’. 3

They

then either avoid that question of the definition of leader-

ship, either by doing what Ciulla herself does and claiming

that we all have a sufficient level of agreement about what

leadership means to make the question of a definition of

leadership unnecessary or by making reference to the sheer

number of definitions offered or they offer a definition of

leadership that begs or closes off this very important

question of leadership’s connection with ethics.

We believe the question of the definition of leadership—

just what leadership is—is both central to the question of

its relationship to ethics and problematic. It cannot be

solved by either course of action taken by most authors—

namely either dismissing the question or answering it

preemptively. But, nor can it be ignored. It must be

answered in order to tell us what we need to know about

the relationship between ethics and leadership and also to

ground that answer.

This article addresses both of these questions. In the

course of doing so, we offer (and defend) our own defini-

tion of leadership and its relation to ethics. We start by

examining how the existing such accounts go wrong, often

at the very moment at which they address or dismiss the

question of the definition of leadership.

Notwithstanding the absence of an answer to this

‘‘definition question,’’ these accounts often also start with a

claim of the need for (more) ethical leaders, frequently

underscored by reference to a recent catastrophe of some

kind or other. 4

Thus, for example, Liden et al. (2008) open

their paper with the claim that ‘‘with confidence shaken in

business leadership, interest has been increasing in the

development of leaders who set aside self-interest for the

betterment of their followers and organizations.’’ 5

This eliding of the question of the definition of leader-

ship, often combined with this call for more ethical lead-

ership, can lead to mistaken accounts of leadership with

respect to ethics.

The Problem

Accounts of leadership in relation to ethics can and do go

wrong in several ways that may lead us too quickly into

thinking there is a tighter relationship between ethics and

leadership than we have reason to believe. Firstly, these

accounts can be misled by the centrality of values talk in

recent discussions of leadership into thinking that values of

a particular kind are necessary and sufficient for leadership.

Even if some such values are necessary, the connection

needs to be explained and just what those values are needs

to be determined. In any case, having values is clearly not

enough—not sufficient—to make one a leader.

Secondly, the focus on character in recent leadership

accounts can lead to a similar error. The assumption here is

that because good character is often a locus of descriptions

of leaders, such character is necessary and sufficient for

leadership. But again, even if good character is necessary,

it needs to be shown what the connection is and why it is

necessary—particularly given that such a connection is

explicitly denied in the Machiavellian literature on lead-

ership. In any case, good character is clearly not sufficient

for leadership.

Thirdly, we can fall victim to an observer bias that

colors our accounts of the leaders we admire and thus wish

to either have or be, which in turn leads to the fourth way in

which accounts of leadership can go wrong in their

description of the role of ethics in leadership. Through

inattention or through wishful thinking accounts of lead-

ership can become merely prescriptive and stipulate that

ethics is requisite and at least partly constitutive of lead-

ership. This is partly due to a deep seated desire that it be

the case that power and ethics should go together. We want

to be taken care of as well as led by our leaders. As evi-

dence of this desire think of the intellectual and theoretical

gymnastics resorted to by writers such as Dietz to deny that

Machiavelli’s Prince really does attempt to separate power

from ethics. It is also partly due to our positioning and

responses when we start to think about the kinds of leaders

that we want and admire (or might think ourselves to be).

Keeping in mind these ways in which accounts of

leadership commonly go astray, we can say that any ade-

quate account of leadership must, at least in the first

instance be able to differentiate not only between leader-

ship and good ethical character, but also between leader-

ship and power, authority, influence, managerial ability,

and charisma. All such features may at times figure in

leadership, but they are not the same as leadership, nor

does leadership need to always incorporate them.

Ciulla claims that ‘‘…the definition question in leader- ship studies is not…’’ about ‘‘What is leadership?’’ but about ‘‘What is good leadership?’’ By ‘‘good’’ she means

both ‘‘morally good and effective.’’ Given the intrinsic

3 Grint (2010), for example, opens with the acknowledgement that

the enormous amount of the leadership literature has led no closer to a

consensus about the definition of leadership (p. 1). Indeed, Grint

argues that the different approaches to leadership that he identifies are

neither close nor likely to agree on a shared definition of leadership

(p. 4). 4

The fact that, regardless of when any particular account of

leadership and ethics is published, the author can find a recent or

cotemporary such catastrophe that is commonly known and signif-

icant enough to form a reference point for their audience, whether it

be the Enron collapse, the recent Global Financial Crisis, the earlier

dotcom bubble bursting or one of any number of events, should tell us

something both about the nature of such appeals and the success of

the earlier similar appeals to greater and more ethical leadership to

prevent just such disasters. 5

Liden et al. (2008), p. 161.

226 M. P. Levine, J. Boaks

123

connection between leadership and ethics that she posits

she is able to claim that it is fair to say that ethics lies at the

heart of leadership studies. She may be right. But without

making the grounds for this view explicit, this approach

toward leadership can reduce to wishful thinking.

Moreover, it is not apparent that it is the case that

applications of the term ‘‘leadership’’ and ethics always do

coincide. While it may be true that some of us may at times

desire our leaders to be moral, it is clearly not the case

much of the time. At least there is an ambivalence that

needs to be taken seriously. Think of cases, for example,

where one’s material well-being is going to be even mildly,

let alone substantially, affected. We want our fund man-

agers and our prime-ministers to ‘‘show us the money’’;

and if doing so involves ethically questionable practices—a

euphemism for practices either immoral but legal, or

practices both immoral and illegal—then so be it.

For the sake of clarity we shall call the skeptical posi-

tion, that denies that there need be a connection between

leadership and ethics, that of the ‘‘Machiavellian skeptic.’’

Often an advocate of realpolitik, the Machiavellian skeptic

would reject the argument of Burns etc., that the kind of

leadership we are interested in is both ethically good and

effective. The Machiavellian skeptic is interested only in

what is effective and would deny that the ‘‘good’’ leader is

ethically good as well as effective (the prescriptive claim)

and would also deny that effectiveness in a leader and

ethical goodness are even likely to go together—the

Machiavellian skeptic follows Machiavelli in the Prince in

positing that in fact unethical uses of power are often more

effective and that we have no grounds for believing that

leadership is any different.

The split here is between prescriptive and descriptive

accounts of leadership—we may (we think) want our

leaders to fit the prescriptive theories that our leaders

should be ethical but prescriptive accounts are problematic.

Prescriptive models are problematic for five reasons. (1)

You have your prescriptions and I have mine, (2) they are

not performance based, (3) they ignore critical aspects of

performance not consistent with the model, (4) they do not

take situational variation into account, (5) they are framed

in terms of individual behavior when leadership is a multi-

level phenomenon.

As well as these problems, there are additional problems

for prescriptive accounts, ones that they have in common

with descriptive accounts—namely the Machiavellian

skeptic’s claim that denies that ethics and leadership do

have any intrinsic connection. Accounts that merely stip-

ulate that ethics and leadership go together are not merely

prescriptive (arguing that they should go together or we

prefer leadership that is ethical), more than that they are

stipulative—they simply stipulate that ethics and leader-

ship do go together. The merely prescriptive account is

honest that there are types of leadership that are not ethical

but we happen to prefer the types of leadership that are

ethical. The accounts that stipulate that leadership and

ethics do go together close the discussion, of whether this is

in fact the case. Given this, the problem for stipulative

accounts is more fundamental and conceptual than the five

problems listed above.

If attempts to the tie leadership and ethics together are

not to be subject to either the problems with prescriptive

accounts listed above or the challenges of descriptive

accounts that echo the Machiavellian, we need to ground

this connection between leadership and ethics in a way

that is not merely stipulative. Doing so will address the

above problems for prescriptive accounts, by showing that

the connection is neither subjective nor hypothetical, and

address the Machiavellian skeptic by demonstrating that

even on a purely descriptive account leadership and ethics

must go together. Doing this will also defend such

accounts (namely, those that tie leadership to ethics)

against the threat posed by the instrumentalist accounts of

leadership and ethics—that is, accounts that ground the

relationship between ethics and leadership by arguing for

ethical leadership as increasing follower performance.

Such accounts are vulnerable and incomplete in that they

rely on the contingent fact (if it is one) that such lead-

ership does increase follower output. If that were to

change or not be demonstrable in some contexts, the

prescriptive account shown to be instrumentally valuable

is vulnerable,

A good corporate leader is not necessarily seen to be one

who is, as Ciulla claims-‘‘morally good and effective,’’ but

rather simply as ‘‘effective.’’ Or consider political leader-

ship. Where issues of justice and fairness are perceived, as

they inevitably are, as clashing with matters of well-being

(political, social and personal), the connection between

morality and leadership again comes apart. If torture

(enhanced interrogation techniques)—is what it takes to

protect us, or if unjust inequities are what it takes to pro-

vide us with certain desired goods, then the good leader is

the one who provides us with those goods. Despite the

rhetoric (particularly of CEO’s, politicians, and at least

some in leadership studies), ‘‘good’’ leadership is rarely

perceived as an intrinsic or even fortuitous blend pursuing

and achieving goals that are both morally good and

effective. It is rather about being effective in the pursuit of

desires and aims that one favors largely because of their

perceived benefits. The illusion that good leadership is

perceived, let alone entails, being both ethical and effective

is fostered by both leaders and followers. Often procrus-

tean, the ethical dimension of leadership is obfuscated (not

always consciously) in an effort to make it seem as if it fits

naturally with effective means to desired outcomes—

whatever they may be.

What Does Ethics Have to do with Leadership? 227

123

Ciulla’s claim that good leaders are ‘‘morally good and

effective,’’ or that that is the kind of leadership we are

interested in, is subject to dispute on virtually all grounds.

Must leaders be morally good? Must they be effective?

Isn’t it possible to have a good leader who simply fails?

Mustn’t a morally good leader at least sometimes fail?

Ciulla’s understanding of leadership, of good leadership,

and of leadership studies, appears to ignore the essential

problem about leadership that Machiavelli raises in The

Prince. To equate leadership with morally good leadership

begs the most significant question—and related ques-

tions—about the nature of leadership. Furthermore, to

claim ‘‘that ethics lies at the heart of leadership studies’’

exacerbates the problem insofar as it claims that under-

standing leadership per se is necessarily bound up with

understanding some purported intrinsic ethical dimension. 6

This may be true, and indeed following Aristotle we think

it is true, but it needs to be shown why.

As well as Ciulla, other authors on leadership express a

similar approach. Eubanks, Brown and Ybema, for exam-

ple, in their introduction to the Journal of Business Ethics’

recent special issue on leadership, ethics and identity assert

that ‘‘Leadership is intrinsically bound up with ethics.’’ (p.

1), but the examples they offer the reader are in fact only

examples of the fact that leadership behavior (in the sense

not only of actions but also of relations to others and their

decisions) has ethical implications—that is, it can be

judged as more or less ethical. Thus, the focus is on

whether leadership is ethically done rather than whether

leadership itself is intrinsically ethical. 7

Far from aiding or enhancing an understanding of

leadership, approaches such as this with their supposition

that ethics are intrinsic to ‘‘good’’ leadership, as opposed to

say ethical leadership, prevents one from investigating

leadership; that is leadership that is frequently unethical. It

prevents it by stipulatively preventing any coherent con-

ceptualization of it. On Ciulla’s account, leadership that is

unethical is not really leadership; or at least not any kind of

leadership that should be of primary interest. This intro-

duces a dilemma. Either we think of David Cameron etc. as

both a leader and as ethical or we think of him as not a

leader. The dilemma is easily discarded if it is supposed, as

many do, 8

that while some of those whom we regard as

leaders may exhibit moral character and make sound eth-

ical decisions some of the time, particularly on matters of

great importance, others routinely do not. Alternatively, the

dilemma may point us in the right direction. Perhaps some

of those we think of as leaders should not be so regarded.

Indeed, this is what we will try to establish.

What is interesting in terms of leadership in relation to

John Howard, George W Bush, Tony Blair, Hilary Clinton

and Rupert Murdoch is not how they manage to blend

ethical standards they purport to adhere to, let alone gen-

uinely sound moral judgment, with whatever leadership

qualities it is they may exhibit; rather it is how and why

they frequently failed to do so. The Machiavellian-like idea

that they act in accordance with standards they generally

believe to be morally sound, or that they travel to the tune

of a different moral drummer—that is, that they adhere to a

different set of moral principles suitable for leaders, is as

naı̈ve as it is mistaken. After all, if they are regarded as

formidable leaders it is unlikely, even for many of those

who do think of them as such, that it is because—like

Mandela, Gandhi or King—they exhibit great, let alone

visionary moral character (in at least some significant

aspects of their public life).

Note too that if positions of power are distinguished

from those of leadership—a distinction often ignored or

sloughed off, the terrain becomes even more complex. A

person in power is frequently thought of as a leader (much

as successful business people—i.e., the rich—are often

assumed to be intelligent). However, in the interests of

understanding leadership as a virtue or in relation to virtue

vis-a vis power, there are ample reasons to distinguish

between the two. Exercising power is not the same as

exercising leadership. Nevertheless, while—apart from

further argument—there is no good reason to regard

morality as intrinsic to leadership—and many good reasons

not to, this is not the case with power. Leadership does

appear to intrinsically require the presence and exercise of

power if for no other reason than that leadership requires

exercising influence, not necessarily always successfully,

over others.

Taking a closer look at some of the ways that the rela-

tion between leadership and ethics is misconstrued is

necessary to better understanding both leadership and its

connection to ethics. It is, however, just a first step. Asking

whether we have reason to think of leadership as an

Aristotelian virtue should, we think, enable us to give a

more accurate and useful account of the complexity of the

relation. It also captures underlying reasons for wanting to

see the two as intrinsically connected.

6 Eubanks et al. (2012), pp. 1–3.

7 Thiel et al. (2012), pp. 48–64, make a similar point. Despite

claiming that ‘‘the discretionary decisions made by leaders are

inherently ethical because of the far-reaching and high-stakes

consequences these decisions may have for internal and external to

the leader’s organization’’ (p. 52), in fact their descriptive account of

how leaders make ethical decisions and how they can adopt strategies

to make decisions more in line with their ethical values at most

address how leadership can be done in an ethical manner and for

ethical ends (two of Ciulla’s three kinds of ‘‘good leadership’) and

gives us no reason to think that leadership itself is intrinsically ethical,

nor that one must be an ethical person to be a leader. 8

See, for example, Kellerman (2004), pp. 4–5.

228 M. P. Levine, J. Boaks

123

The Theory: How ‘‘Good’’ Does Leadership Have to be

to be ‘‘Good’’?

In considering the issue of leadership in the context of

virtue ethics, the central interrelated questions are these:

(1) can leadership be considered a virtue? (2) is leadership

intrinsically ethical? (3) is a virtuous character compatible

with or necessary to good leadership? (4) is there a posi-

tive, whether correlative or causal, relationship between the

virtuous character and leadership? Alternatively, is lead-

ership inconsonant or even incompatible with vice and

immorality? (5) can the virtuous agent be an effective

leader and if so, under what conditions? We want to know

whether Machiavelli’s Soderini was an otherwise virtuous

agent who contingently happened to lack the property of

leadership or whether the very fact that Soderini was a

virtuous agent prevented him from being an effective

leader.

Burns’ seminal and still dominant account of what he

terms ‘‘transforming leadership,’’ 9

like Ciulla’s, claims a

conceptual connection between ethics and leadership. They

build ethics into leadership—conceptually and prescrip-

tively, by stipulating that it is so. To them it is self-apparent

that leadership means, as Ciulla says, ‘‘good’’ in the sense

of both effective and morally good. Gardner’s account is

also stipulative. It holds that to be ‘‘worthy of the name,’’

‘‘leaders’’ must offer moral leadership, that is articulate and

contribute to the definition of ‘‘the values that hold the

society together’’ and lift followers out of everyday con-

siderations to ‘‘unite them in the pursuit of objectives

worthy of their best efforts.’’ 10

Although Ciulla regards the claim that ‘‘we want our

leaders to be good in both ways’’ 11

as a self-evident truth,

there is, as noted above, ample reason to deny it. The

common discourse about the dearth of ‘‘good leadership’’ is

quite compatible with the view that if and when we

allegedly care about the ethics or character of our leaders at

all, then we do so largely for prudential and self-centered

reasons—despite whatever fanciful and self-protective

stories are concocted to the contrary. (Whatever one thinks

of Bush, Blair, and Howard as leaders, lying was endemic

and systemic in their administrations, and their lies are well

documented.) 12

On this account, the alleged concern for the

moral character of leaders is likely not a genuine ethical

concern—not even on Utilitarian grounds that sees the

right course of action as one which produces the greatest

good for the greatest number. Instead, any concern with

ethics is far more likely to be grounded in some half-baked

version of ethical egoism. In any case, the question about

the relation between ethics and leadership cannot be pre-

scriptively resolved, and to reiterate, any attempt to do so

moves us away from a better understanding of leadership

while moving leadership studies in the direction of

homiletics.

Even if what Ciulla says is in a sense correct, we need to

know why some notions of leadership might be taken to

include and imply ethical leadership; why others see it as

an optional (and possibly desirable) feature of some leaders

and leadership styles; and why ethical reasoning, judgment

and character, is seen as in fact incompatible with leader-

ship in at least some cases. We also need to know what

Ciulla means by ‘‘ethically good.’’ Does she mean lead-

ership that has ethical aims as its goal? Is the reference to a

leader who acts in ethical ways in private, or when dealing

with followers 13

? How do we separate out the senses of

‘‘ethically’’ good that involve right and wrong (the part of

ethics that is concerned with a theory of the Right) and

those that involve claims about the Good (the part of ethics

that is concerned with a theory of Value)? Ciulla herself

identifies these ‘‘three general, obvious and completely

interlocking categories for the moral assessment of lead-

ership’’ in her 2005 paper 14

but does not say which of these

senses she has in mind when referring to ‘‘good

leadership.’’

Much rides on the answer to these questions. If leader-

ship does imply ethically good leadership; that is, if there is

something about the concept of leadership that means on a

correct understanding we would not apply the term to

Hitler but we would to Gandhi or Martin Luther King, Jr.

(what Ciulla succinctly refers to as ‘‘the Hitler prob-

lem’’ 15

), then we need to ask why. If, on the other hand,

leadership neither implies nor requires ethics, then why is it

that we still demand and expect—or at least have the

illusion of demanding and expecting—that would-be

leaders be ethical? Why suppose, as it often is, that those

we have accepted as leaders are, in virtue of that very fact,

by and large ethically competent and moral? Even if Ciulla

is correct that most debates that purport to be about

9 Burns (1978).

10 Gardner (2006), p. 121.

11 Ciulla (1995), p. 13.

12 See, for example, Rich (2006) and Cox et al. (2009).

13 The questions raised by Eubanks et al. (2012) in their introduction

to the recent special issue of the Journal of Business Ethics address

this element of ethics and leadership—what we might call leadership

done in an ethical manner. 14

In Ciulla’s outline of these three ‘‘categories’’, effectiveness (so

central to virtue ethics) is omitted. Ciulla lists firstly ‘‘the ethics of

leaders themselves’’—their ‘‘intentions… [and] personal ethics’’; secondly ‘‘the ethics of how a leader leads (or the process of

leadership’’; and thirdly ‘‘the ethics of what a leader does—the ends

of leadership’’. None of these however refer to the effectiveness, the

skill level of the leader qua leader. Ciulla (2005), p. 332 15

Ciulla (1995). Kellerman refers to this as ‘‘Hitler’s Ghost’’. In both

cases, the reference is to the familiar idea outlined above—the

concern over whether we must categorize Hitler as a leader.

What Does Ethics Have to do with Leadership? 229

123

leadership are in fact debates about what constitute good

leadership, she is wrong about not needing to discuss the

nature of leadership. Contra Ciulla’s claims, even if the

term ‘‘leadership’’ has reached the status of a paradigm in

the sense deployed by Kuhn 16

we need to clarify what it is,

to determine whether there is such an agreed definition and,

importantly, whether it is correct. Aristotle can help clarify

the issue.

Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every

action and pursuit, is thought to aim at some good;

and for this reason the good has rightly been declared

to be that at which all things aim. But a certain dif-

ference is found among ends… Now, as there are many actions, arts, and sciences, their ends also are

many; the end of the medical art is health, that of

shipbuilding a vessel… that of economics wealth. But where such arts fall under a single capacity—as bri-

dle—making and the other arts concerned with the

equipment of horses fall under the art of riding… the ends of the master arts are to be preferred to all the

subordinate ends; for it is for the sake of the former

that the latter are pursued. 17

Of course that leadership is a virtue does not follow

directly from Aristotle’s point here. Nevertheless it does

hint at it, especially in its establishment of hierarchies of

arts and of ends. As Damian Cox notes:

Aristotle is talking… about master arts and the hier- archy he describes is a hierarchy of ends, not virtues.

I don’t think Aristotle had an idea of a hierarchy of

virtues; though perhaps he should have. I think you

are right that you can fit an account of leadership and

the value of leadership into a eudaimonistic frame-

work, but it wouldn’t be Aristotle’s—or Hursthouse’s

either I would think. 18

In the case of leadership, we want to know whether it is of

the kind of single capacity activity such as bridle-making,

where the excellence that attaches to it is simply to make a

good bridle, or whether it is a kind of ‘‘master art’’ (like the

art of riding or of ship-building) within which, or under

which, other arts or virtues associated with leadership may

fall. 19

Further, beyond the question of whether leadership is

merely an art or a master art, our inquiry in this paper leads

us to ask whether we can go further and in fact consider

leadership a virtue and possibly a master virtue. 20

Aristotle of course clearly gives us grounds for seeing

leadership as a master art, both in the passage above and in

the Politics where he tells us that the ruler’s ‘‘function,

taken absolutely, requires a master artificer’’ while ‘‘the

subjects, on the other hand, require only that measure of

excellence which is proper to each of them’’. 21

The ques-

tion of course is whether we have reason to consider this

‘‘excellence’’ a virtue?

Of course there are technical restrictions on what can be

a virtue. For example, is leadership, as Aristotle says a

virtue must be, a character trait rather than either a passion

such as appetite, fear or pity, or a faculty that is the

capacity to feel these passions? 22

To qualify, the trait or

behavior must be behavior that the person is disposed to

display, not simply a one-off. 23

The (putative) virtue

should not be equated or identified or reduced to the

associated behavior. The requirement that virtue admits of

a mean between two extremes (vices) is one reason for

seeing leadership as a master virtue rather a virtue proper.

What might too much or too little leadership look like and

what would the associated vices be? 24

Beyond these, the main reason we argue that we have

grounds to go further than seeing leadership as a master art

and instead propose to see it as a virtue is the very end that

leadership, properly understood, pursues—that is, human

flourishing. If leadership is truly a master art as outlined

above, should its ends and goals not also be subordinated to

the ends of perhaps some even greater master art if it is

‘‘for the sake of’’ the more encompassing and significant

ends of such a master art that the ends of leadership are or

should be pursued? On this view, leadership as a master art

may be seen as the kind of excellence that is part of the set

of virtues, incorporating many other virtues—perhaps dif-

ferent virtues at different times and in different situations—

that aims overall at the ultimate good for humans. We

might see the ship-building/master art view as a metaphor

in the case of leadership—where the end of riding or ship-

building is a analogous to human flourishing and all other

virtues are analogous to the arts the combine to produce

shipbuilding—or we could see it as the outcome of com-

bining all arts and master arts into a hierarchy. On this

16 Ciulla (1995), p. 10.

17 Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics, Book 2, ch. 5.

18 Cox personal correspondence.

19 See the discussion of integrity as a virtue in Cox et al. We leave

aside the question of whether leadership as a virtue is the kind of

‘‘cultivatable and admirable’’ trait that admits of a mean between two

extremes. At least for neo-Aristotelian accounts of virtue, the putative

virtue must be expressible as a mean between two extremes—a

balance representing neither of the vices represented by either

extreme of the continuum.

20 This distinction and the discussion of it owe much to the generous

comments and suggestions of Cox. 21

Aristotle, Politics, (1996), pp. 15–20. 22

Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics, Book 2. 23

Driver (1989), p. 378, 380. 24

See the Tao Te Ching (1963), ch 60. ‘‘Ruling a big country is like

cooking a small fish.’’ Lao Tzu talks about ‘‘ruling’’ or leadership in

ways that suggest the doctrine of the mean does apply.

230 M. P. Levine, J. Boaks

123

view, shipbuilding or riding would not be an analogy, but

rather all arts and master arts would ultimately nest under

the ultimate human good to be served—eudaimonia. On

this understanding, while Aristotle may not directly give us

grounds for making the direct leap from master arts to

leadership as a virtue or a master virtue, he does offer us

the conceptual tools to do so—both by grounding leader-

ship in pursuing this human flourishing and in noting that

because the ruler is required to be a master artificer, he (or

she) ‘‘ought to have excellence of character in perfec-

tion’’—that is, that while the ruled (or on our view the led)

only require the individual excellences of character that are

particular to their roles, the ruler (leader) must have all the

perfections of character. 25

Subsuming some virtues and together with other virtues,

on this view leadership aims at eudaimonia. Eudaimonia

can be loosely translated as a state of well-being in which

human beings become what they should by living as they

should. It is the end or proper goal of the master art of

living virtuously and it is also the only way, on an account

such as Aristotle’s, to achieve real happiness. Paul Taylor

describes it as

the good of man as man. Happiness (eudaimonia,

well-being) is the kind of life that is suitable or fitting

for a human being to live, and a human being is one

who exemplifies the essential nature (or essence) of

man. Thus happiness is not to be identified with any

kind of life a person might actually want to live.

Instead, it characterizes the kind of life we all would

want to live if we understood our true nature as

human beings. Happiness, then, may be defined as

that state of the ‘‘soul’’ or condition of life which all

human beings, insofar as they are human, ultimately

aim at. 26

Hursthouse, for example, shows how the maxims of virtue

ethics are grounded in this conception of human flourish-

ing. Thus it is here that we find both the limiting factor on

what is a virtue and also the content of virtue ethics: the

virtues are those traits that foster just this particular human

flourishing. 27

Grounding leadership in flourishing is one

possible way to make sense of the claim that leadership just

is ethically good leadership, and demonstrates what

grounding in virtue ethics can offer to leadership studies.

Must leadership per se (by definition) serve the human

good? If so, does it serve the human good in the way that,

for example, single-capacity activities or even some master

arts might; by furnishing the material requirements for

humans to live in a way that allows them to develop the

virtues and thus to flourish? 28

Or does it serve the human

good in ways virtues such as temperance and practical

wisdom do? Is leadership itself a master art or virtue that

incorporates other virtues, whose ends can themselves be

subsumed under some ‘‘single capacity’’ of a greater and

more basic master art; one for whose preferred ends the

subordinate ends of leadership are, or properly should be

pursued? As Aristotle says (above), ‘‘the ends of the master

arts are to be preferred to all the subordinate ends; for it is

for the sake of the former that the latter are pursued.’’ Is it

for the sake of the ends of virtue itself or of well-being or

the ends of some other master art that the subordinate ends

of leadership are to be pursued?

On this (broadly Aristotelian view) so-called leadership

that is pursued either as an end in itself, or that fails to

integrate itself properly with other virtues, or that fails to

subordinate its ends to the larger ends for which it should

be pursued—whether by failing to identify those larger

preferable ends or for ulterior reasons, is not real leader-

ship. It is leadership gone awry. This seems intuitively

right if we consider cases of those in positions of power

that we remain reticent to say exhibit qualities of character

associated with leadership (as a virtue or master art).

Among other things this broadly Aristotelian account

helps us to isolate the kinds of positive leadership that we

are interested in—the ethically good sense of leadership

that prompts Ciulla to identify ‘‘leadership’’ as an ‘‘hon-

orific’’—from the ‘‘bad leadership’’ that is the subject of

authors such as Kellerman 29

and Unal et al. 30

It addresses,

in other words, Ciulla’s ‘‘Hitler problem’’—how to satis-

factorily account for our positive sense of the term lead-

ership and give a reason beyond wishful thinking or mere

stipulation that it doesn’t apply to those such as Hitler. It

also addresses what we have called the Machiavellian

skeptic—the position that would reject a connection

between leadership and ethics. And, it does so without

falling into any of the four mistaken ways of thinking about

leadership that we began this paper with.

Slote, in his ‘‘Virtue Ethics and Democratic Val-

ues,’’ 31

offers a way of conceptualizing how the virtues can

be served by, and more importantly can ground, democratic

political values. Slote gives primacy to the virtue of

25 Aristotle (1260), pp. 15–20.

26 Taylor (1975), p. 132 (emphases in original).

27 Hursthouse (1991), pp. 225–226.

28 The Aristotle scholar might well point us toward Book 1, Chap 2

of the Nichomachean ethics and Aristotle’s treatment of politics as the

master of these arts and sciences since it aims at the good for all, not

just for the one individual. While the topic at hand is leadership as

distinct from the formal role of statesmanship or headship that

Aristotle refers to when discussing politics, the point is salient in

discussing why we have reason to think that leadership might be a

virtue and if so what kind of virtue it might be. 29

Kellerman (2004). 30

Ünal et al. (2012), pp. 5–19. 31

Slote, 1993, pp. 5–37.

What Does Ethics Have to do with Leadership? 231

123

self-sufficiency and purports to demonstrate that social

democracy is the best political environment to promote that

virtue. Thus, for Slote, virtue ethics grounds the value and

vindication of democracy. A similar argument can be

made, that grounds the value of leadership in virtue ethics

but does so more generally by demonstrating that leader-

ship serves not just one virtue but rather the broader goal of

flourishing.

A parallel can be drawn between our grounding of

leadership as a master virtue in eudaimonia, insofar as it

serves human flourishing, with Slote’s grounding of liberal

democratic political values in the virtue of self-sufficiency.

That is, Slote shows how virtue ethics can demonstrate the

value of the political system and values of liberal democ-

racy—because they directly and best serve the virtue of

self-sufficiency in members. Similarly, our account of

leadership as a master virtue grounds leadership in eudai-

monia—the kind of leadership that subsumes other goals

and ends to eudaimonia is both the kind we (and Ciulla

et al.) are interested in and gains its content and ethical

value from promoting eudaimonia.

The Four Ways Leadership Accounts Go Wrong

on Ethics

In contrast with a model of leadership grounded in virtue

ethics and eudaimonia, talk about ‘‘values’’ in discussions

of leadership, particularly as it occurs in the context of the

business leadership literature, can be misleading and con-

fusing. Audiences comprised of business ‘‘leaders,’’ and

those who address them on the topic of leadership, can be

forgiven for thinking them receptive to hearing that lead-

ership is, by its very nature, an ethically sound activity

improved and displayed by ethically sound character.

Ironically, they may well be right. But if so, it is for reasons

other than they think, and given the kind of criteria for

genuine leadership outlined above, arguably few politicians

or CEO’s would merit the appellation ‘‘leader,’’ in anything

approaching an Aristotelian sense.

But even outside of this context, when we consider who

are the kinds of leaders we allegedly want and admire—

remembering here that there is good reason to suppose

what we allege we want is not always what we do want, we

have different biases and vested interests. The centrality of

values talk also leads to the risk of conflating mere

authority and power with moral authority and superiority. 32

If we are not clear about the role that the moral values are

playing in particular cases of leadership—for example that

the leadership is being aimed at a morally valuable

objective but may not be done in an ethically palatable

manner—we can confuse ourselves in dangerous and

important ways, such as transferring the moral gloss of the

valued ethical objective of leadership and projecting it on

to the moral character of the leader themselves. It is partly

this that is at the root of the kind of cult of the CEO/

president that Hoopes identifies. 33

In all cases, clarity about

the nature and role of ethics in leadership is required—and

again, not because we disagree with Ciulla that the sense of

leadership we are interested in is leadership that is ethical

and in some sense a virtue. It is because we do agree, and

therefore do not want to judge precipitously that our

leaders do in fact exhibit the virtue of good leadership or,

in an Aristotelian sense, leadership per se.

Contrary to the Aristotelian account that, we have been

examining, some definitions of leadership attempt do value

neutrality. Thus, Bass’ account reduces ‘‘leadership to

influence,’’ and ‘‘the production of a change in circum-

stances achieved via a change in perceptions and motiva-

tions of followers.’’ He sees the ‘‘leader’’ as ‘‘the individual

whose balance sheet shows more of these effects than

others.’’ 34

House and Howell, in their seminal account,

note that charismatic leadership can be used to both

desirable and undesirable ends—making the distinction

between socialized charismatic leadership that is to be

preferred from personalized charismatic leadership that is

generally used to morally undesirable ends. 35

Rost defines

leadership as ‘‘an influence relationship among leaders and

followers who intend real changes that reflect their mutual

purposes’’. 36

This neutrality is implicit in Kellerman’s

thesis that we need to take into account negative or evil

leadership. 37

These are the exceptions in modern accounts

of leadership. And while value neutrality maybe be desir-

able in a great many circumstances involving judgment and

adjudication, leadership, on the account we have examined,

cannot be one of them.

Closer to the Aristotelian notion of leadership as a virtue

or master art is Burns’s account of transforming leadership

as an activity whereby ‘‘people can be lifted into their

better selves.’’ 38

That is, it operates at the level of values,

and operates by improving them. Transforming leadership

occurs when leaders and followers raise one another to

higher levels of morality. It is ‘‘moral in that it raises the

level of human conduct and ethical aspiration of both

leader and led.’’ 39

This is reminiscent of those leaders

whom we see, as in the close of Lincoln’s First Inaugural

32 Hoopes (2003), pp. 273–282.

33 Hoopes (2007).

34 Bass (1990).

35 House and Howell (1992), p. 102.

36 Rost (1991).

37 Kellerman (2004).

38 Burns (1978).

39 Burns (1978), p. 20.

232 M. P. Levine, J. Boaks

123

Address, as appealing to ‘‘the better angels of our natures.’’

Although Burns sees transforming leadership as affecting

both leaders and the led, his emphasis is on improvements

in the ethical assessments made by followers rather than

the ethical actions of the leader toward the followers or in

their own private lives. This emphasis may hide, though it

ultimately cannot avoid, some of the thorniest ethical

issues with regard to the nature of leadership—like the

problem of dirty hands. Suppose, as Machiavellians would

have it and as is all too often alleged; that in order to raise

the level of human conduct one must act unethically?

Den Hartog and Belschak for example elide this very

issue when in discussion of ethical leaders they note that

‘‘The research on ethical leadership to date shows that

ethical leaders inspire high levels of commitment and trust

and foster desirable behaviors among followers’’ 40

In

addition to this posited instrumental value for authentic

leadership, the authors then find that such ethical leadership

can in essence be faked—that so-called ‘‘Machiavellian’’

leaders can in essence perform an ethical leadership that

does not correlate to their privately held views. 41

Further,

when followers do recognize that a leader’s externally

ethical behavior does not match their internal views or

character, i.e., that it is not ‘‘authentic’’, this leadership can

‘‘make their leadership less impactful.’’ 42

Leadership that

is in part valued because its ethical character is instru-

mentally valuable in producing desired behaviors and

outcomes from followers and that can in essence be faked

is not the kind of robust grounding in ethics that shows the

kind of relationship between leadership and ethics that we

are here trying to establish. It may explicitly claim an

ethical aspect to leadership but it cannot successfully

ground one. It certainly would not ground leadership as a

virtue, virtues serve human flourishing but they are never

purely instrumental. Nor is it clear that this claim for an

ethical aspect for leadership is successful—ethically done

leadership or leadership that talks with followers about

values may contingently be instrumentally valuable in

meeting organizational goals but the Machiavellian skeptic

is far from answered—for what can instrumentalist

accounts say about cases where ethically done leadership

ceases to be instrumentally valuable? What if unethically

done leadership becomes more effective? And what if the

ends and goals that are being served by such leadership are

themselves unethical? Certainly in none of these cases are

the ends that are instrumentally served likely to be the

eudaimonia of followers.

On the flipside—consider cases where the ends to be

met are in fact the eudaimonia of followers but we have no

commitment to ethically done leadership (beyond the

prescriptive)—what happens to democratic decision mak-

ing, consensus and equal input when leadership is under-

stood to be fundamentally connected to the welfare of the

followers but at the expense of the moral standing of those

leaders in charge? More generally, how do we respect the

distinction that Hoopes notes between leading for values

and leading by values? 43

Many accounts of leadership illustrate just how loose

talk about values can be. They either deny or ignore any

connection with ethics—some even making it a point of

pride—with many of them offering accounts of what we do

in fact value rather than what we should (ultimately) value.

Not all values are ethical or moral values; not all ethical

or moral values are ones we would all agree with or

endorse (a leader as much as anyone might well have

radically mistaken moral values and be ruthlessly consis-

tent in holding to and expressing them). And not all of

those are sufficient for the Aristotelian, grounding in eu-

daimonia that we have expressed. Thus, a focus on ‘‘val-

ues’’ as important in a leader is not sufficient for showing

the leadership is ethically valuable.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the discussions of

‘‘managing meaning’’ 44

as a task of leadership. DePree, for

example, tells us that ‘‘the first responsibility of the leader

is to define reality’’ 45

and then achieve ‘‘momentum’’

among followers to achieve the ‘‘vision’’ articulated by the

leader. 46

For Smircich and Morgan leaders ‘‘shape and

interpret situations into a common interpretation of reality’’

as ‘‘an important foundation for organized activity.’’ 47

Takala also endorses this view in his discussion of Plato on

leadership. 48

But apart from an account of objective value,

of what is right and good, such accounts fail to distinguish

leadership from mere influence. Not only do such accounts

fail to account for the sense we have that the (true) leader

gets things right in this area, but they intentionally distance

themselves from substantive ethical issues. Furthermore,

they regard it as a virtue of their accounts and theories that

the ‘‘ethics’’ drops out. Without explicitly saying so, they

insist, on divorcing leadership from ethics.

To a certain extent this ‘‘management of meaning’’ is

implied in the common talk of leadership ‘‘vision’’—we

hear about skills such as ‘‘shaping views,’’ ‘‘selling

objectives.’’ One way of approaching these accounts is to

bear in mind the balance between and the origin of these

40 Den Hartog et al. (2012), p. 35.

41 Den Hartog et al. (2012), p. 44.

42 Den Hartog et al. (2012), p. 45.

43 Hoopes (2007).

44 See, for example: Smircich and Morgan (1982), DePree (2010)

and Takala (1998). 45

DePree (2010), p. 5. 46

DePree (2010), pp. 8–9. 47

Smircich and Morgan (1982), p. 261. 48

Takala (1998), pp. 785–798.

What Does Ethics Have to do with Leadership? 233

123

meanings and values. At the extreme end, we have

accounts where meaning and value is meant to emanate

from the leader. In such cases, a large part of the role of

leadership is to convince followers of their merits. Another

extreme would be for the leader to (however organically or

however genuinely) determine or represent the actual val-

ues of the followers and pursue these—whatever they are.

It is this kind of account that is so often decried in the

despair over politicians who are overly influenced by focus

groups and fail to ‘‘show leadership’’ instead of merely

pandering to popular opinion. Few would apply the term

‘‘leader’’ to someone who merely mirrors the average or

median public opinion, nor would we think that someone

who happens to agree with and thus be an effective

barometer of the values of followers is therefore a good

leader, even if they also happen to have the other attendant

skills of leadership. We are not inclined to call it ‘‘lead-

ership’’ when President Obama waits until the majority of

Americans support same-sex marriage before ‘‘bravely’’

announcing that he shares this view. Of course there are

also various kinds of interactions between these two

accounts. Both of these accounts are inconsistent with the

Aristotelian account of leadership as a master virtue we

have outlined. They are fundamentally inconsistent with

any theory of leadership that sees ethics and values as

intrinsically connected.

As Ciulla notes, ‘‘transforming leaders have very strong

values. They do not water down their values and moral

ideals by consensus, but rather they elevate people using

conflict to engage followers and help them reassess their

own values and needs.’’ 49

This is explicitly contrasted with

less ambitious forms of leadership; those that are charac-

terized by ‘‘consensus procedures and goals’’ that Ciulla

explicitly claims ‘‘erode such leadership.’’ 50

It is also

contrasted of course with the kind of democratic decision

making, consensus, and equal input that we might think

important. There is an underlying assumption in Ciulla’s

account without which it would not be consistent with

Burns’. That is, the ‘‘strong values’’ that transforming

leaders adhere to and promote are genuinely good and just.

Securing a role for values in leadership does not secure an

ethical status for leadership. After all, the ‘‘value’’ in

question might for example be monetary profit or leader-

ship might be a misguided or unethical way to pursue even

ethically valuable ends. Adherence to simply any set of

values, right or wrong, is not sufficient. Leaders, insofar as

they are leaders, fallibly promote goodness and justice.

This is precisely why Avolio’s theory of authentic

transformational leadership, in contrast to what he terms

‘‘pseudotransformational’’ leadership does not sufficiently

ground leadership and ethics. In contrast to the pseudo-

transformational leader who ‘‘caters in the long run to his

or her self-interests,’’ ‘‘truly transformational leaders

transcend their own self-interests for one of two reasons:

utilitarian or moral principles.’’ 51

The former of these

represents the goals of the group to which the followers and

the leader belong. But while the element of sacrifice of

personal self-interests by the leader is a familiar element

from our discussions here, this is not sufficient for

grounding the relationship of leadership and ethics. No

content is given to what these principles are—are they

moral principles or other kinds of values? endorsable moral

principles or mistaken ones? Firstly, the ‘‘utilitarian’’ goals

to which the leader’s self-interests are being subsumed

need not be morally good ones. It matters that in either

case, either moral or utilitarian principles, are grounded in

correct moral values. For example, it is not clear on this

view that a Hitler need, be a pseudo-transformational lea-

der. In fact Avolio is correct that Hitler left ‘‘a legacy of

destruction’’ 52

but this need not be the case. A leader who

sacrifices their own self-interests to the overall goals of the

group where these goals are morally neutral or objection-

able would qualify, on Avolio’s model, as a transforma-

tional leader. That they do shows that Avolio’s model does

not offer us the strong relationship between leadership and

ethics that we are trying to establish. Avolio’s pseudo-

transformational leaders may be ‘‘self-oriented, self-

aggrandizing, exploitative, and narcissistic’’ 53

but it does

not follow that beyond the absence of these qualities

authentic transformational leaders are otherwise ethical.

The would-be values focused accounts of leadership in

the business literature also differ from the Aristotelian

account of leadership we offer in the role that values play.

Rather than serving, or being necessary to promote, flour-

ishing in followers, to the extent that the recent business

literature focuses on the need for leaders to have and be

true to values, it is for pragmatic, instrumental reasons.

In short, these accounts, while emphasizing the role of

values in ethical leadership, are agnostic on what values

these might be (beyond specifying that the leader should

have values and transmit these to followers, they are silent

on whether these need to be correct moral values) and

moreover values are taken as important in ethical leader-

ship in the main for instrumental reasons. Even when these

accounts come close to asserting that leadership that is

conducted in accord with ethical values might increase

followers (subordinates’) well-being, this too is valued for

instrumental reasons. The values in question and the well-

being of followers are subsumed to the organizational

49 Ciulla (1995), p. 15.

50 Burns (1991), p. xii.

51 Avolio (2002), p. 8.

52 Avolio (2002), p. 8.

53 Avolio (2002), p. 8.

234 M. P. Levine, J. Boaks

123

outcomes. In the recent special issue of the Journal of

Business Ethics focused on the relationship between ethics,

leadership and identity for example, Avey et al. tell us that

ethical leadership results in both increased job satisfaction

and well-being of followers, and well-being of followers is

important to organizations because it results in increased

job satisfaction and organizational commitment among

employees. 54

Den Hartog, in the same issue, tell us ‘‘ethical

leadership … is a value-driven form of leadership’’, which influences ‘‘the self-concept and beliefs of their follow-

ers’’ 55

and ultimately their work output and focus on the

organization’s good rather than (just) their own 56

Unal

et al. call for a more robust normative foundation to ethi-

cally done supervision (including acknowledging the

existence of both ethical and unethical leadership thus

implicitly rejecting the conflation of leadership and good

leadership), but are thus limited to one of Ciulla’s three

senses of ‘‘good leadership’’. 57

The model of servant leadership, common in the liter-

ature, sits in this area of leadership that instrumentally

serves follower output and chosen ends, which need not be

endorsable moral values. While in some ways closest to a

broadly Aristotelian model of leadership proposed here,

with its emphasis on serving over other objectives the

needs of followers, the overall ‘‘good’’ that the model of

leadership is shown to serve are the organizational goals.

While it may prove its claims that ethical leadership works

best, this ‘‘works best’’ is in large part defined as serving

the organizational goals and improving job role perfor-

mance by subordinates. Liden et al. explain that ‘‘The

relation between the ‘‘behaving ethically’’ dimension of

servant leadership and follower job performance … sug- gests that special concern be shown for selecting leaders of

integrity and ethics.’’ 58

Ethical behavior by leaders is thus,

on Liden’s view, a desirable add-on (not intrinsic to

leadership) because of its facilitation of improved perfor-

mance by followers.

On the strongest interpretation, this offers merely a

contingent finding that there is a connection between

serving the needs of followers and achieving one’s own

ends without answering most of Ciulla’s three questions or

telling us way that should be the case, on the weakest and

to the cynical it represents an argument for a leadership

style that serves the needs of followers so that and because

it will increase their work output and support for the

organization or group’s goals (whatever and how ethical or

otherwise these might be). Both interpretations cede too

much ground to the Machiavellian skeptic—either because

the relationship is merely contingent or because the ends

served need not be ethical goals at all.

Servant leadership may well be ‘‘based on the premise

that to bring out the best in their followers, leaders rely on

one-on-one communication to understand the abilities,

needs, desires, goals, and potential of those individuals’’,

emphasize personal integrity and long-term relationships,

and thus ‘‘shows promise as a way to build trust with

employees, customers, and communities’’ 59

but it does so

without examining whether the values that followers rea-

son about and support leaders to pursue are correct ones,

nor is it clear why this grounding need be necessary. And

since it leaves itself open to an interpretation that would

consistently allow the inauthentic performance of such a

style of leadership to instrumental ends (namely increasing

job role output by followers), it cannot be our answer to

whether there is an intrinsic connection between leadership

and ethics. The Machiavellian skeptic, who questions

whether there need be any connection between leadership

and ethics, is not answered by the servant leadership

account.

This is also true in the case of another popular distinc-

tion made in the literature on leadership—that between the

so-called personalized and socialized leadership. Person-

alized leaders, according to the literature, are ‘‘self-

aggrandizing, non-egalitarian, and exploitive’’. 60

In con-

trast, socialized leadership, (the endorsed option in the

literature), is that of leaders who are ‘‘collectively oriented,

egalitarian, and nonexploitive.’’ 61

Here again, the more

‘‘supportive, sensitive, nurturing’’ socialized leaders that

House and Howell identify as common to the accounts of

Burns, Avolio, Bass and others ‘‘transform the needs,

values, preferences, desires and aspirations of followers

from self-interests to collective interests. Further, they

cause followers to become highly committed to the leader’s

mission, and to perform above and beyond the call of

54 Avey et al. (2012), p. 22 Elsewhere in their article the authors note

that ethical leadership yields increased ‘‘psychological ownership’’ by

followers (p. 35), by which they mean a feeling of responsibility

among followers (p. 24) which in turn ‘‘encourages them to take

responsibility for work projects at a time when restructuring managers

are being asked to do more than ever’’ (p. 32). 55

Den Hartog et al. (2012), p. 35. 56

Den Hartog et al. (2012), p. 36. The authors note this value-driven

leadership lead followers to focus more on the needs and the good of

the organization beyond their own individual needs and interests,

‘‘increases attachment to the collective and their willingness to make

personal sacrifices’’. 57

Ünal et al. (2012), pp. 5–19. Note though that despite expressing

such a need, the authors themselves are not very robust in their ethical

grounding of the issue. Their treatment of the ethical evaluations and

grounds of leadership decisions essentially reduces to a brief, cursory

introduction of teleological, deontological and virtue ethics and then

treating these as a checklist of criteria that an action needs to meet in

order to qualify as ‘‘ethical’’. 58

Liden et al. (2008), p. 174.

59 Liden et al. (2008), p. 162.

60 House and Howell (1992), p. 81.

61 House and Howell (1992), p. 81.

What Does Ethics Have to do with Leadership? 235

123

duty.’’ 62

That is, while such accounts may operate at the

level of character traits and of values, they are endorsed

because of their instrumental value—simply put, they

increase follower work levels. 63

In seeking to explain why

socialized leaders ‘‘perform better… than personalized leaders,’’

64 Mumford notes the central predictor role of

integrity on the part of the socialized leader 65

and their use

of ‘‘prosocial’’ arguments, in contrast to personalized

leaders who are less able to ‘‘grasp the needs and concerns

of others.’’ 66

While such an explanation involves a nod to

the needs of followers and the integrity of leaders it is

essentially reduced to a performance driver, rather than any

exploration of why this might be. On this view, the

socialized leadership style is instrumentally valuable, and

the theory offers no grounding of the implied relationship

between such leadership and ethics other than the instru-

mental nor a focus on what such ethics or values might

be—correct or otherwise. Socialized leaders are preferred

because ‘‘personalized leaders undermine organizational

performance.’’ 67

They are really referring to ethical lead-

ership’s efficacy as a performance driver, with no com-

mitment to what such performance is being driven toward.

Further, while there is some indication by Mumford that

the kind of socialized leadership requires some personal

traits, some aspects of what we would call a good ethical

character—for example, not being ego driven in order to be

able to work with a team of leaders/managers 68

—others

suggest leadership style over personal traits—that is, ‘‘the

capacity to present arguments in a positive social

context.’’ 69

However, Ciulla’s three questions are not answered—

the preference for socialized leadership (on instrumental

grounds)—does not insure that we require leadership that is

ethically done, aimed at ethical ends and by ethical per-

sons. If socialized charismatic leadership is equally effec-

tive when aimed at unethical objectives of organizations,

Mumford’s and House’s accounts gives us no reason that is

not stipulative or prescriptive to prefer a leadership that

does meet all three of Ciulla’s criteria nor to think that

leadership and ethics need be connected. House and Ho-

well, for example, note that while both the socialized and

personalized forms of charismatic leadership are more

effective than non-charismatic leadership we have pre-

scriptive reasons to prefer socialized charismatic leader-

ship. At the same time, they note that because of our

prescriptive preference for the generally more ethical

socialized leader over the personalized we will likely only

be able to do so through legislative ‘‘preventative mecha-

nisms’’ and checks and balances and even that may not be

sufficient to do the job. Nor can House and Howell’s

suggested approach of supplementing such measures with

individuals having awareness of the potential for negative

and dangerous styles of charismatic leadership. 70

This

approach does not get us further than any other prescriptive

approach. The kinds of restrictions that would do what

House and Howell want them to do—to define and identify

the desirable kinds of leadership that are good in all three

of Ciulla’s senses—are precisely the kinds of conceptual

connections we are advocating and that need to be drawn

out rather than avoiding the question of definition.

Therefore, for this reason and in this way, both theo-

retical and practical accounts of leadership must rest on the

study of ethics. This includes a robust, prudent and ongoing

identification and examination of what morally just and

good ethical principles and actions are, and what makes

them so. It also requires protecting those conditions—the

many freedoms—that make such inquiry possible and

pertinent.

IV

There are, however, also accounts of leadership to which

the idea of objective value is central, where not just any

values will serve the purpose. Values, along with facts about

what is right, just, and fair, are located outside of both leader

and followers and not just relative to, or a matter of,

whatever anyone happens to think. Descriptively speaking

it is a fact that people do have different ideas about what is

ethical (right and valuable). But nothing normative follows

from this. It does not follow from the fact that people

believe different things about what is moral, that what is in

fact moral is merely a matter of what anyone thinks. On

these accounts of leadership, the leader as moral reformer

(e.g., Lincoln and King) is the one who is better (‘‘ahead

of’) the rest of us in apprehending these objective (i.e.

correct) ethical truths and ‘‘good’’ values. It is not (just) the

case that the public at the time (nor perhaps even all of

Lincoln or King’s followers) held the goals of ending

slavery and of achieving civil rights. Indeed part of why we

and the respondents to Kouzes’ question 71

are so likely to

62 House and Howell (1992), p. 82.

63 Note that this account also operates at the level of the character

and traits of the leader, thus fitting another of the ways that we argue

accounts of leadership preemptively assume that leadership and ethics

go together. 64

Mumford (2006), p. 275. 65

Mumford (2006), p. 275. 66

Mumford (2006), p. 276. 67

Mumford (2006), p. 281. 68

Mumford (2006), p. 280. 69

Mumford (2006), p. 280.

70 House and Howell (1992), p. 102.

71 Kouzes (2010), p. xvii.

236 M. P. Levine, J. Boaks

123

name these two as paradigms of admired leaders is just

because this was not the case; that we think of them as ahead

of the sensibilities of their followers and the general public.

Nor do we think of these goals as particular values of the

two individuals who were able to convince others of these

through their skill and charisma—so the ‘‘managing

meaning’’ accounts don’t capture the leadership that we

attribute to these individuals. We don’t think that moral

reformers are ‘‘leaders’’ just because they are able to con-

vince others of their point of view. That’s just not what we

perceive them to be doing when we call them leaders. It

matters that we think that it is the correct point of view, that

there is a fact of the matter, and this is what they convince

their followers of. Rather, what is at play is that we feel

there is something objectively correct about their goals. We

endorse them and their goals retrospectively from the view

of history as ‘‘visionary’’, and we admire their skill and

ability to achieve these.

This is also at play in the incredibly common metaphors

of pathways in leadership discourse—again and again we

hear and talk of leaders who ‘‘forge the trail’’, who have a

vision of ‘‘the way forward’’. In each of these cases the

geographical metaphor’s underlying assumption is that

there is a progress, an improving, a movement toward

values that are objectively preferable (equality over

inequality, social justice over injustice etc.). But it is this

idea of an objective truth apprehended (naturally and

unmistakably) by the leader that also underlies Plato’s

account of the philosopher-king. Such accounts invariably

move us closer to the ‘‘father knows best’’ theory of

leadership along with a concept of ‘‘authority’’ that is

grounded in an alleged special knowledge that may be

inaccessible to others. (Surely the CEO, President, Prime

Minister knows relevant matters of fact that we do not

know and so acts accordingly?) These accounts rely on

blind obedience rather than the considered endorsement by

followers that a morally robust concept of leadership

implies. It is this considered endorsement that is one of the

positive appeals of ‘‘leadership’’ over mere authority. One

need not reject the idea that morality and value is objective

to reject the idea of the ‘‘father knows best’’ theory of

leadership along with the idea of relying on ‘‘special

knowledge.’’

On the Platonic account, there is an objective truth about

how society and individual lives should be ordered and the

philosopher-king just is, in virtue of their special capaci-

ties, by definition, the individual who sees this. These

truths are objective, in the sense that their truth is inde-

pendent of, and not reliant upon, what any individual fol-

lower thinks. Unlike the philosopher-king (who has

knowledge of unchanging reality as such in knowing the

Forms) some of these truths are beyond us and we, the

ship-hands are in no position to judge or object to these

values. And yet this is at least one source of consternation

and tension with regard to the concept of leadership. We

seem committed to the idea of a leader as, in part, one who

sees truths and worthwhile goals better than we do, and yet

as moral agents (and people) we cannot relinquish trying to

come to know for ourselves what is right and good and

challenging the leader as we see fit. Leadership can never

demand blind obedience, and insofar as the notion of a

philosopher-king demands such obedience, it is no more

palatable than a dictator. 72

Nor is the question resolved by answering whether we

think there are such objective truths that may be accessible

to some among us. The question of whether there is an

objective truth or value does not address what follows from

that. We might still not want a perfect authority, a Phi-

losopher-King because of other goods that are precluded by

this (such as eudaimonia).The idea that objective truths and

values are to be pursued and enforced on behalf of the

populace for their own good and in the interests of well-

being and justice, but without their approval or consent, is

rightly terrifying after the 20th Century. Models of lead-

ership where the leader chooses and dictates what is ‘‘best’’

without due consideration of, and considered endorsement

by, followers or others who may be affected, are rightly

generally regarded (though not always so regarded in the

literature on leadership), as unacceptable on either or both

moral and practical grounds. Even those, like Graham, who

think that there is nothing wrong in principle with the idea

of a philosopher-king, reject the idea in practice. Who after

all, fits the job description? Also unacceptable are models

of leadership where the values pursued are those of either

the leader alone or simply a mirror reflection of (or ‘‘led

by’’) what the followers value. Ideally we want leaders

(Nelson Mandela or a Martin Luther King) who both

articulate and help shape the desires and values of those

they lead toward valuable moral goods, and objectively

good values, and who do so in a way that is right, just and

objectively good. Tyrants who focus merely on external

good and pursue goals at any cost, regardless of the opinion

of his or her followers, are not ‘‘leaders’’ in the Aristotelian

sense of leadership as a master virtue. They have not

subsumed subsidiary goals and objectives to the require-

ments of leadership properly understood.

V

The claim that objectively sound ethical values are required

for leadership does not, by itself, show that an acceptable

72 See Popper (1957), for what is perhaps the best known critique of

Plato’s philosopher-king in the 20th century. For a limited defence of

Plato see Graham (1983, 2002).

What Does Ethics Have to do with Leadership? 237

123

account of leadership belongs to virtue ethics alone, or that

an adequate account of leadership cannot be given by other

normative ethical theories (e.g. Kantianism or some form

of consequentialism). Such a claim would need to further

connect leadership, theoretically and practically, in the

right kind of relationship with human flourishing. It is the

virtues’ fostering of human flourishing, or eudaimonia, that

grounds both virtue ethics as a whole and the status of the

individual virtues as such. 73

For leadership to qualify as a

master virtue, all of the skills and ‘‘excellences’’ associated

with various aspects of leadership need to serve human

flourishing, both for the agent (the leader) and for those

around him or her.

Oakley’s distinction between virtue ethics and the

character-based expressions of Kantian and consequen-

tialist ethics give us a way into distinguish the virtue eth-

icists’ claims about the primacy of character from those of

leadership theorists’ generally. Oakley identifies the

‘‘normative conception’’ orienting these accounts as the

point of difference. A consequentialist account that

emphasizes the role of character does so by describing the

ethically good character as the character best able to apply

the normative conception of that theory—that is, the out-

come with the most utility. Whereas a Kantian account of

the goodness of an agent’s character would make such an

evaluation based on the ability of the agent to, in Oakley’s

words, ‘‘determine the universalisability of their max-

ims’’. 74

In neither case is the focus on character sufficient

to qualify it as consonant with virtue ethics. Character may

be the focus of these accounts, but the criteria and the

evaluative bar are not the same as that of virtue ethics.

Just as accounts that emphasized the instrumental worth

of values based leadership in producing increased worker

outputs were not sufficient to show that leadership is

intrinsically valuable or values-based, nor do accounts that

show the character of ‘‘leaders’’ in the workplace to be

instrumentally valuable at producing such follower outputs

show that character is necessary nor sufficient for leader-

ship. 75

Nor do they come close to fitting our Aristotelian

model of leadership as a master virtue—the character in

question, just as the values were in the parallel accounts,

subsumed to the organizational outputs by being instru-

mentally valuable for their ability to produce these results.

We should not be surprised to find that a focus on

character is not sufficient for virtue ethics: not just any

focus on character qualifies a theory as belonging to virtue

ethics and in fact it is precisely the strawman fallacy

reductions of virtue ethics by some opponents that depict

virtue ethics this way. The locus of evaluation may be the

same (that is, the internal traits of persons), but the nor-

mative conception to which these traits address themselves

is different—whether it be calculating the maximum utility

or assessing the best course of action to achieve certain

strategic aims, convince others of the desirability of a

course of action, maintain morale among followers etc. The

(essentialist) concept of human flourishing, central to virtue

ethics, is lacking. While Oakley correctly notes that dif-

ferent instantiations of virtue ethics vary in their concep-

tion of the relationship between the virtues and human

flourishing 76

it is in all of these cases a tight relationship

that grounds the virtues that is not captured by the kind of

character traits that are posited in these other accounts of

character in relation to leadership. In the case of leadership

these traits, even if they match up with the virtues of a

virtue ethics, are valued because they are strategically

(instrumentally) useful in a leader, not because expressing

them is, or yields, human flourishing in a virtue ethics

sense.

Because it is obliged to consider only the outcomes,

consequentialism simpliciter cannot account for the posi-

tive connotations that we attribute to ‘‘leadership’’ over

equally instrumentally effective power or managerial

skill—the reasons why Ciulla notes that, in English at least

‘‘the term leadership is an honorific’’. 77

It cannot capture

the positive evaluation attributed to achieving the same

aims by a positively valued leadership in contrast with the

same outcomes achieved merely by power or managerial

skill. (The distinctions are not always made—and to some

they hardly seem relevant. A leader just is a good manager

who get the right results.)

Although a focus on character is insufficient to establish

a meaningful connection with virtue ethics, accounts of

leadership that rely essentially on an elaboration of the

‘‘good’’ character of the leader can be supported by virtue

ethics. Right actions are specified by reference to the

actions of the virtuous agent. Hursthouse notes that virtue

ethics specifies the virtuous agent ‘‘in terms of the virtues,

and then specifies these, not merely as dispositions to right

action, but as the character traits (which are dispositions to

feel and react as well as act in certain ways) required for

eudaimonia.’’ 78

According to Oakley ‘‘Virtue ethicists give

primacy to character in the sense that they believe refer-

ence to character is essential in a correct account of right

and wrong action.’’ 79

While this emphasis on character fits

squarely with the Aristotelian account of leadership as a

master virtue, as we noted above the ‘‘primacy of charac-

ter’’ in determining the correct action can lead us into

73 See, for example, Hursthouse (1991), pp. 225–226.

74 Oakley (1996), p. 132.

75 See, for example, Avey et al. (2012), p. 22, 25, 32.

76 Oakley (1996), p. 133.

77 Ciulla (2005), p. 325.

78 Hursthouse (1991), p. 226.

79 Oakley (1996), p. 131.

238 M. P. Levine, J. Boaks

123

thinking that these accounts dovetail more closely with

popular accounts of leaders and leadership than they do.

Focus on the character of the leader is often used to dis-

tinguish leadership from power or authority simpliciter. In

contrast with depictions of power gained through inheri-

tance or other arbitrary means, leadership is depicted

through its focus on character as earned, or rightful power

and influence. Accounts of leadership that place character

as central to or constitutive of leadership in these approa-

ches abound, often as a corrective to earlier accounts of

management by incentives, coercion or other systematized,

behavioral approaches. In response to these, accounts that

valourise ‘‘leadership’’ over management often dwell on

the character of the leader.

Nevertheless, asserting that a leader must be a person of

good character tells us remarkably little apart from an

account of (i) what good character is, as in virtue ethics,

and (ii) why good character is essential to leadership as can

be seen in the Aristotelian account of leadership as a master

virtue. Only a person of good character is capable of

advancing both their own well-being and that of others

through the exercise of their leadership. 80

Only a person of

good character will not (intentionally) subvert the ends to

which leadership, properly understood, strives by seeking

goals and ends (for example, power and influence for

personal gain or their own sake) incompatible with, or not

conducive to the ends of leadership understood as intrin-

sically ethical and a master virtue.

Plato has an answer to the question of who can be a

leader (or Philosopher-King). Not only do they have to be

born with certain capacities, they also need to be educated

in the specific way Plato lays out in The Republic. While

recognizing that leadership may well require both certain

constitutive (genetic) capacities as well as those cultivated

by means of education, the idea that leaders are somehow

essentially different from or other than, followers or the

rest of us needs to be challenged. Is ‘‘leadership’’ as a

master virtue, something that should be cultivated by each

of us? Given that people have various roles and duties to

fulfill it is likely that some of those roles cast them as a

follower while undoubtedly others—parenting, teaching,

working with others, put them in positions of leadership.

The very same role, whether that of being a teacher or a

CEO, suitably understood, may require leaders to be fol-

lowers and vice-versa, in such a way that being one and the

other are essentially bound up with one another. Good

leadership may and likely does, require virtues associated

with being a person who is capable of, and at the same time

is a good ‘‘follower’’ and vice versa. Consider the fact that

those in positions of management will often see their pri-

mary role as that of a follower—one that does the bidding

of those higher up and in charge. This may be used by the

manager (think of university deans), as mitigating certain

responsibilities of good leadership. However, the claim that

‘‘I was merely following orders,’’ is never sufficient in and

of itself to absolve responsibilities associated with leader-

ship—whether one is a foot soldier or a dean. In contrast to

the approach that sees leadership as largely the preserve of

CEOs and politicians, some leadership theory emphasizes

how many of us are leaders. Few however emphasize the

inescapable crossover and connections in everyday life of

leadership roles with those of following and being led.

Given the extent of this overlap as well as the kinds and

extent of various compromises that inevitably must be

made, it is worth asking whether a virtuous person, or a

person who could practise leadership as master virtue,

would be interested in the job. Note that such references to

‘‘the job’’, the role make it abundantly clear that leadership

qua role is itself already separated from the quality of

leadership. Remember that Plato’s Philosopher-King is

reluctant to take on the role. In regard to contemporary

politicians it is sometimes said that anyone who wants the

job should not have it. And the reason that wanting the job

ipso facto may be thought to rule a person out is because

such a position is regarded as incompatible with virtue and

leadership in the broad Aristotelian sense as a master vir-

tue. Leaders frequently rely on such a tacit understanding

of the requirements of the position of leadership to eschew

meaningful culpability. Consider the fact that an aspect of

being an ordinary university employee—let’s say a pro-

fessor, routinely requires one to fabricate, distort, deceive,

use subterfuge and hyperbole, and otherwise go easy on the

truth. The idea that those in more substantial positions of

leadership (but also followers), must frequently put value

and truth to the rear, gains force. No person is an island.

And insofar as leadership, conceived of as a master ven-

ture, requires a reasonably ethical environment in order to

operate at all—let alone effectively—even if leadership

were possible, its scope may be severely limited.

Our prima facie and ethically robust accounts of lead-

ership have an emphasis on the leader’s judgment—the

ability to judge what the right goals to be pursued are,

when the timing is right to pursue them, what strategies are

likely to be successful, how far or how emphatically to

pursue a goal or objective in a way that seems to parallel

the phronesis of Aristotelian virtue ethics. As Hursthouse

notes, the Aristotelian sense of a virtue requires not only

that the possessor have the trait that makes them morally

good but that they correctly judge when and how best to act

on the trait—‘‘a virtuous person is a morally good

80 Avey et al. (2012), p. 21. In positing that good ethical character is

instrumentally valuable in serving business motives, Avey et al. fall

short of both of these marks.

What Does Ethics Have to do with Leadership? 239

123

excellent, or admirable person who acts and reacts well,

rightly, as she should—she gets things right.’’ 81

In other

words, the virtuous agent does the right thing in the right

way—the implication here is one of skill as well as of

intention. Suppose however that one lives in what is tan-

tamount to a moral vacuum of sorts? What are the chances

then of being able to exercise such virtues?

Not all, or even most, of the literature that sees ‘‘value’’

as central to leadership should be equated with virtue

theory. Kouzes places values firmly at the center of lead-

ership, noting that the common characteristic of those most

named as admired leaders is that of ‘‘strong beliefs about

matters of principle. (Hitler might be thought to have had

such beliefs as well.) His account is typical both of a range

of leadership literature and of our prima facie thinking

about leadership. House, for example, notes that among

other traits, charismatic leaders have ‘‘exceptionally strong

convictions in the moral correctness of their beliefs’’. 82

Leaders like Lincoln all have, or had, unwavering com-

mitment to a clear set of values. They all are, or were,

passionate about their causes.’’ 83

Several questions arise

with regard to such accounts. Is such commitment to values

constitutive of leadership, or does the admiration of those

asked come from the fact that the ‘‘leadership’’ of those

cited was applied to a project and values that these

observers endorsed. Additionally, does a commitment to

such (presumably admirable) values and principles suffice

or do the leaders have to be overall ‘‘successful’’ in their

pursuits as well? Suppose the Civil War was won by the

south; England was defeated in World War II and the civil

rights movement in the U.S. failed? What then becomes of

Lincoln, Churchill and King?

Kouzes’s conclusion does not necessarily follow from

the evidence he cites. For one thing it assumes that those

asked know which qualities in a leader they do most admire

and that they are answering truthfully. It might be that

those who are asked are actually answering as they think

they should believe rather than what they do believe—

citing qualities that they would like to most admire but in

fact do not. Suppose those being asked are in the middle of

some kind of leadership training course and thus primed to

think of themselves as (presumably ethically good) lead-

ers? Asking which leaders one most ‘‘admires’’ and then

taking these as the paradigmatic of leadership per se is not

only tantamount to ‘‘leading the witness,’’ it also begs the

question in assuming such characteristics are essential to

leadership and to what we want in leaders. Different

answers might be given if asked ‘‘who in your opinion

showed the most leadership?’’ or ‘‘who most embodies the

concept of leadership?’’ rather than ‘‘which qualities in a

leader do you most admire?’’ or trying to glean those

qualities from a list of those most admired.

Our answer to the question ‘‘Which architect do you

most admire?’’ might plausibly be to respond with the

example of an architect who donates the bulk of her pro-

fessional time and skills to designing hospitals and water

sanitation facilities in poorer countries, although we might

instead name another architect altogether when asked

whom we consider the most skilled architect. Seeing that

these are two different questions with (conceivably) dif-

ferent responses helps to show that Kouzes’s example does

not prove that values are constitutive of leadership—or that

people generally tend to think so. Thus while Kouzes’s

account does place ethics, value and principle at the core of

leadership, and thus superficially resembles a virtue theory

account, it does not tell us what leadership is or why value

is essential—if it is. It is a report on what some people

allegedly think. It is however also what the intended

audience of handbooks on leadership presumably wants to

hear. After all, they mostly already are (or wish to be) in

positions of management, presuming themselves to be

‘‘leaders’’ and want to know how to be the kind of leader

others admire.

So leadership cannot be conceived as a virtue in the

narrow, Aristotelian sense that traits such as courage and

temperance are virtues and the accounts that assert that

leadership just is good character or good ethics are mis-

taken. However, we believe that the broadly Aristotelian

account outlined above demonstrates that leadership can

and should be conceived of as a master virtue that, cor-

rectly understood, serves human flourishing. This is both a

way of grounding leadership in ethics and showing that

there is an intrinsic connection between leadership and

ethics—one that goes beyond mere wishful thinking or

stipulation. That this, we believe correct, sense of leader-

ship requires that the leader subsume all other goals to that

of human flourishing indicates both the nature of the con-

nection between leadership and ethics as well as how high

the bar is set—it retains the honorific sense of ‘‘leader’’ but

very few will meet it. Certainly it is not the kind of per-

sonal quality that can be taught in a short time frame and

then used to increase the profitability of any and all private

companies (which is surely the sales pitch of most courses

and manuals of frontline leadership that are so popular and

profitable today). Further, the broadly Aristotelian account

of leadership as a master virtue that serves human flour-

ishing shows that just as leadership is not simply regular

ethics—as Cordell’s account’s failure to account for the

special case of leadership shows—yet it cannot be sepa-

rated from regular ethics (contra those such as Machiavelli

81 Hursthouse (1999), p. 13.

82 House and Howell (1992), p. 87.

83 Kouzes (2010), p. xvii.

240 M. P. Levine, J. Boaks

123

who would claim that leadership and ethics are entirely

separate or that leadership ethics is categorically different

from regular ethics).

Directions for Further Research

Our argument shows how leadership can and should be

grounded in a eudaimonistic framework using the con-

ceptual framework that Aristotle provides us with although

we do not claim to have shown that this need be the only

way a connection between leadership and ethics can be

grounded. This indicates two major directions for future

research, one direct and one indirect. The direct area is to

take the argument we have offered and explore how this

might play out in specific and concrete contexts—how, for

example, on this understanding of leadership, should the

leaders of individual kinds of organizations and groups act

in different contexts? How might we evaluate such leaders

and how might we help them apply this framework to

inform how they should pursue particular goals? The sec-

ond major area of research is to explore how we might

ground a connection between leadership and ethics on

other models. How, for example, might a consequentialist

ethics or a Kantian one ground such a connection? We

believe we have shown how existing answers are lacking in

some ways and offered one possible way to fill these gaps,

a eudaimonistic one. But we do not claim to have shown

that similar answers might not be possible for Kantian or

consequeuntialist ethics. Similarly, the individual theories

we have considered might be furthered in a way that fills

these gaps, whether using our eudaimonistic approach or a

potential Kantian or consequentialist one. As we argued

above, we are sympathetic to the claims of those such as

Burns, House and Howell, and Ciulla who believe that we

are and should be interested in leadership that is ‘‘good’’ in

all of these senses outlined above, and we would be keen to

see further research that uses the arguments we have made

to identify and fill these gaps.

Acknowledgment Thanks are due to several anonymous referees for their comments and feedback. Earlier versions of this paper were

read at a public lecture hosted by the Institute of Advanced Studies at

the University of Western Australia and at the 2012 Australasian

Association of Philosophy conference. Thanks are due to both of

these hosts and to the comments are question of audience members on

both occasions.

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