A Model for Ethical Leadership

The purpose in devising a “model” for ethical leadership is two fold. First, it breaks the idea of leadership into components that can be examined and analyzed. Second, it connects leadership as a concept to leadership as an activity. The question of ethical value arises in the midst of action and as a component of selection among alternatives. The following model is based on several assumptions: 1. As interactive agents, individuals live and act in any of three different modes of being: (1) as autonomous individuals, (2) as members of teams and relationships of various sorts, (3) as members of larger community and organizational groups. 2. At least six different conditions of being can exist in relation to any of the three modes of being: (1) Identity – self-recognition, awareness of boundaries between the self and other, perceptions of purpose (life purpose, organizational purpose) and knowledge of definition; (2) Internal Reality – self-reflection, understanding of the emotional and cognitive level factors contributing to a relationship, understanding of the systems or underlying. 3. structures that support an organization or community; (3) Contextual Reality the factors that compose the overall context for the self, the relationship or the organization; economic, social, cultural realities; the reasons for which the team or relationship were created in the first place; the general context that surrounds the self, the relationship or the organization; (4) Tensions – the competition between and among competing values, the stresses that arise when individuals and teams and communities begin to act in relation to one another, conflicts between and among individuals, teams and groups; (5) Ambiguity – the apparent gap between one’s intuitive sense of things as an individual and one’s complete cognitive awareness of the dynamics entailed in the partnership or group relationships; (6) Complexity – the recognition that ambiguity can be embraced and absorbed through refusal to see Ambiguity (apparently irreconcilable Tensions) as insurmountable; the condition in which true leadership can be exercised. 4. There is a relationship between psychological health/knowledge and one’s capacity to assess both self and other(s) in relation to which one may adopt a leadership role. 5. The point at which circumstances appear to be least supportive of constructive future options or possibilities is precisely the point at which leadership emerges. The leader is the one who finds a way to transform an apparently hopeless situation into a hopeful one. In so doing, the leader makes a choice that impacts “the other.” Consequently, leadership is an ethical activity.