Terry Bradley
American Public University
Management 618
May 14, 2012 Professor Gould
Ethics in Leadership
The leadership-centric approaches are broken down into four parts that attempt to justify leaders in their rule breaking. The four parts are relativism and exceptionalism, reason and amoralism, power and elf interest, and traits and virtues. Each part has its very own distinctive approach and within this paper we will discuss the moral theory and what different theorists say about the different approaches. In contrast the group-centric approaches are broken down into five parts. Thee five parts are permission and consent, situations and circumstances, membership and moral particularity, the greater good and everyday leadership ethics. Group centric approaches deal with the study of how leaders are influenced by their followers. Leaders’ are affected mentally by the ways in which their followers respond or not respond to them. The analysis of the view that leaders are beyond reproach or justified to break rules is the main theme of this paper. This leans heavily upon the Kantian view of morality. The main point of the paper is that rule breaking cannot be justified by the everyday leader. Although moral theory that does not allow rule breaking, it is deemed acceptable in such extreme circumstances where one’s life is considered threatened (Price, 2008,). According to Price, and everyday leaders ethics can be attributed back to how they themselves and their position within society (Price, 2008).
A very profound statement is made by Price in the introduction to this book, Leadership Ethics An Introduction. “The book assumes that what is common to all leaders is the moral psychology of leadership. A central component of the moral psychology of leadership is a belief about justification. The point is debated that leaders are sometimes justified in doing what others are not allowed to do. To paint a clearer picture
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