Ethical Leadership

by Robert J. Starratt

In Ethical Leadership , Robert Starratt―one of the leading thinkers on the topic of ethics and education―shows educational leaders how to move beyond mere technical efficiency in the delivery and performance of learning. He challenges educators to become ethical leaders who understand the learning process as a profoundly moral activity that engages the full humanity of the school community. Starratt explains that educational leadership requires a moral commitment to high quality learning for all students―a commitment based on three essential virtues: proactive responsibility ; personal and professional authenticity ; and an affirming, critical, and enabling presence to the workers and the work involved in teaching and learning. He clarifies how essential these virtues are for leadership in the pressure-cooker of high-stakes schooling.  He provides vivid illustration by beginning and ending the book with a "morality play," the narrative of a principal who struggles to do the right thing for his students and teachers, as they are pressured―and often punished―by state mandated tests.  Starratt concludes by offering practical suggestions for working leaders as well as preservice and inservice courses in educational leadership. This book is a volume in the Jossey-Bass Leadership Library in Education―a series designed to meet the demand for new ideas and insights about leadership in schools.

Genres: Leadership

176 pages, Paperback

First published July 20, 2004

Reviews

[Josiah Aston · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gives a good framework for ethical leadership

This book made me think long and hard about my own leadership/relational practices in different areas of my life. Do I feel responsible for what goes on in my classroom? Will I share a greater responsibility for the overall health of the school and its stakeholders as I progress into an administrative position? Am I authentic in my dealings with others and in my work? Am I present to the issues I am responsible for or are in my sphere of influence? Am I present to my students, their parents, and my colleagues? This book is great at provoking these kinds of self-reflective questions, and presents a solid ethical model that works at every level of leadership.

I do feel that there was an underlying agenda, that the author's beliefs about educational policies bled through the seemingly innocuous vignette that began and ended the book. The presentation of the content was also somewhat unchallenged, as in, the chosen virtues were presented as all-encompassing, disregarding the possibility of other ethical frameworks or virtues that might work similarly in the framing of a leader's ethics.