Leadership and Moral Behavior

Abstract

Even though leadership theories are diverse, one notable commonality among leadership theories is that they inculcate the importance of moral behavior. This chapter explores moral leadership by providing brief contextual considerations regarding morals, outlines the most commonly used moral theories, examines each moral theory’s strength and weakness, discusses the connection between moral theories and leadership theories by examining contextual considerations for the discussion, and discusses the central role of pro-social values in both morals and leadership theories, and then the chapter resolves with a case study and a simple moral test. This chapter will promote the idea that moral leaders act in ways that seek the welfare of others, even at personal cost.