Ethical Leadership: Character, Civility, and Community

Ethical leadership is the critical appropriation and embodiment of traditions that have shaped the character and shared meanings of a people. Ethical leaders, therefore, are leaders whose characters have been shaped by the wisdom, habits and practices of particular traditions, often more than one, yet they tend be identified with a particular cultural ethos and narrative. Finally, ethical leadership asks the question of values in reference to ultimate concern.--Walter Earl Fluker

This course provides theoretical and practical approaches to the development of character, civility and community for leaders and emerging leaders in education, business, nonprofit, academic, religious, and other professions. The course examines the personal, public and spiritual dimensions of leadership within the context that Fluker calls “the intersection of lifeworlds and systems”; and outlines principles and practices of ethical leadership from a diverse field of leadership theories. Fluker’s work grounds leadership in story, the appropriation of one’s personal narrative within social and historical contexts, as a basis for individual and social transformation.