Leadership in Action: Issues and Observations - Finding True value in Leadership

MORAL IMPERATIVES

The dominant paradigm of leadership suffers from contradictions. Because of its almost exclusive focus on profitability, it fails to address issues of ethics and morality. The result became clear with the outbreak of scandals perpetrated by corporate managers once praised as visionary leaders.

The dominant paradigm is also limited in its usefulness because it continues to associate leadership with power and authority at a time when hierarchical structures are giving way to more democratic forms of governance in the public sector and more diffused, power-sharing arrangements in the private sector.

Value leadership is based on the commonly accepted notion that the most important moral imperatives are the sanctity of life itself ...