Ethical Leadership

An interview with Dr Rupert Higham by Shengling Hong MA Educational Leadership (pre-service)

where young people’s knowledge, skills, and dispositions are developed to respond intelligently and humanely to new challenges and opportunities [1].

What is Ethical Leadership?

Dr. Higham defines ethical leadership as “framing the practice of leadership through shared moral principles and frameworks”. In the western tradition, there are three broad schools of ethical theory that frame educational leadership, namely Deontology, Utilitarianism, and Virtue Ethics. “While these all remain valuable perspectives, they are fundamentally flawed in that they rely on the future being like the past,” he argues. “Deontology presumes adults have the moral authority to say what values children should have, what they should learn, and what the aims of education should be.

Dr. Rupert Higham has been active in education research for 12 years, with a particular focus on responsible leadership, values-led school improvement, and dialogue. In his publication last year, he elaborated on the urgency to reframe ethical leadership in a world with economic, political, and environmental volatility [1].

He stressed that traditional ethical frameworks in education fail to address the existential threats we face. In the past three years, he argues, we have experienced a pandemic and geopolitical conflicts that have radically changed our lives. We are still far from achieving the essential goal of carbon neutrality by 2050. These urgent threats require that we rebuild an education system grounded in an ethic of collective engagement, dialogue, and transformation,

However, it is no longer logically and scientifically defensible to teach the next generation that what we were taught was all right and good. The utilitarian position presumes we can calculate and predict the best outcomes, but often modelled on a future similar to the present. For example, we cannot be sure what will constitute a ‘good job’ in 2030 and beyond, as many industries may become unstable. Lastly, the virtue ethics’ approach assumes we have time to develop the character and attitudes of young people in a protective bubble, and then send them to face the challenges of the world at the age of 18 or later. In reality we have little time – and those values and virtues must in part be cultivated through acknowledging and responding to those challenges”.

In response, Dr. Higham calls for a new ethical theory drawing on dialogue, Deweyan Pragmatism, and Noddings’ Ethics of Care that can enable “an intelligent and humane response to the challenges we face”. “Intelligence is better understood not as an IQ score or academic grade, but as property of cyclically rethinking, reflecting, researching, planning, designing, acting, and evaluating in the pursuit of valued goals, with sustainability an integral dimension. A humane response values others unconditionally, and makes connections across differences instead of isolating others to protect ourselves” he says. Critically, this must also apply to humans and non-humans, born and not yet born.

Advice to future leaders studying MA Educational Leadership.

Finally, Dr. Higham also gives some genuine advice for students taking an MA in Educational Leadership. For leaders, the courage to rebel is essential, he says – but they should do so inclusively, compassionately, and intelligently. Instead of pointing fingers at others, it is more powerful to reframe the issues in ways that draw in the needs and shared values of all. He advocates a vision of local and global communities in which both today’s young people and their grandchildren, will all be able to flourish.

References

[1] Higham, R. (2022). ‘Reframing ethical leadership in response to civilizational threats’, in Greany, I. and Earley, P. (eds.) School Leadership and Education System Reform (2nd ed.) London: Bloomsbury Academic, pp.253-262.

[2] XP School. Available at: https://xpschool.org/

[3] Dixon, D. (2022). Leadership for sustainability: saving the planet one school at a time. Bancyfelin, Carmarthen, Wales: Independent Thinking Press.