“This collection of essays takes a fresh look at one of today’s most urgent concerns: moral leadership in the public domain. The book is important reading for anyone who believes that moral leadership may still be possible, even during a time of ethical degradation in many key social institutions.”
—William Damon, professor of education, Stanford University
“A stellar group of well-known thinkers. A topic of commanding importance. Articles that make hard ideas fascinating and readable. What’s not to like in this striking new collection of essays? It is hands-down the best anthology on practical ethics to appear in many years.”
—Thomas Donaldson, Mark O. Winkelman Professor, the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania
“The heavy hitters in business ethics are well represented in this timely volume. Their message is of compelling interest to scholars and business leaders alike.”
—Robert H. Frank, Henrietta Johnson Louis Professor of Management and professor of economics, Cornell University
A WARREN BENNIS BOOK
This collection of books is devoted exclusively to new and exemplary contributions to management thought and practice. The books in this series are addressed to thoughtful leaders, executives, and managers of all organizations who are struggling with and committed to responsible change. My hope and goal is to spark new intellectual capital by sharing ideas positioned at an angle to conventional thought—in short, to publish books that disturb the present in the service of a better future.
Branden |
Self-Esteem at Work |
Mitroff, Denton |
A Spiritual Audit of Corporate America |
Schein |
The Corporate Culture Survival Guide |
Sample |
The Contrarian’s Guide to Leadership |
Lawrence, Nohria |
Driven |
Cloke, Goldsmith |
The End of Management and the Rise of Organizational Democracy |
Glen |
Leading Geeks |
Cloke, Goldsmith |
The Art of Waking People Up |
George |
Authentic Leadership |
Kohlrieser |
Hostage at the Table |
Rhode |
Moral Leadership |
Deborah L. Rhode
Warren Bennis
Copyright © 2006 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.
Published by Jossey-Bass
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Moral leadership : the theory and practice of power, judgment, and policy / by Deborah L. Rhode, editor ; foreword by Warren Bennis.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-7879-8282-9 (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-7879-8282-2 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Business ethics. 2. Management—Moral and ethical aspects. 3. Leadership—Moral and ethical aspects. 4. Social responsibility of business. I. Rhode, Deborah L.
HF5387.M649 2006
174'.4—dc22
2006008774
For Lawrence Quill
“The trouble with the world is that everyone has his reasons.”
—Jean Renoir
Books of readings—compendia, collections, and anthologies, that sort of undertaking—are notoriously difficult to pull off. Especially those with original essays. To begin with, publishers don’t like them because they, er, don’t sell. And mostly for good reasons: the typical anthology includes a dizzying assortment of unrelated papers fastened uneasily together by typographic artifices. We’re all too familiar with the usual pitfalls: papers of uneven quality; first drafts that were never quite in shape and were gathering dust in some desk drawer; and assemblages of articles that fit uneasily, like unmatched socks. Most important, many such “readers” lack a clear and coherent conceptual armature.
Deborah Rhode’s choices of authors and their seminal contributions is a relief, a startlingly fresh exception to all of the usual mishaps that beleaguer those intrepid souls who agree to undertake such a thankless task. Rhode’s challenge is unusually daunting: to create a framework that is useful, balanced, objective, and with a carapace generous enough to address the key aspects of a topic as forebodingly complex as “moral leadership.” This book—it’s not bold or hyperbolic to say—will soon become required reading for anyone who wants to understand the vexing issues that inhere in this complicated topic.
As a veteran “foreword writer” who’s come in from the cold, I long ago vowed that I would never write another one. The importance of this book made it an obligation. First of all, Rhode’s introductory essay is a masterpiece. With super lucidity she confronts the issues and conundrums facing this nascent field of inquiry. If some of the other essays didn’t measure up to her standard, I would stop here and simply say as they do on menus, “that one alone is worth the price of admission.” Well, Rhode’s is, but there are many others and to mention one would imply that others weren’t of the same quality; that’s not the case.
There are two reasons for my enthusiasm. First, all of the authors know what they’re talking about. They do not avoid complexity or try to avoid the dangerous shoals of this regularly contested terrain. Whether they dwell on the dispositional factors, as some do, or situational factors, which others do, or the systemic factors, as still others do, their eyes are wide open and make legitimate their own dubiety. Second, the values they express, indirectly or directly, comport with what our democratic institutions should be about: transparency, freedom, parity, and moral awareness of its leaders. Not only did I feel uplifted reading this book, I felt that it helped to disperse the shadows where moral leadership restlessly resides. This book should make it more difficult for leaders to hold on to the “reasons” that trouble the world.
March 2006
Warren Bennis
WB Series Editor
Santa Monica, California