Moral Leadership in Schools

Moral leadership in schoolsWilliam D. Greenfield JrPortland State University, Portland, Oregon, USAKeywords Values, Ethics, Leadership, Principals, AuthorityAbstract The genesis of the moral leadership concept in educational administration andexamples of studies exploring this idea during the 1979-2003 period are discussed. The authorrecommends more contextually sensitive descriptive studies with a focus on the social relationsamong school leaders and others, giving particular attention, in a phenomenological sense, to themeanings, perspectives, and espoused purposes of school leaders’ actions, social relationships, andinterpersonal orientations.What is the meaning of the construct, “moral leadership”, and why is it animportant and relevant idea in the context of a journal and conference themerooted in historian Callahan’s (1962) classic study, Education and the Cult ofEfficiency? There is a twofold answer to this question. First, the education of thepublic’s children is by its very nature a moral activity: to what ends and bywhat means shall public education proceed? (Dewey, 1932; Green, 1984).Second, relationships among people are at the very center of the work of schooladministrators and teachers, and for this reason school leadership is, by itsnature and focus, a moral activity (Foster, 1986; Hodgkinson, 1978, 1983, 1991;Starratt, 1991, 1996).Thus, at the very center of the leadership relationship is an essential moralconsideration: leading and teaching to what ends, and by what means? Theanswers to both of these questions confront school leaders with importantissues regarding a school’s resources, and most critically, its human resources,teachers and students. (Greenfield, 1986, 1987, 1995) Like their counter-parts inthe early twentieth century, contemporary educational leaders face similarpressures for accountability and efficiency in the growing national andinternational preoccupation with standards, standardization, and themeasurement of schooling outcomes. (Carnoy and Loeb, 2002; Verstegen, 2002)Considered within this context, the idea of moral leadership holds muchpromise for enabling school administrators to lead in a manner that can besthelp teachers develop and empower themselves to teach and lead in the contextof external pressures to reform schools. Toward this end there has been agrowing interest in studying values, ethics, and the moral dimensions ofeducational leadership. A major contributor to the recent broadening ofscholarship in this area has been the UCEA Center for the Study of Leadershipand Ethics[1]. The Center’s work has resulted in the publication of a powerfulThe Emerald Research Register for this journal is available at The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available atwww.emeraldinsight.com/researchregister www.emeraldinsight.com/0957-8234.htmAn earlier and lengthier draft of this article, presented at the annual meeting of the AmericanEducational Research Association, April 19-23, 1999, Montreal, Canada, is available from the

Educational Resources Information Clearinghouse, ED 443171.

JEA42,2174Journal of EducationalAdministrationVol. 42 No. 2, 2004pp. 174-196q Emerald Group Publishing Limited0957-8234DOI 10.1108/09578230410525595

collection of scholarly studies focused on ethics, values, and educationalleadership (Begley, 1999; Begley and Leonard, 1999; Begley and Johansson,2003).This article briefly reviews the genesis of attention to the concept of moralleadership in educational administration, and describes how scholars haveutilized the idea in empirical studies of school leadership published during the1979-2003 period. The article concludes with suggestions for focusing the studyof school leadership, including more contextually-sensitive descriptive workand an emphasis on studying the social relations among school leaders andothers, with particular attention to the meanings, perspectives, and espousedpurposes of school leaders’ actions, social relationships, and interpersonalorientations.Moral leadership in retrospectAlmost four decades ago Gross and Herriott (1965) published a large-scalestudy of leadership in public schools. Directed at understanding the efficacy ofthe idea of staff leadership, Gross and Herriott’s (1965, p. 150) finding that theexecutive professional leadership (EPL) of school principals was positivelyrelated to “staff morale, the professional performance of teachers, and thepupils’ learning”, marked the beginning of the field’s long-term fascinationwith understanding school leadership. This benchmark study was rooted in acontroversy regarding the proper role of the school administrator: to provideroutine administrative support versus to try to influence teachers’ performance.The latter orientation, referred to by the researchers as staff leadership,provides the conceptual foundation for most of the studies of school leadershipsince that time. Indeed, it is doubtful that there is any prescriptive, empirical, ortheoretical writing since their 1965 that is not grounded in a staff leadershipconception of the school administrator’s role.A second important contribution shaping the study of educationalleadership was Burns’ (1978) differentiation of transactional fromtransformational leadership. Distinguishing between these two types ofleadership did much to call attention to and legitimize the concept of moralleadership. Burns (1978, p. 4) makes several observations that capture a shift infocus that would come to characterize the next 20 years of leadership studies ineducational administration:

I will deal with leadership as distinct from mere power-holding and as the opposite of brutepower. I will identify two basic types of leadership: the transactional and the transforming.The relations of most leaders and followers are transactional – leaders approach followerswith an eye to exchanging one thing for another: jobs for votes, or subsidies for campaigncontributions. Such transactions comprise the bulk of the relationships among leaders andfollowers, especially in groups, legislatures, and parties. Transforming leadership, whilemore complex, is more potent. The transforming leader recognizes and exploits an existingneed or demand of a potential follower. But, beyond that, the transforming leader looks forpersonal motives in followers, seeks to satisfy higher needs, and engages the full person of the

Moral leadershipin schools175follower. The result of transforming leadership is a relationship of mutual stimulation andelevation that converts followers into leaders and may convert leaders into moral agents.This last concept, moral leadership, concerns me the most. By this term I mean, first, thatleaders and led have a relationship not only of power but of mutual needs, aspirations, andvalues: second, that in responding to leaders, followers have adequate knowledge ofalternative leaders and programs and the capacity to choose among those alternatives; and,third, that leaders take responsibility for their commitments – if they promise certain kindsof economic, social, and political change, they assume leadership in the bringing about of thatchange. Moral leadership is not mere preaching, or the uttering of pieties, or the insistence onsocial conformity. Moral leadership emerges from, and always returns to, the fundamentalwants and needs, aspirations, and values of the followers. I mean the kind of leadership thatwill produce social change that will satisfy followers’ authentic needs.While Burns was writing largely although not entirely with politicalleadership in mind, scholars in the fields of management and education werequick to seize on his ideas as guides to study and as the basis for prescribingmore effective leadership strategies.Prior to this time research in educational administration and in managementhad run into a theoretical brick wall. Yukl’s (1981) book on leadership theoryand research more or less represented the state of the art as it had developedduring the previous two decades: theory and research during the 1960s and1970s focused on leadership traits, skills, and styles, the two-factor theoryencompassing initiating structure and consideration, and the concepts ofsituational leadership and contingency theory. These ideas, rooted infunctionalism and concerned with ideas like efficiency and effectiveness,generally conceived of leadership as a special form of power exercised byindividuals and grounded in one or another of French and Raven’s (1959) basesof social power.There obviously were other developments in the field during this period(circa 1979), and some initiatives were to evolve more fully during the nextdecade, influencing the study of school leadership in interesting ways. A few ofthese contributions are noted briefly. Immegart and Boyd (1979) publishedProblem Finding in Educational Administration, setting the stage for a moreopen-ended exploration of what might count as legitimate study in the field ofeducational administration. Among the important contributors to that volumewere Jacob Getzels, Thomas B. Greenfield, Daniel Griffiths, and DonaldWillower. Another publication that year was Erickson and Reller’s (1979)edited volume, The Principal in Metropolitan Schools, created as a conceptual

supplement to the urban school simulation known as Monroe City (includingWilson Elementary School, Janus Junior High, and Abraham Lincoln HighSchool), and developed by the University Council for EducationalAdministration during the previous decade to help in the training of schoolleaders for metropolitan (urban) schools. Among the important contributors tothis effort were Joan Meskin, Rodney Reed, Francis Schrag and WilliamWayson.JEA42,2176These eight scholars are mentioned because what they had to say at the time(1979) foreshadowed much of what was to transpire over the next severaldecades in terms of the study of school leaders, and especially in terms of theconcept of moral leadership. Written in the context of contention regarding theefficacy of the “theory movement” in educational administration, Jacob Getzels’essay reminds us of the difficulty and the importance of problem-finding toresearch and theory development, and I believe his encouragement stimulatedscholars to search for new and significant problems of practice promising thepossibility of further theory development. Thom Greenfield made severalimportant observations, among them the idea that there are alternative ways toview and think about school organizations, and the idea that soft data of thesort generated through qualitative approaches may bring us closer tounderstanding the daily dynamics of school organizations and the meanings ofthose experiences for participants. Griffiths (1979a, p. 51) called into questionthe efficacy of the then dominant paradigm (that organizational goals shapemember behaviors and motives; that social systems concepts mirror theexperience of participants; that bureaucratic structures guide behavior; thatdecision making is a systematic process; etc.) guiding the study of educationaladministration, suggesting it “. . . no longer is fruitful in generating powerfulconcepts and hypotheses; it does not allow us to describe either modernorganizations or the people in them; and, as a result, it is not helpful toadministrators . . .”. He called for a greater emphasis on descriptive field studiesof administrator behavior, indicated the need for new conceptions of authority,and suggested that negotiation and bargaining might be important ways toconceptualize the day-to-day interactions of school participants. Don Willowerimplored his colleagues to not dismiss any useful way of doing research onschool organizations, and reminded all in attendance that, while there may beproblems with the then current state of theory development, the field of

educational administration had come quite a way since its beginning in the late1940s and early 1950s, in terms of contributions to understanding the nature ofschool organization and its implications for school administrators.Reflecting the simulated urban school administration context theirconceptualizations were intended to address, the contributors to Ericksonand Reller’s (1979) The Principal in Metropolitan Schools presaged many of themoral leadership research foci to evolve during the 1980s and 1990s, including:the attention given to the importance of race, class, and gender in teaching andlearning and school administration; the emergence of women as school leadersand as researchers and professors of educational administration; therecognition of and inclusion of teachers as leaders and as importantcontributors to school improvement decisions and initiatives; and theemergence of the moral and the ethical dimensions of school leadership.Meskin (1979, p. 339) examined studies of women as school principals,reminding the field of their generally positive performance as school leadersMoral leadershipin schools177and, particularly, of their “. . . propensity toward democratic leadership,thoroughness of approach to problem solving, and talent in instructionalleadership, as well as the general effectiveness of their performance as rated byboth teachers and superiors . . .” Reed (1979), writing about education andethnicity, anticipated the increasing racial and ethnic diversity that wouldcome to characterize not just urban schools. He implored school administratorsand teachers to change their attitudes and behaviors toward ethnic minoritystudents and their parents: “The entire staff (from building principal tocustodian) of all schools (from kindergarten through the university) shoulddevelop an understanding of, and an appreciation and a respect for, allstudents, regardless of ethnicity and socioeconomic circumstances.” (Reed,1979, p. 146) Schrag (1979), writing about the principal as a moral actor,foreshadowed many of the issues to be explored over the next 20 years byscholars in the field. He offered four ideas regarding what adopting a moralpoint of view implies for a school administrator (Schrag, 1979, pp. 208-209):(1) A moral agent must base his/her decisions on principles that apply toclasses of situations, not on a whim of the moment or a predilection forone particular kind of situation. These principles must be meant for allhuman beings; they should not benefit or burden any group or classwithin society. The principles must also be impartial, or, stated anotherway, the effect must be reversible. This means that an actor must bewilling to adhere to the principles even if his/her role in the moralsituation were to be reversed and he/she were the one to whom theprinciple was being applied.

(2) A moral agent should consider the welfare and interests of all who standto be affected by his/her decision or action, including him/herself.(3) A moral agent has the obligation to base his/her decision on the mostcomplete information relative to the decision that he/she can obtain.(4) A conscientious moral agent’s moral judgments are prescriptive. He/shemust acknowledge that, when he/she has fully examined a situationcalling for his/her decision and reached a conclusion, he/she has therebyanswered the question: What ought I to do? If he/she acts otherwise, it isthrough weakness of will or through failure to take the moral obligationseriously.As will become evident further along in this article, one of the limitations of thestudies of moral leadership that have been conducted during the past 20 yearsis that few scholars define very clearly what they mean when they refer tomoral leadership. Schrag’s ideas are among the more helpful conceptions.Finally, Wayson (1979, p. 67) discusses what he referred to as the leadershipshortage in schools, and observes that: “Leadership must be translated intoaction by the people who consent [italics added] to be led. A principal whowants to lead must learn how to facilitate a staff’s collectively learning how toJEA42,2178express leadership . . . The principal should create conditions that will elicitleadership behaviors from everyone [italics added] in the building incircumstances and at times that their contribution is essential for achievingthe school’s purposes”.To summarize, scholars in 1979 were writing about many of the moralleadership issues that would catch the attention of a few of their colleaguesover the next 20 years. It also is clear from the literature that many of theseconcerns were not new in 1979. Barnard (1938) wrote about the importance ofthe executive’s responsibility to serve as a moral teacher for employees. Simon(1947), writing about decision making, recognized that decisions have ethical aswell as factual content. Getzels and Thelen (1960), in developing his socialsystems model of a classroom (later to become an extensively used theoreticalframework guiding countless doctoral dissertations and other research ineducational administration), included values as one of the cultural dimensionsshaping role expectations for individuals. Even the 1964 National Society forthe Study of Education Yearbook, entitled Behavioral Science and EducationalAdministration (Griffiths, 1964), contains a veritable cornucopia of ideasrelevant to understanding the complexities of school leadership (see especiallythe chapters by Lipham, Hemphill, and Iannaccone). These ideas have beenpart of the field for many years, but only in the past 20 or so have they begun to

receive attention by scholars in educational administration.Theoretical underpinningsThere are quite a number of important theoretical underpinnings supportingthe moral leadership concept and its various manifestations. It is not a newconcept, although it has received more attention during the past 20 years thanever before. Factors accounting for the attention given the concept since the late1970s include: the decline in attention by organizational theory scholars(Pfeffer, 1982) to the concept of leadership as it was understood prior to Burns’(1978) contribution; the emergence within educational administration ofattention to the critical humanist perspective (Foster, 1986; and Giroux, 1992)and ethical dimensions of school leadership and administration (e.g. Miklos,1983; Willower, 1979; Corson, 1985, Begley, 2000, Shapiro and Stefkovich,2000); and the broader turmoil related to challenges to functionalism and thepositivist traditions in the field (Greenfield, 1978; Griffiths, 1979b).There are persistent difficulties in conceptualizing and studying this domainof leadership, and recent contributions point both to specific organizational andleadership values to be explored (Leithwood, 1999; Richmon, 2003; Friedman,2003), and to the need to more deliberately contextualize the study of leadersand leading. For example, Ribbons (1999) argues the need for what he terms“situated-portraits” of leaders that take account of the subtleties andcomplexities both of the contexts (immediate and historical, local and global)of leading as well as the character and biographies of leaders. Moving in aMoral leadershipin schools179parallel direction, Walker (2003) implores scholars to moved beyond theAnglo-American, English-speaking, and Western contexts shaping currenttheories of school leadership and organization to include a broader range ofindigenous perspectives that can begin to capture the different ways in whichsocietal cultures shape leadership and schooling practices.Theoretical contributions by Mike Bottery, William Foster, ThomGreenfield, Christopher Hodgkinson, Kenneth Leithwood, Robert Starratt,and Don Willower are discussed next to suggest how their ideas have informedthe field’s study and understanding of moral leadership. While many otherscholars also have made important contributions to our understanding of ethicsand the value dimension of educational administration, the particular scholarsdiscussed next offer a good introduction to the theoretical foundations of themoral leadership concept.Bottery (1992) offers a comprehensive treatise on the ethics of educationalmanagement, arguing that administrators and leaders must act and choose,

and that choice is inevitably subjective and that selection of one or anothercourse of action will be based on a set of values. His concept of leadership isrooted in a view of practice guided by the obligation of the school leader to asksix fundamental questions (Bottery, 1992, pp. 5-6):(1) Does the management of the school promote personal growth?(2) Does it treat people as ends in themselves or as means to ends?(3) Does it foster a rationality which is not only tolerant of criticism, butactually sees it as an essential part of school and society?(4) Does it repudiate the view of human beings as resources to bemanipulated, and instead see them as resourceful humans?(5) Does it create an ethos where measures of democracy can be introducedto be replicated within the society at large?(6) Does it foster an appreciation of the place of individuals as citizenswithin their own communities, states, and world?Bottery’s view is that the ethical school administrator must lead in a mannerwhere-in one’s leadership is critical, transformative, visionary, educative,empowering, liberating, personally ethical, organizationally ethical, andresponsible. His perspective encompasses prescriptions for action within aview of schooling that embraces the development children and adults as aprimary purpose.Starratt (1996, p. xviii) posits that the “administering of meaning, theadministering of community, and the administering of excellence” are theprimary work of the school administrator. An important issue for Starratt isthat not only must school administrators help schools through the currentchallenges they face, but that a more important and second-order priority is todevelop schools into communities that work. That is, to foster practices and theJEA42,2180development of structures and norms which are supportive of the concept of alearning community in the fullest and best sense of that idea. Starratt (1996, p.164) grounds his views in a rich tapestry of ideas about what it means to be amoral school leader, providing concrete and practical guidance regarding howone might actually implement his ideas: “One way administrators can build amoral community is to encourage individual teachers to nurture thefoundational qualities of autonomy, connectedness, and transcendence intheir classrooms, as well as communicate the large ethical framework of justice,critique, and care.”Starratt (1996, p. 155) reminds us of the distinction between ethics as thestudy of moral practice and being moral, which “involves more than thinkingand making moral judgments. Morality involves the total person as a humanbeing; it involves the human person living in a community of other moralagents. Morality is a way of living and a way of being . . . We can then seeadministration as a moral way of being with teachers and students.” Starratt

(1996, p. 77) offers a vision about what it might mean for a school to be a moralcommunity:If schools are to teach the larger connections – connections to our ancestors, to the biosphere,to the cultural heroes of the past, to the agenda of the future – they must begin with theconnections of everyday experience, the connections to our peers, to our extended families, tothe cultural dynamics of our neighborhoods, and to the politics and economics andtechnology in the homes and on the streets of the neighborhood. In other words, they have tolearn to understand the life world of their immediate environment, how people relate toauthority, to beauty, to nature, and to conflict. They should be led to appreciate all theconnections in their immediate environment, for that environment is a metaphor for the fieldphysics of the human, social, and natural worlds.As Starratt argues, a major part of the school administrator’s moralresponsibility is to help the school define and develop itself as a learningcommunity, to help members of that community make meaning of their worldsand reinvent their schools for the twenty-first century. These are powerfulimages of the school as a moral community. Thus, as we study moralleadership in schools we seek a three-fold understanding:(1) what is the administrator doing and being in relations with others;(2) with what consequences for others and for the administrator; and(3) doing and being toward what ends?Starratt’s contribution helps us understand the fundamental importance of theend-in-view to being a moral school leader.Greenfield (1973, 1975, 1978, 1979, 1980) made many importantcontributions reminding us of the essential human character of schoolorganizations, their educative purpose, and the moral nature of theadministrator’s task. Schools, as organizations, are peopled; they are asocially constructed phenomenon that lives in our imaginations, and in ourlived experience. As members of social groups called schools, teachers,Moral leadershipin schools181administrators, and children interact and construct meaning (Blumer, 1969),and their constructions both mediate their experience of the world and shapetheir response to that world. Herein lies much of the complexity ofunderstanding school leadership and administration, and particularly thephenomenon of moral leadership.Reality in school organizations, as elsewhere, is socially constructed throughsymbolic interaction among the parties to that social situation. The constructedreality is not only a product of the immediate social interaction of theparticipants, but includes as well the lived experiences of the participants,which they bring to that social interaction; experience and meaning turn overupon themselves in the moment. Now, much of what transpires occurs out ofhabit – responses learned, internalized, and enacted often without consciousconsideration – people have been socialized to certain expectations and socialconventions.Schools are nested within containing community and societal cultures, and

the norms and values of those larger social sphere’s mediate and shape whattranspires among people within the school; just as do sub-cultures within theschool itself; just as our respective social class, religion, educational level, race,family customs, ethnicity, and gendered background experiences shape howand what we see, and what we come to understand in attributing meaning toour lived experience. Greenfield’s contributions thus help us understand thatmoral leadership in schools seeks to bring members of that communitytogether around common purposes in a manner that entails being deliberatelymoral (Dewey, 1932) in one’s conduct – toward and with others and oneself,and in the service of purposes and activities that seek to meet the best needs ofall children and adults.Hodgkinson (1978, 1983, 1991, 1996) posits that school administration isinherently a moral activity. While his views have been criticized (Evers, 1985;Lakomski, 1987), Hodgkinson offers a comprehensive theoretical frameworkfor understanding values and valuing in educational leadership. His frameworkincludes three types of values: Transrational (Type I); Rational (Type II); andSubrational (Type III). Arranged in hierarchical fashion, Hodgkinson placesType I values (Transrational) at the top. These are values grounded inmetaphysical principles – ethical codes or injunctions. “. . . They areunverifiable by the techniques of science and cannot be justified by merelylogical argument” (Hodgkinson, 1991, p. 99). “The characteristic of Type Ivalues is that they are based on the will rather than upon the reasoning faculty;their adoption implies some kind of act of faith, belief, commitment”(Hodgkinson, 1991, p. 99). His example here is “Thou shalt not kill”. At thelower end of the hierarchy are Type III values. These types of values “areself-justifying, since they are grounded in individual affect and constitute theindividual’s preference structure. Why is x good? Because I like it. Why do Ilike it? I like it because I like it” (Hodgkinson, 1991, p. 98). Hodgkinson (1991)JEA42,2182refers to Type III values as “primitives”. The middle-range, Type II values, aremore complex than either Type I or Type III. Reasoning tied to the collectivegood or to consequences for others is the determinant of what is right and goodregarding Type II values. That is, Type II values are judged either in terms ofthe consensus of a given collectivity, for example, the faculty of a school, or onthe basis of a reasoned analysis of the consequences of the value, in terms of itsanticipated desirability given a resultant future state of affairs. “The analysisof consequences presupposes a social context and a given scheme of socialnorms, expectations, and standards” (Hodgkinson, 1991, p. 98). The processesentailed in judging Type II values are cognitive, and the philosophical grounds

would be rooted in Humanism, Pragmatism, or Utilitarianism. It is Type IIvalues that the school administrator must manage. For Hodgkinson, there is nodoubt that values are central to the administrator’s work, and that schooladministration is a moral art.Approaching matters from a somewhat different theoretical perspective,Leithwood (1999), in exploring the values that might be necessary for what heterms more highly reliable schools, that is schools which more consistently andreliably accomplish that which we expect of schools, differentiates between“personal” values and “professional” values. He suggests that the personalvalues of the large majority of school administrators are, for the most partethically desirable, and that what deserves study and attention are the“professional” values on which a highly reliable school learning communitywould be dependent. Such “professional” values might include: caring, respect,and participation associated with inclusion; equity and knowledge associatedwith efficient reliability; generativity and related values supportive ofconditions fostering organizational learning; dependability, persistence,carefulness, and a constructively critical perspective; and being sensitivelycontingent in exercising one’s values (Leithwood, 1999, pp. 45-6). Leithwood(1999) suggests that while such values are central to implementing the sort ofhigh reliability schools he envisions, they are not much in evidence amongschool leaders. His observations call attention to an important but heretoforeunder-explored arena for study: the relationships between the values one holdsas a “professional” and the nature of the school community and organizationone might strive to develop as a school leader. Related studies include work byLeithwood and Steinbach (1995) and by Begley and Johansson (1997).Foster (1986) brought a critical humanist perspective to the study ofeducational leadership and argued that the work of educational administrationneeded to be re-conceptualized as a critical and moral practice. Arguing that itwas important for educational administrators to understand how schoolstructures, broader social conditions, and the basic culture of the schoolinfluenced social relations within the school, Foster pointed to the importanceof values and critical reflection in shaping the dispositions and actions ofadministrators. Arguing that the field would benefit more from engaging in anMoral leadershipin schools183ongoing social critique of practice rather than in the scientific study of practicein the positivist tradition, he proposed that school administrators themselvesbecome more reflective and critical of schooling and administrative practices.

He posits “. . . that administrators in educational settings are critical humanists.They are humanists because they appreciate the usual and unusual events ofour lives and engage in an effort to develop, challenge, and liberate humansouls. They are critical because they are educators and are therefore notsatisfied with the status quo; rather, they hope to change individuals for thebetter and to improve social conditions for all” (Foster, 1986, pp. 17-18). Foster’scontributions added much to the emerging dialogue about the moraldimensions of the work of school administration, reinforcing the idea thatthe public school administrator has a special duty to improve the institution ofschooling so that it is more just and more equitable.Willower (1981, 1985, 1987, 1994) addresses the philosophical dimensions ofeducational administration, and his observations always are keen. He returnsconsistently, throughout his work, to a consideration of values in theadministrator’s work, and in returning again and again to this theme, hereinforces the centrality of valuing in the “doing” of administrative work inschools. As he states so succinctly:The great question of ethics is “What is right?” Central here are such matters as the nature ofthe good society, presumably including the good organization and the good school, the goodlife, and what one ought to do in situations that require judgments of value and moral choices(Willower, 1981, pp. 115-16).Values should be a key concern in educational administration . . . Practitioners mustfrequently choose among competing values and institute courses of action that they hope willachieve desirable aims . . . Visions and ideals can inspire, can confer a course of direction, andmotivate action . . . Genuine moral choice occurs in the context of competing goods, or quiteoften, the lesser of two evils . . . The intermixture of the normative and the descriptive meansthat a critical dimension of ethical judgment lies in the estimation of an alternative’sconsequences. Is it likely that the alternative in question can be successfully implemented?What are the chances that the attempt to implement it will fail and leave the involvedindividuals and the organization worse off than before? What are the potential side effectsand unintended consequences of the course of action, and can they be dealt with or headed offas part of the overall implementation effort? . . . The kind of complexities and questions justconsidered are at the heart of valuation in educational administration (Willower, 1985,pp. 14-16).It is clear, for Willower, that values are central in the lives of schooladministrators. While published in 1987, Willower’s (1987, p. 21) suggestionsregarding school administration are just as relevant today: “exhibiting vision,connecting everyday activities to values, cultivating shared goals, meanings,norms, and commitments, creating purposeful symbols, images, andself-fulfilling prophecies, drawing out the ideas of others, protecting dissent,shaping consensus in and among various constituencies, managing conflict,negotiating for political support and material resources, building coalitions,JEA42,2184focusing energies, and managing multiple problems and undertakings.” AsWillower (1994, p. 8) observes: “The location of morality in everyday lifemeans, for instance, that what students of educational administration callpractice is chiefly an ethical undertaking, that is, a matter of the reflectiveappraisal of the values served by various decision options”.Recurringthroughout Willower’s scholarly contributions is a perspective on school

administration that is consonant with the moral leadership concept. The essayturns now to a brief review of some of the empirical research that explores morefully, and more concretely, the meanings of the moral leadership concept.Empirical studies (1979-2003)Reviewed next is a small sampling of empirical studies conducted during the1979-2003 period which address some, but certainly not all, aspects of the moraldimension of school leadership. While the selection is limited, it is hoped thatthe included studies provide the reader with a useful sense of what mightlegitimately be addressed by scholars interested in better understanding thisaspect of school leadership.Blumberg and Greenfield (1980) studied principals’ conceptions of theirschool leadership roles. Based on qualitative depth interviews of eight male andfemale elementary and secondary principals selected because of theirreputation as exceptionally effective leaders, Blumberg and Greenfieldobserved among other qualities that each principal held a clear personalvision of what they believed it was important to achieve in their schools.Working with and through teachers, and motivated by their commitment toparticular ends-in-view, these eight principals were observed to share commonorientations toward their work. They were: “(1) desiring and eager to maketheir schools over in “their” image, (2) proactive and quick to assume theinitiative, and (3) resourceful in being able to structure their roles and thedemands on their time in a way that permitted them to pursue what might betermed their personal objectives as principals” (Blumberg and Greenfield, 1980,p. 201). Their follow-up study of these seven principals and nine others(Blumberg and Greenfield, 1986), about ten years after the initial study,highlighted the importance of school culture and the centrality of the ethicaldilemmas that are part of principals’ daily lives: that values and valuing arecentral to the actions taken and decisions made by principals. That there is amoral component to being a principal, and that it is central to doing the dailywork of the principal, was further reinforced in the second study.Kasten and Ashbaugh (1991, p. 61), “defining values as criteria for ‘judgment,preference, and choice’”, studied the place of espoused values in superintendents’work. They interviewed a convenience sample of 15 superintendents (includingthose early in their career as well as more seasoned veterans) from both large andsmall districts surrounding a Midwestern (USA) metropolitan area. All subjectswere white and male, and had worked in education for over 20 years. Results ofMoral leadershipin schools185

the study indicate these “superintendents place a very high emphasis onsubordinates’ human relations skills and other values generally congruent withthe conventional wisdom in educational administration” (Kasten and Ashbaugh,1991, p. 64). The researchers conclude with observations regarding theimportance of studying actual values-in-use and the possibility thatsuperintendent values may be shaped by longevity in a single school districtand a single geographical area.Kelly and Bredeson (1991), studying principals of public and parochial highschools as symbol managers, conducted depth interviews, participantobservation, and document analysis of the principals, teachers, and otherstaff in a rural public high school and a parochial high school over a five-monthperiod. The study results revealed a number of values being communicated:“Educating the whole student; a notion of educational balance; authority; thetreatment of values; a sense of community; and professional norms and ethics”(Kelly and Bredeson, 1991, p. 14). Values were central in the daily lives of bothprincipals, and there were clear differences both in the content of the valuesreinforced, and in the manner of reinforcement. Kelly and Bredeson (1991,pp. 19-20) conclude that “. . . symbolic leadership is the integration andcommunication of a principal’s thoughts words, and actions. . . .Conveying corevalues, images and ideologies, the symbols transmitted through words, actionsand rewards served to reinforce the philosophy of the school; to motivateand/or hinder efforts of subcultures whose goals/interests might be in conflictwith the larger culture; to legitimate authority and organizational mission, andto maintain the status quo”. There are two important messages here:comparative studies are powerfully revealing of cultural phenomena, and the“whole” of moral leadership is greater than the sum of its parts.Greenfield (1991) studied the micropolitical behavior of an urban elementaryschool principal. Using depth interviews and observations of the teachers and theprincipal, Greenfield (1991, p. 183) found that the principal used a professionalstyle of leadership which entailed working “. . . in a cooperative and collaborativefashion with teachers, viewing teachers as full partners in the school effort toserve children’s best interests”. He offered the following observations:The concept of the professional school leader, as an ideal-type, is in harmony with a view ofthe school as a primarily normative organization in which the exercise of power ideally seeksto foster compliance rooted in a moral [italics added] type of involvement (Etzioni, 1964). Insuch a circumstance the most potent sources of power are the shared norms, values, ideals,and beliefs of the participants themselves. Thus, in a school, the challenge for the principal isto foster an increasing number of shared commitments at a moral [italics added] level amongthe broadest possible range of participants. Under these conditions, participants do what theydo because they believe it is the right thing to do (Greenfield, 1991, p. 183).Moorhead and Nediger (1991) studied the impact of values on the daily

activities of four effective secondary principals in different Canadian schooldistricts. The two-year mixed-method study used the works of HodgkinsonJEA42,2186(1983) and Frankena (1963) to help differentiate observed values. Resultsindicated that the quite different activities of the four principals could beaccounted for by the principals’ differing principles, non-moral values, moralvalues, and educational beliefs. For example, Principal 1, when speaking ofdropouts, overcrowding, and “turkeys”, stated that:I define a turkey as a kid who needs a great deal of mature guidance, and when they don’t getthat guidance they screw up . . . I hate to see turkeys turn into buzzards . . . In the 27 years(that I have been in education) I remember only one kid that I couldn’t reach. I really believethat if we can spend time with the students they won’t drop out.Principal 4, on the other hand, stated:I think the dropout problem is overplayed. School, it’s not for everybody. What some peopleare saying is that everybody should be in school X number of years. It doesn’t work that way. . . I think there are some kids, that school is just not their cup of tea and they’ll do a crackinggood job doing something somewhere else . . . (Moorhead and Nediger, 1991, pp. 12-13).Moorhead and Nediger (1991, pp. 12-13) observe that “. . . the consequences ofthese differing beliefs can be seen in the activities undertaken. [Principal 1] . . .actively . . . sought a third vice principal so that there could be more counselingof potential dropouts; counseled students personally as the opportunity arose;and supported the athletic program as a way of keeping some students inschool. Principal 4, on the other hand, did not encourage any counseling forpotential dropouts and was not particularly interested in special studentretention programs”. The researchers conclude that the observed principalseach had different concerns at the center of their value systems, that thesedifferences resulted in the principals’ administering their schools in differentways, and that in terms of their effectiveness within the communities theyserved, the particular value orientations of the principals were not as critical asthe “fit” between an individual principal’s values and those of the communityand school served.Marshall (1992) studied the values of what she referred to as 26 “atypical”principals and assistant principals. She conducted two open-ended interviewsexploring their ways of managing the job and the ethical dilemmas they faced.Administrators reported experiencing dilemmas associated with “. . . assertingauthority and enforcing bureaucratic rules; . . . supervising and evaluatingteachers; . . . helping children and solving societal ills; [and] . . . parent pressure”(Marshall, 1992, pp. 373-6). The respondents reported that the “dilemmasdescribed had become dilemmas because there was no clear and sensible guidance

from policy or a professional code. The phrase ‘judgment call’ kept recurring intheir talk as they described their management of ethical dilemmas . . .” (Marshall,1992, p. 376). Respondents referred to personal core values as key sources ofguidance: “fairness, caring, and openness” and “respecting the community”(Marshall, 1992, pp. 377-81). The study shows the interplay among the personalvalues of administrators, and the moral dilemmas they experience in balancingMoral leadershipin schools187the bureaucratic standards of schools and their efforts to help children overcomethe effects of racism, sexism and poverty.Reitzug and Reeves (1992) studied an elementary principal’s use ofsymbolic leadership to influence school culture and explored the distinctionbetween using symbolic leadership in manipulative and non-manipulativeways. Open-ended interviews were conducted with all 41 staff members,school documents and other artifacts were collected, and observations ofthe principal and various school activities were completed over athree-month period. Guided by the work of Starratt (1991), they foundthat on most occasions the principal’s symbolic leadership behavior wasempowering, that on some occasions it was both manipulative andempowering, and that some behaviors could be construed as manipulative.Among other important results, Reitzug and Reeves’ (1992, pp. 211-16) datashow that “. . . symbolic leadership takes place on two levels. Overtsymbolic leadership occurs in forms that are non-routine (e.g. slogans,stories, songs, and ceremonies). Embedded symbolic leadership results fromindividual interpretations of the meaning of routine daily actions, language,and discrete visual symbols. . . [and] . . . actions taken (i.e., commitment oftime, energy, or resources), language used (oral, written, and nonverbal),and artifacts created (permanent or semi-permanent aspects of the school)are mediums through which symbolic messages are sent to followers”.These results reveal much about the moral and conceptual complexityassociated with “making meaning” within the context of a school’s culture, andin relationship to the actions taken, the language used, and the artifacts createdin connection with a principal’s leadership and management efforts. Aparticularly provocative observation is the intertwining of instructional,managerial, and human leadership foci, and the inseparability of symbolic andcultural leadership. Again, we see the “whole” of moral leadership is greaterthan the sum of its parts.In a secondary analysis of these data, Reitzug (1994) illustrates threecategories of empowering behavior (support, facilitation, and possibility),

providing additional concrete examples of moral leadership, that is, leadershipthat empowers teachers through invitation, example, and opportunity tocritique their practice and to benefit from the results of critique in ways thatpreserve their dignity as persons and their rights as professionals. The dailyleadership behaviors reported by Reitzug are examples of ethics in action.Dillard’s (1995) case study of an African American, female, high schoolprincipal’s constructions of what it means, in her lived experience, to be aprincipal, illustrates the significance of personal qualities (gender, race, socialclass background, education, and myriad other qualities that distinguish eachof us as individuals) brought to that role. Based on the data in her study, Dillard(1995, pp. 558-60) concludes that:JEA42,2188. . . effective leadership is transformative political work. School principals always work onbehalf of particular values, projects, and peoples, those choices arising from their personalsubjective understandings of the world and the work . . . The ways in which Natham [theprincipal studied] felt, thought, and acted were not random but arose from the way she grewup, the stories and lessons of her youth and community, and her own schooling experiences. . . That she was an African American, a woman, and a Catholic person mattered greatly toher constructions, actions, and understandings of her work as a teacher and an effectiveadministrator.This study offers compelling evidence of moral leadership in action, providinginsight into the complex connections between a principal’s background andpast experience, the personal qualities and sensitivities brought to the momentof reflection, and the valuing and intention revealed through action (leading) ina particular school culture and community context.Marshall et al. (1996) conducted a secondary analysis of an earlier study(Marshall et al., 1992) of career assistant principals (CAPs) to examine thethemes emerging in that study in light of perspectives reflected in the works ofFoster (1986), Giroux (1992), and Noddings (1984, 1986, 1992). The originalstudy included 50 principals from rural, urban, and suburban districts inapproximately half of the states in the USA, with school sizes ranging from 500to 1,200 pupils, and the years of experience of assistants in that role rangedfrom one to 23 years. Results characterize career assistants as administratorsoriented to “caring and the building and nurturing of relationships”, (Marshallet al., 1992, p. 279) a perspective that reflects Nodding’s ethic of caring.Marshall et al. (1996, pp. 281-5) found support in the data for three themesconsonant with the ethic of care: “Creating, maintaining, and enhancingconnections . . . Recognizing and responding to contextual realities . . . [and]Demonstrating concern by responding to needs . . .”. Marshall et al.’s (1996,p. 289) “. . . research demonstrates that it is possible, albeit difficult, for caringto be intertwined in the daily work of school administrators, at least in the work

of these CAPs.” Thus, in terms of the concept of moral leadership, their studylends empirical support to theoretical propositions calling for critical humanistschool leaders (Foster, 1986) and for building a moral community within theschool (Starratt, 1991, 1996).Gronn’s (1999) exploration of Jermier and Kerr’s (1997) “substitutes forleadership” concept in his historical and longitudinal case study of “leadershipfrom afar”, investigates the relationship between a formal leader at a distanceand his delegated school head, and the distant leader’s moral authority andinfluence on organizational values at Timbertop school in Australia. Thisstudy offers a novel perspective on studying the moral influence of schoolleaders, and raises important questions regarding the assumed importance of“face-to-face” leadership, a conception that dominates most studies of schoolleadership.That context is important in understanding the concept of moral leadershipis reinforced by Friedman’s (2003) study of organizational values and theMoral leadershipin schools189challenges of leading in 30 Jewish and Arab state elementary and secondaryschools in Israel. He investigates eight “motivating values” (innovation,conservatism, self-direction, conformity, e´litism, egalitarianism, consideration,and task orientation) and the level of importance given to these different valuesby organizational members. Challenges to leaders are represented in thevarying constellations of these eight values, and “. . . a fit (or lack of fit) betweenthe importance ascribed by officials within the organization to the differentvalues, and members of the organization and the organizational environment. . . A lack of fit may provide very fertile ground for conflict and contention, andin extreme cases may result in the organization’s collapse and ruin” (Friedman,2003, p. 184).There are many studies that illuminate the complexities of the moralleadership concept and its varying dimensions (Coombs (2003) and Collard(2003) are other recent examples)[2]. The few studies mentioned in this articlesuggest a range of concerns and approaches are associated with studying themoral dimensions of leadership. Studying leaders and leading “up close”,considering organizational as well as administrators’ values, and giving moredeliberate and careful attention to the global as well as the local contexts inwhich the work of leading and schooling unfolds, promise to yield vital newperspectives informing and refining the field’s understanding of the meaning ofthe moral leadership concept.Conclusions and recommendationsDespite the helpful studies to date, there remains a tremendous gap in the

school leadership and organization knowledge base – how is it that peoplecome to understand one another and get anything worthwhile done? The fieldstill knows relatively little about how administrators, teachers, or studentsactually make sense of their worlds. And surely their understanding of theirworlds, the sense they make of their experience, is a critical guide to how theyrespond to the events and circumstances in which they find themselves. Theperspective held of the other is at the center of moral leadership. Leadership is asocially constructed relationship. Social, historical, and cultural contexts areessential considerations in the study of moral leadership in schools.The studies reviewed in this essay also make it clear that the personalqualities of school administrators have a big impact on what they do, how theydo it, and how well they do it. These studies also underscore the criticalinfluence of organizational values on administrators and teachers and onleading and managing. Scholars can do much to advance the field’sunderstanding of school leadership, organization, and community byconducting descriptive field-based studies of what leadership practices byadministrators and others in schools entail on a day-to-day basis. What areadministrators and teachers actually doing? What does this “leadership dance”look like, and what is the nature of the social relations among participants?JEA42,2190What is their experience of being a teacher or administrator in a particularschool? What is the meaning of that experience, in a phenomenological sense(Blumer, 1969), and how are those views and perspectives revealed in the dancecalled leadership?To understand moral leadership requires that one gain an understanding ofthe perspectives, the lived experiences and the subjective meanings, of theparticipants in the leadership relationship. To do this requires that they bestudied “in situ”, as Gronn (1999) suggests. Some of the studies discussed inthis essay offer examples of what such research might involve, both in terms ofwhat to study and how to study it. The following are six specificrecommendations for extending the field’s understanding of the moralleadership concept:(1) Study the social relations among school leaders and others, focusing onthe activities, interactions, and sentiments (Homans, 1950) characterizingthe work of school leaders and teachers and the significance of these inexplaining moral leadership.(2) Study the meanings and perspectives underlying what school leaders aredoing in their social relations with others, seeking to understand theperspectives of leaders as well as those with whom they interact.(3) Study the nature of the espoused purposes of school leaders’ actions andorientations toward others, and the congruence between these,organizational values, and leaders’ theories-in-use.

(4) Study the authenticity of school leaders in their relations with others.(5) Study the emotional dimensions of being a school leader, including thesatisfactions and the disappointments of leading, and feelings of anxiety,frustration, and anger, as well as the feelings of happiness, satisfaction,and pride, among other passions of leadership.(6) Study the basis of the commitments underlying a school leader’spurposes, social relations with others, determination to stay the course,and to remain patient in the face of the tremendous pressures schoolleaders are under to improve schools.In closing, the studies reviewed in this essay offer convincing empiricalevidence of the importance of the personal and the socio-cultural dimensions ofleading in schools, and the interrelatedness of administrator’s values andbeliefs, language and action, and managing and leading behaviors. Animportant lesson of research guided by the moral leadership concept is that it ispossible to study such phenomena empirically, and that the results of suchstudies can add meaningfully to the field’s knowledge base. Indeed, asWillower (1994) reminds us, the practice of school administration is an ethicalundertaking. Valuing is central in the doing of school administration[3].Moral leadershipin schools191Notes1. Co-directed by Paul Begley and Eric Bredo, the Center recently relocated to PennsylvaniaState University from its initial home and joint sponsorship by the University of Virginiaand the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto.2. For other examples see Greenfield (1999).3. For more on the concept of value leadership see Greenfield (2003).ReferencesBarnard, C. (1938), The Function of the Executive, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.Begley, P.T. (Ed.) (1999), Values and Educational Leadership, SUNY Press, Albany, NY.Begley, P.T. (2000), “Values and leadership: theory development, new research, and an agendafor the future”, The Alberta Journal of Educational Research, Vol. 46 No. 3, pp. 233-49.Begley, P. and Johansson, O. (1997), “Values and school administration: preferences, ethics andconflicts”, paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational ResearchAssociation, Chicago, IL.Begley, P.T. and Johansson, O. (Eds) (2003), The Ethical Dimensions of School Leadership,Kluwer Academic Press, Dordrecht.Begley, P.T. and Leonard, P. (Eds) (1999), The Values of Educational Administration, FalmerPress, London.Blumberg, A. and Greenfield, W.D. (1980), The Effective Principal: Perspectives on SchoolLeadership, Allyn & Bacon, Boston, MA.Blumberg, A. and Greenfield, W.D. (1986), The Effective Principal: Perspectives on SchoolLeadership, 2nd. ed., Allyn & Bacon, Boston, MA.Blumer, H. (1969), Symbolic Interactionism: Perspectives and Method, Prentice-Hall, EnglewoodCliffs, NJ.Bottery, M. (1992), The Ethics of Educational Management, Cassell Educational, London.Burns, G.M. (1978), Leadership, Harper & Row, New York, NY.Callahan, R.E. (1962), Education and the Cult of Efficiency, University of Chicago Press, Chicago,IL.Carnoy, M. and Loeb, S. (2002), “Does external accountability affect student outcomes? A

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Willower, D.J. (1981), “Educational administration: some philosophical and other considerations”,Journal of Educational Administration, Vol. 19 No. 2, pp. 115-39.Willower, D.J. (1985), “Philosophy and the study of educational administration”, Journal ofEducational Administration, Vol. 23 No. 1, pp. 5-22.Willower, D.J. (1987), “Inquiry into educational administration: the last 25 years and the next”,Journal of Educational Administration, Vol. 25 No. 1, pp. 12-28.Willower, D.J. (1994), “Dewey’s theory of inquiry and reflective administration”, Journal ofEducational Administration, Vol. 32 No. 1, pp. 5-22.Yukl, G.A. (1981), Leadership in Organizations, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ.Further readingConnell, R.W. (1995), Masculinities, Allen & Unwin, St Leonards.Getzels, J.W. (1979), “Problem finding and research in educational administration”, inImmegart, G.L. and Boyd, W.L. (Eds), Problem Finding in Educational Administration:Trends in Research and Theory, D.C. Heath & Co., Lexington, MA, pp. 5-22.Hemphill, J.K. (1964), “Personal variables and administrative styles”, in Griffiths, D.E. (Ed.),Behavioral Science and Educational Administration, National Society for the Study ofEducation, 63rd Yearbook, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL.Iannaccone, L. (1964), “An approach to the informal organization of the school”, in Griffiths, D.E.(Ed.), Behavioral Science and Educational Administration, National Society for the Study ofEducation, 63rd Yearbook, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL.Lipham, J.M. (1964), in Griffiths, D.E. (Ed.), Behavioral Science and Educational Administration,National Society for the Study of Education, 63rd Yearbook, University of Chicago Press,Chicago, IL.

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