Foreword

It is a pleasure to write a foreword to this book by Professor Lyse Langlois. I have been following her work for over a decade now, and I am increasingly impressed by her dedication to deepening her own understanding within the field of ethics, as well as by her commitment to engaging in a long-range research effort to illuminate a process of ethical decision making. I believe the present book admirably reflects both aspects of her scholarly work.

The Anatomy of Ethical Leadership helps to situate the reader within historical developments in philosophy and social theory at a time when three hundred or more years of modernity finds itself challenged by recent proponents of postmodernity. Langlois reflects her broad reading of the sources in proposing that scholars of ethics and ethical leadership are currently experiencing an overlapping of perspectives from both traditions. There is therefore a need to consider the value of perspectives offered by modernity as well as by postmodernity. Her discussion in the first part of the book enables us to situate recent developments in the field of ethics within their proper historical context. Later on, readers will see how her empirical findings tend to confirm the existence of these overlapping perspectives among educational leaders.

The second part of the book presents a broad view of leadership, attempting to ground it in a philosophical anthropology that offers reasonable interpretive frameworks, as opposed to ironclad definitive rational arguments. Her presentation of leadership as involved with ethically charged situations enables her to bring the crucial activity of decision making to the forefront of leadership action.

With the foundational landscape well articulated, Langlois moves with assurance into a description of the model that she has developed and refined for almost ten years, the trajectory of ethical, responsible, and authentic leadership (TERA). The model incorporates the complementary ethics of critique, justice, and care. In the early 1990s, I had proposed that these three ethical perspectives needed to be brought into an interdependent model of ethical reasoning in the area of educational leadership. Professor Langlois then took on the task of documenting the presence of these three ethical perspectives in the decision making of the subjects she studied. Beyond that, however, she has been able to create an ongoing learning process that has enabled these same leaders to grow in their ability to employ the three ethics intentionally and with greater sensibility in their work. She is now able to document, as well, how their enhanced facility with ethical analysis and decision making can translate into the building of an intentional ethical culture in their organizations.

This groundbreaking work offers not only to educational leaders but also to leaders in other organizations opportunities to reflect afresh on their own process of ethical decision making. It is my hope that the work of Professor Langlois will continue to gain international recognition, not only though the use of the TERA model and the documentation of its effectiveness but also by prompting more ambitious developments with other organizations.

Robert J. Starratt

Boston College