MORAL THEORY IN EVERYDAY LIFE

This book addresses what I have suggested is the central question of leadership ethics: Do the distinctive features of leadership justify rule-breaking behavior? We are now in a position to answer this question for everyday leaders by drawing together the conclusions of various chapters and extrapolating from them to articulate a view of everyday leadership ethics.

To this end, let us again consider the leader who lies to followers. Here we might think specifically of a student leader in a campus organization, a politician in city government, or a CEO of a corporation. Like any moral agent who thinks that she should be allowed to break the rules, the everyday leader must convince us that we ought to look differently upon her behavior than we look upon the behavior of people who break the rules without justification. No moral agent can concede that the facts of both cases are identical in all morally relevant respects and, at the same time, urge that she deserves special dispensation. Justification involves giving reasons, and justification of behavior that is typically considered to be immoral requires good moral reasons.

The most straightforward way for the leader to make her case for justification would be to pair the action she proposes with the behavior of people whose rule-breaking behavior we have every reason to think was justified. Consider how such a justification might proceed.