Virtue ethics for flourishing leaders

Abstract

This article builds upon important work on leadership practices and behaviours in schooling. It shows how approaches informed by virtue ethics may enable educational leaders to be increasingly authentic and emotionally intelligent, to build higher-performing teams and ensure more consistent staff and student flourishing. It demonstrates why ‘values’ are not enough and illustrates the merit of ‘virtues’ (operationalised as behaviours) in school culture. It also shows how ethical frameworks (from Kant and Mill to Aristotle), implicit in leadership decision-making, may help or hinder educational leaders when it comes to their own flourishing and that of the schools they lead.

Flourishing

Currently, there is a widespread acknowledgment that ‘flourishing’ is the aim and ideal for schooling, generally described as enabling ‘well-being’, ‘living well’, ‘thriving’ or being ‘fully alive’. (Ford and Wolfe, 2020; Swaner and Wolfe, 2021; Swaner and Wolfe, 2023; Cherkowski et al., 2023; CST, 2024; CES, 2024). The Confederation of School Trusts (CST), which represents schools that are ‘academies’ (now 80% of secondary and half of primary schools in England) has recently published Flourishing Together (CST, 2024) which articulates: ‘CST's vision for flourishing’ delivered via a coherently coordinated education system which will ‘prioritise the flourishing of all’ and which aspires to ‘a deeper, broader, social, moral, spiritual, and cultural flourishing of every unique individual’ (CST, 2024: 3 my italic). This article considers this important vision and suggests how school leaders, specifically, might experience ‘flourishing’ and that of the schools they lead. Clearly, the virtues and character of school leaders are essential if the ideal of flourishing is to be achieved. As the CST put it:

‘Our challenge to ensure true human flourishing calls us to seek to form our own characters through the pursuit of personal characteristics, or virtues. Virtues are strengths of character which are moral, civic, intellectual and performative, such as trust, optimism, service, wisdom, justice, courage and humility’ (CST, 2024: 4)

A range of virtues underpin the seven ‘Nolan’ principles of ‘Selflessness, Integrity, Objectivity, Accountability, Openness, Honesty and Leadership’ (GOV.UK, 1995), and are integral to the ‘Framework for Ethical Leadership in Education’ (ASCL, 2017; Roberts, 2019). But how do we develop as ethical leaders? How do we form our own characters? How do we flourish?

Flourishing leaders

Aristotle (c340 BC) drew the comparison with learning to play a musical instrument. As guitars and pianos had yet to be invented, he asked how you learn to play the harp? His answer was: through the right sort of practice. You cannot just read about harps or study harps; you must regularly pluck those strings. Neuroscience (Duhigg, 2012) and recent management research agree with Aristotle's famous insight: we are creatures of habit. Put simply, this means school leaders practice and develops the virtue of courage by doing courageous things; we develop the virtue of humility by being humble (listening well enough to learn and change) and we become kinder by routinely acting in kinder ways to others. Patience is a virtue too and leaders only develop it by having their patience tried. That matters too because servant leadership involves emotional labour (Spears and Lawrence, 2004).

Emotions in leadership are to be drawn upon and channelled rather than ignored or suppressed, an important point made by Seppälä and Bradley (2019) regarding teams. Yet if emotional intelligence (Goleman and Boyatzis, 2017) is to be wholly ethical, leaders informed by neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics should possess the right, ‘feelings at the right times, about the right things, toward the right people, for the right end, and in the right way’ for this is the ‘best condition, and this is proper to virtue’ (Aristotle, c340BC/1999: 24 [1106b 21-23], my italic). Such leadership derives from who we are: our character. School leaders may have very different personalities (from introvert to extrovert, for instance), but this is different to their character which has the moral stamp of virtues (such as honesty and fortitude). Aristotle's ancient wisdom resonates with recent management research and just two examples will briefly illustrate: firstly, regarding the building of high-performing teams and, secondly, the practice of negotiating.

Edmondson's influential work (2018) on psychologically healthy teams informs high-performance that is ethical, as it empowers colleagues to be motivated and to take ownership. Edmondson draws attention to the ways in which feeling unable to speak up, on account of one's position in a hierarchy, not only limits the talent-pool and capacity of the team, but is also unhealthy (Edmondson, 2018). By contrast ‘psychological safety’ promotes ‘learning, innovation and growth’ (Edmondson, 2018: 109) and leads to high-performance as ‘the knowledge in the room thereby increases exponentially’ (Edmondson, 2018: 206).

Further research has indicated that when men and women do speak up, they generally tend to negotiate differently (Olekalns et al., 2019). Certainly, more attention could be devoted to the degree to which negotiation is ethical rather than manipulative (Cialdini, 1984). Leaders who create ‘webs of inclusion’, ‘shared consciousness’ and ‘trust among team members’ demonstrate that a ‘new leadership model seems to be becoming more of a reality, and not just for women’ even though we owe much to many female leaders for pioneering this more inclusive and emotionally intelligent approach (McGrath, 2019: 170). This resonates with calls for discernment, flexibility and authenticity and for wise leadership (Kaipa and Radjou, 2013: x).

Thriving schools

Wise leaders always value the individual and problematise the data in relation to ‘the average’ inherited from the Taylorism (Taylor, 1929), so influential upon Henry Ford's production lines, and subsequently on the planning of schooling on the ‘factory’ model (Rose, 2015: 40-43, 108; Doerr, 2018: 24). Thriving schools are supported by data but not driven by it. The level of granularity that helps leaders see the individual in schooling must not be obscured by group averages: ‘If you’re comparing two different groups of people… then the average can be useful. But…the moment you need to make a decision about any individual – the average is useless’ (Rose, 2015: 11). Flourishing leaders differentiate between the ‘average’ and the ‘individual’ (Rose, 2015: 186) for a school to thrive.

This is important because a central aspect of ICFP (Integrated Curriculum Financial Planning) in schools in England, is the use of ‘key metrics and the underlying connection between those metrics’ (Ellis, 2020: 3). Such metrics include: 1) Staff pay as a percentage of total expenditure 2) Average teacher cost 3) pupil-to-teacher ratio 4) Class sizes 5) Teacher contact ratio 6) Proportion of budget spend on the leadership team 7) 3-5-year budget projections 8) spend per pupil 9) school improvement plan priorities 10) contract costs and renewals.

This is helpful in some respects but not in others. If it costs significantly more to provide mathematics in School A compared to School B (where student ability is similar) but student progress and attainment is significantly lower in School A than School B, then this can lead to analysis of the efficiency of operations and quality of teaching in School A and how student outcomes might be improved. Educational leaders in thriving schools will appreciate that while such data may tell us what is happening it will not give direct answers as to how or why. Such ethical action requires ‘practical wisdom’ (phronesis) according to Aristotle, which brings us back to virtue ethics (Slote, 1997).

Ethical frameworks

Leaders who practice phronesis (practical wisdom) do more than calculate consequences and how a decision ‘will land’ with most stakeholders - and they do more than ‘following the rules’ (a given policy), as their leadership is more authentic and humane than this, being rooted in character and virtue. Yet only recently has there been a turn in professions such as medicine (Kotzee et al., 2016; Meagher, 2011) and education (Jubilee, 2024; Pike, 2024) to virtue ethics (Aristotle, c340BC/1999) and away from the two previously dominant frameworks which emphasise rules and consequences. For many years, the field of school leadership ethics and decision-making (Starratt, 2004, 2007; Strike et al., 2005) has broadly offered two options: (1) Kant's duty ethics (Kant, 1997/1785) or deontology (deon means ‘duty’) where a person does his or her duty and ‘follows the rules’ and Mill's utilitarianism (Mill, 1915/1859) that focuses on achieving the ‘greatest happiness’ for the ‘greatest number’ or ‘benefit maximisation’.

This is not to say that carrying most stakeholders with you is unimportant for leaders. Yet with Mill's consequentialist utilitarian ethics, the leader is entirely focussed upon consequences and how a decision ‘will land’. One of the most serious dangers of such ‘benefit maximisation’ is that it always prioritises the majority view as it seeks the greatest happiness of the greatest number. Consequently, there is the very real risk of running roughshod over individual rights and of disrespecting or disregarding minority views. Neither does it mean that policies and rules in schools are unimportant. But slavishly following rules will only take a leader so far. Rules are rigid and inflexible and may lead to insufficient practice of phronesis (practical wisdom). Emotional intelligence is not required for the legalistic following of rules or rigid adherence to a published policy. Clearly, management approaches and decision-making overly influenced by utilitarianism or deontology tend to undervalue the phronesis (practical wisdom) of the leader in education (which is privileged by virtue ethics).

Which virtues?

When considering which virtues should characterise a school leader and inform his or her ‘practical wisdom’, one starting point would be the four classical or universal virtues, familiar to Aristotle: ‘Prudence’ (Wisdom), ‘Temperance’ (Self-control), ‘Justice’ (Fairness), and ‘Fortitude’ (Courage). But to temper these, this article advocates privileging at least two broad, generous and inclusive virtues that Aristotle would not have considered to be virtues at all, namely ‘Love’ (including ‘Forgiveness’) and ‘Humility’ (defined as welcoming correction and learning from one's mistakes). It might be surprising today to reflect that Aristotle described ‘Pride’ (the very opposite of ‘Humility’) as the ‘crown of the virtues’ (c340BC/1999, 1123 6/b 28–30) as he believed that ‘virtue’ is practised for honour, status, and public standing (for one's city state, family name, reputation and so on). Equally, Aristotle privileged ‘Justice’ (and not ‘Love’ or ‘Forgiveness’).

Aristotle would have been baffled and perplexed by the account of the thief on the cross who receives Christ's mercy and forgiveness after a disreputable life (Luke 23: 39–43). This would have made no sense whatsoever as the criminal was receiving due ‘Justice’ (one of the four classical virtues). Indeed, ‘for Aristotle any attempt to identify mercy with God would be preposterous’ (Harrington and Keenan, 2002: 43; Kotva, 1996). Culturally, although this cluster of related virtues (‘Love’, ‘Forgiveness’, ‘Mercy’, ‘Humility’) came with the era of Christ (Holland, 2019; Pike, 2024), they are not just part of our shared intellectual history, they are integral to the ethos of all schools that engage pastorally in a range of forms of restorative practice and reconciliation.

Many universal ‘virtues’ are practised across cultures with different worldviews, religious traditions or political systems and it is the practice of these that underpins human flourishing (Lewis, 1943). Evidently though, noble ideals (even ‘flourishing’ itself) and admirable ‘values’ in schools will not achieve impact if a range of ‘virtues’ (good habits) are not routinely lived out (Pike, 2017). As ‘values are beliefs and ideals whereas virtues are moral habits and dispositions of character’ (Pike, 2017: 3, my italic), the ethos of any school might be described as the sum of the virtues practised through its relationships. Consequently, we can reach judgements like: ‘Andrew is kind’, ‘Mukhujje is fair’ or ‘Vic is self-controlled’ or we might even say that ‘River School is fair’ or ‘Valley School is a kind place’. That is because these traits are routinely experienced and have come to characterise these leaders and their schools. Yet to have maximal effect, the development of character and explicit teaching of virtue must be systematic, and one Principal recently reported the importance of such intentional planning:

We focus as much on our character as leaders as we do on developing the character of our students. We seek the virtue of wisdom and recognise it begins with humility… Developing character must be an intentional planned activity - it cannot be assumed that good character will simply be ‘caught’. We know the virtues we seek to develop and then we plan activities with staff and students that allow these to be developed as habit (Pike and Lickona, 2021: 40).

Flourishing together

Clearly the phronesis (practical wisdom) of such school leaders must be supported through wrap-around virtuous actions by a range of different agencies and stakeholders, and by government, and this is well articulated in Flourishing Together (CST, 2024). Indeed, it has been proposed that leaders must operate at all three levels of culture (Schein, 1985) and address: 1) visible behaviours, language, rituals, customs and traditions (the ‘what’), 2) espoused values, norms, shared meanings, philosophy or worldview (the ‘why’), as well, as 3) more deeply seated beliefs, morals and values. Values certainly inform our ‘why’ (Sinek, 2011) as these are ‘principles which justify activity’ (Halstead and Pike, 2006: 24) but they are not to confused or conflated with virtues (ethical behaviours) which impact culture (Pike, 2024).

In concluding it is worth drawing attention to the fact that Aristotle's word for ‘flourishing’ (eudaimonia) was used in his time to describe the ‘goodwill’ in the relationship between spouses in a good marriage. As leadership character is the sum of leadership virtues (ethical behaviours that have become ‘second nature’), with the right motivation and practice, ethical leaders have the capacity to become increasingly emotionally intelligent, self-performing and morally responsible over time. Flourishing Together (CST, 2024) provides a foundation for virtuous systemic solutions to problems that appear endemic. Prioritising ‘flourishing’ challenges leaders of both schools and systems to rethink inherited approaches by routinely asking: What is the virtuous approach?