Terry L. Price: Understanding Ethical Failures in Leadership.
Bishop, John Douglas
Terry L. Price: Understanding Ethical Failures in Leadership.
New York: Cambridge University Press 2006.
Pp. 238.
US$65.00 (cloth: ISBN-13: 978-0-521-83724-8); US$24.99 (paper
ISBN-13: 978-0-521-54597-6).
Both leaders and writers on leadership generally believe that
leaders can sometimes be morally justified in excepting themselves from
'generally applicable moral requirements' (a phrase Price uses
repeatedly). In making such exceptions for themselves, leaders can make
serious moral mistakes. The central concern of Price's book is
explaining how and why leaders can make such mistakes. His argument is
that the volitional account of the leaders' mistakes is inadequate;
he believes that only a cognitive account will give us the understanding
we need, and that leaders need to assess accurately the moral merits of
justifications for leader exception-making. I will say up front that I
find Price very persuasive--he is on to something important. His
conclusion that leaders ought to be very careful when making exceptions,
and that they should observe some basic constraints, seems to me both
true and significant.
On the volitional account that Price rejects, leaders are aware of
their moral obligations but fail to live up to them because
temptations--primarily temptations of self-interest, but possibly of
sympathy--are too great. This is, of course, a weakness of will
approach. Price rejects the volitional account not because it is false,
but because it is seriously inadequate. No one can deny that positions
of leadership can be abused for egoistical purposes; the extent of
corruption in business and politics (especially in some parts of the
world) make it seem strange that Price has little to say on the
phenomenon. Price argues that such egoism is not of much interest to
leadership theory because corrupt egoists do not recognise (either at
all or adequately) the moral claims of leadership. Price is interested
in how the justification of leader exception-making can go wrong, and
neither egoists nor leadership theories offer a justification for
egoism. Price's central point here is correct, but his near
complete omission of egoism ignores how leadership theory might
discourage egoism and promote proper attention to the legitimate
obligations of leaders.
Price's cognitive account of moral failure centres on the
beliefs of leaders, not on their will. However, readers should note,
especially when reading the early part of this book, that Price is not
talking about factual beliefs of any sort. His concern is for the
beliefs that leaders have, or ought to have, regarding the values and
moral obligations connected with their role as leaders. This, of course,
makes Price keenly interested in leadership theory as discussed in the
academic literature on leadership, a literature that Price is thoroughly
familiar with.
Leadership theories can be either empirical or normative. Price has
little interest in empirical information about leaders--his entire
purpose and method is philosophical. Insofar as he cites empirical
studies, his concern is to show that the evidence on leaders supports
his view that they can make cognitive errors. Price is more concerned
with normative theories of leadership, especially utilitarian,
deontological, trait based, transactional, transformational, and
authentic transformational accounts of leadership.
Normative theories of leadership offer moral justifications for
leaders being leaders. They specify the obligations leaders have to the
group they lead, to their followers, to other leaders, and to outsiders.
These theories also offer justifications for how and why these
obligations can sometimes justify leaders in excepting themselves from
'generally applicable moral requirements.'
How moral errors arise when leaders try to justify making
exceptions for themselves is the central concern of this book. Price
tackles each of the leadership theories in turn. In each case, he is not
trying to show that the theory is wrong, or should be rejected; his
agenda is to show that the theory allows or even encourages erroneous
beliefs about exception-making. For example, transformational leadership
theory might justify exceptions based on obligations to the group that
is being led, or to specific followers, or even to the leader's own
authentic transformation. However, such an exception might be a moral
error when judged by 'generally applicable moral
requirements;' it may be a failure of content, inclusion or scope.
That is, it may be a failure to consider the moral claims of outsiders,
individual followers, or others. The failure is cognitive in that the
leader believes she is justified, but the belief is a false one.
Price does not want to claim that every leader exception is a moral
error--sometimes exceptions are justified from all perspectives. But he
does think that leaders need always to recognise severe constraints.
Using Martin Luther King's analysis of justified civil disobedience as a model, Price argues that 'we can derive moral reasons for
leaders to restrict exceptions they make of themselves to the pursuit of
inclusive ends, to make both the exception-making behavior and the
arguments for it reasonably public, to reserve the use of violence for
those cases in which there is widespread support for these means even
among outsiders, and to be willing to accept the penalty for their
exception-making behavior' (150).
Price has made a valuable contribution to leadership theory by
showing that moral failure can arise not just when egoism triumphs over
the obligations of leaders, but can also arise out of the leader's
beliefs in those very obligations. I have no doubt his central point is
basically correct. We need now to consider how to get this message out
to leaders and to those of us who teach ethics to future leaders.
Price's analysis has considerable implications for how we teach,
for example, business ethics. However, I should note in passing the
Price's book is too philosophical to be easily read by most
leaders, and I would not use it with students other than upper-level or
graduate students in philosophy. This book is aimed at academics who
work in the area of leadership ethics. It will be up to such academics
to disseminate the message further.
John Douglas Bishop
Trent University
