Ethical Leadership

In Ethical Leadership, Robert Starratt, one of the leading thinkers on the topic of ethics and education, shows educational leaders how to move beyond mere technical efficiency in the delivery and performance of learning. He challenges educators to become ethical leaders who understand the learning process as a profoundly moral activity that engages the full humanity of the school community.

Starratt explains that educational leadership requires a moral commitment to high-quality learning for all students—a commitment based on three essential virtues: proactive responsibility; personal and professional authenticity; and an affirming, critical, and enabling presence to the workers and the work involved in teaching and learning. He clarifies how these virtues are essential for leadership in the pressure-cooker of high-stakes schooling.

He provides vivid illustrations by beginning and ending the book with a "morality play," the narrative of a principal who struggles to do the right thing for his students and teachers, as they are pressured and often punished by state-mandated tests. Starratt concludes by offering practical suggestions for working leaders, as well as preservice and inservice courses in educational leadership.