ABSTRACT
IN C O N T E M P O R A R Y S O C I E T Y and business there is a booming interest in morality. There are debates on equal opportunities in relation to gender, ethnicity, disabilities, age, marketing methods and consumer issues, environ - mental respons ibility, community involvement, business scandals, greed and overpay ment for executives, whistleblowing, issues in the developing world like child labour and bad working conditions, and so on. Increased emphasis on individualism, consumerism and hedonism means that self-interest and egoism become more salient. Feelings of reduced community and increased seculariza tion – combined with a renewed focus on religion – contribute to increased uncertainty around moral issues. Trends are seldom clear-cut, but these devel op ments probably form a background to a contemporary interest in morality. This of course also infuses ideas around leadership. There is an interest in how leaders can address these moral problems involving the interface between leadership and ‘explicitly’ moral phenomena. But the link between leadership and ethics is not constrained to address ‘hot’ issues such as corporate social responsibility and the moral shortcomings of contemporary working life. Most people interested in leadership are concerned more generally with questions such as what a good leader is and what constitutes good leadership. It is surely not a matter of just being tough, intelligent, having a strong will, being persuasive, result-oriented and other possible effectiveness-inducing qualities. It is also very much about being of the right moral stuff, of being good and caring to the subordinates.
