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On ethical
leadership and
education
Ehlers, U.-D., Asia-European Foundation “Young
Leasers Summit – Ethical Leadership, Brussels,
October 2018
Reference: Ehlers, U.-D. (2018) On ethical leadership and education. In
Proceedings of the Conference of Asia-European Foundation
„Young Leaders Summit – Ethical Leadership“. Brussels,
October 2018
https://www.asef.org/images/docs/192902_ASEFYLS3_Article_
Prof-Ulf-Daniel-Ehlers.pdf
Correspondence address: Prof. Dr. phil. habil. Ulf-Daniel Ehlers
Duale Hochschule Baden-Württemberg | Baden-Wuerttemberg Cooperative State University
Erzbergerstr. 121, 76133 Karlsruhe
Deutschland | Germany
mail: ehlers@dhbw.de | ulf.ehlers@googlemail.com
skype: ulf.ehlers
web: www.dhbw.de | www.ulf-ehlers.net
On Ethical Leadership and Collaboration | Ulf-Daniel EHLERS 1 / 4
Author:
Prof Ulf-Daniel EHLERS
Prof Ulf-Daniel EHLERS is a learning
innovation expert and has been
appointed Professor for Educational
Management and Lifelong Learning at
the Baden-Wurttemberg Cooperative
State University in Karlsruhe in 2011.
From 2011-2016 he held the position
of Vice-president at the same university
and has been responsible for Quality
and Academic Affairs. He held positions
as Associate Professor of University
Duisburg-Essen (Germany), Professor
for Technology Enhanced Learning of
University Augsburg (Germany) and
Associate Professor of the Graduate
School for Management and Technology
of the University of Maryland University
College (USA).
Prof EHLERS holds degrees in
English Language, Social Sciences
and Educational Sciences from the
University of Bielefeld, where he
Learning in 2003. He was awarded a
Habilitation in 2008 from the University
of Duisburg-Essen. Prof EHLERS is
founding member and past President
of the European Foundation for Quality
in E-Learning (2011-2014) and has
also been the President of the Society
for Media in Science, in addition to
serving on advisory boards for several
On Ethical Leadership and Education
Prof Ulf-Daniel Ehlers
A thoughtpiece
It carries in it the opportunity to convey what’s on one’s mind without being tight to
readers to be mild with the following text, when they perhaps feel that it is becoming
thoughtpiece.
It is clear that there is no leadership without ethics
This does not mean that leaders are always leading in an ethical way. No! We all
what is meant is that: there is no leadership without considering what is right or
wrong, for example, in an entire organization. The same is true for a state (policy
leadership) or in civil society contexts, private initiatives, the family or one’s own life.
In this way ethics cannot be separated from leadership. Still, it is important to notice
is important for societies, groups, or individuals in general. They are the context and
environment leaders act in, e.g. the organization they are situated in. The very general
(ethical) question: “what serves the public good?” is important for everyone who is
leading, be it in policy, in other positions in societies, or in organizations. In essence,
leadership cannot be separated from the context it is happening in. And the context
the question which values should drive our action, we will sooner or later arrive at the
point where we notice that society is one main reference point for the answer. That
account the larger context, e.g. the prosperity of the organization or the development
of the society. This is one main reference point to come to an answer.
Ethics needs pragmatics
every member of the society has the same rights and the same opportunities. Justice,
however, is a very broad concept with no easy and clear answer to what is it. Therefore
and actions, a translation into action. A tool to provide pragmatic help for leaders in such
recommendations. In that way ethics can only serve as a guideline for action if it is
accompanied by pragmatics, helping to operationalize leadership situations.
On Ethical Leadership and Collaboration | Ulf-Daniel EHLERS 2 / 4
Ethics is constantly on
In every leaders’ action there is a trait of ethical consideration. Ethics in that sense
is never absent, silent or sleeping. And be it as leaders or otherwise, as humans we
are always entangled into situations and contexts which are the results of persons
acting on their values and considerations, implementing their conclusions to the
question: what is the right thing to do? In exactly that way we are entangled into
which from an ethical point of view pose challenges to us. An example given by Jean
Ziegler, the famous UN activist for peace and better distribution of nutrition: In this
(the UN organization dealing with food and nutrition monitoring) is convinced that
today and it is highly questionable, how humanity could arrive at a situation in which
still, most of us are convinced that we all are responsible for this.
and can least deal with the challenges from climate change and the changes in the
which are of a nature in which those who are causing the challenges are not those
who have to deal with the consequences. In a global, connected world nobody can
turn away from these problems. And, for most of the problems mentioned, there are
no models existing today to deal with them, to heal them. Whatever we do starts with
actions on solidarity and sustainability.
Every action is rooted in values
what is helpful or meaningful — be it conscious or unconscious. Every thought,
every communication and every action is rooted in such ethical considerations.
And here lies an interesting connection to education: without values there are no
competencies. Ethics and competencies have in common that they both rely on the
mean with competencies. Competencies are understood here as dispositions which
enable us to act in a self-organized and creative way. These are the characteristics
change, hunger and migration. Without values there are no competencies. Values
serve as a compass for action.
Why is that so?
Because values enable a person to act in circumstances of insecurity, where they are
unprepared. Everyone can act in situations where action only requires to reproduce
or apply exactly what s/he has learnt before. But acting in situations which we
are unfamiliar, which we have never before lived through or experienced, that is
something more challenging. Something we can only master if we have developed
competences. When learners, students and employees use and utilize certain
concepts and strategies in exactly the same way they were trained before, we can
An example is to learn how to operate the computer program on one computer and
then being able to operate it on another computer. But you cannot creatively come
up with algorithms for the computer programs. To act successful in circumstances
“Without values there
are no competencies.
Values serve as a
compass for action.
On Ethical Leadership and Collaboration | Ulf-Daniel EHLERS 3 / 4
of insecurity, to be able to deal with problems which you have never met in complex
And values enable a person to act in circumstances of insecurity. In a way values are
our action and decision. By doing so, they allow a potential unlimited number and
Values function as basis and orientation for individual and social cooperative and
communicative human self-organization.
Competent leadership needs values which are interiorized
become meaningful to us. And here we are arriving at the importance of education
competencies it is important to base the educational experience on a process of
interiorization. Any meaningful education thus should lead to a process of interiorization
conditions. The process of interiorization requires an experience of labialization, i.e.
questioning one’s own believes. And labialization needs emotional involvement. In
that way, any education which frustrates, or which leads to resistance on sites of
the learner and to insecurity is a golden path into one of the main components of
leadership education. Because it helps leaders to develop value based dispositions
of self organized behavior. And that is what they need. In order to deal with future,
times and be self organized. Education and learning is an activity which needs values
in order to arrive at competent behavior in order to lead in uncertain circumstances.
Dealing with values in such an in-depth way is important for leaders because the
value-sphere in our societies has changed dramatically.
The history of values and ethics has changed dramatically
Today, as opposed to our society still 200 years ago and older, we have no overarching
binding and stabilizing consensus on values any more. Whereas in the old times the
family concept for example, it is through technological advancements, globalization
concepts lead to a diversifying of society. In this society still concepts which were
is a modern concept in societies but there is no dominant leading idea of religious
groups any longer. Living in communities is still an important concept and gives
through marriage but through a variety of forms of living. Habermas states in his
values from the past where we derived stability from before into the future. What the
future will hold is less and less deductible from the past. And, therefore, we have
no models for action which guarantee stability for the future. It is the big challenge
today for companies and organizations to train their employees for a world in which
which they have to deal with a world in which values are constantly changing.
On Ethical Leadership and Collaboration | Ulf-Daniel EHLERS 4 / 4
The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely by the author(s) and do not represent that of the Asia-Europe
Foundation (ASEF).
#ASEFYLS3
Leadership entails determining a position, charting a course, and heading towards a destination. It means navigating around
harsh as moral dilemmas. But are the manners of and tools for leading equally important as the end goal? And what are the
The classic and modern tools such as the compass and the mobile phone in the ASEFYLS3 design show that every leadership
must come with its own acceptable and effective measures. However, one has to be constantly alert and sensitive towards
leader a true navigator, able to develop a sense of direction informed by self-awareness and societal needs, and thereby standing
up for her/his chosen course.