MORAL LEADERSHIP IN HIGHER EDUCATION

Moral Leadership: Managing and addressing conflicts within higher education administration Addi Casseus, M.Ed Union Institute & University EDU 701: Ethical Leadership-Jim Henderson Dr. James Henderson

MORAL LEADERSHIP IN HIGHER EDUCATION Abstract

The topic of leadership and social justice has continues to be the fundamental framework of curriculum building and bureaucratic structuring in higher education settings. With the responsibility to develop more consciously democratic adults, administrators of higher education have inadvertent obligation to model moral behavior to include the way they handle conflict within their organizations and that which affects their staff. As we define leadership, it becomes imperative to understand its capacity and ethically respond to the need of moral leadership throughout the breadth and scope of how we function. As leaders of education, social justice, moral responsibility, ethical endeavoring and humanistic world view demands to be the epitomic framework of our responsibility. The Ten Commandments of Leadership: I. Treat everyone with respect and dignity; II. Set the examples for others to follow; III. Be an active coach; IV. Maintain the highest standards of honesty and integrity; V. Insist on excellence and hold your people accountable; VI. Build group cohesiveness and pride; VII. Show confidence in your people; VIII. Maintain a strong sense of urgency; IX. Be available and visible to your staff; and X. Develop yourself to your highest potential. Ron Edmonds

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Moral leadership remains to be the framework from which leaders in higher education work and implement duties and service. It is imperative that the institution of higher learning remain steadfast in evaluating and re-evaluating its core beliefs as it empowers, support and facilitate education for adults. Within this larger structure, it is correspondingly of supreme order to ensure that those who work to initiate and fulfill goals are also empowered; they need to be respected and included in decisions, pertaining to the endeavoring and acceleration of andragogy. It also demands that these service workers are not made to feel less important or of lesser caliber than those who hold higher degrees or positions. Because all work collaboratively and interactively, it is indeed a learning and administrative community. This community of higher learning administration is often times damaged by personalities who fail to accept or understand the value of each individual. In such institutions, it may be difficult to understand an individuals personal conflict, bias or feelings of inadequacy. Furthermore, if these anxieties are stimulated by a leaders disregard for the individual, then ones feeling of meagerness is further augmented and will undoubtedly have negative effects on the organization as a whole. In this case of moral leadership, we shall analyze how the lack of confronting and managing conflict, the absence of modeling expectations, and our biased nature can affect the organizational culture of an institute of higher learning. A COMMON CASE SCENARIO This is a case of a small non-profit university in the northeast of the United States. This private institute of higher education offers undergraduate Bachelors of Science degrees in Public Administration, Education, Psychology and Business Management, with concentrations in Accounting and Finance, Human Resources, Marketing, and Management Information Systems. In a given semester, the institution manages the enrollment and continuation of about 600 adults. 46%

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of which are of Black or of African descent; 20% are of Hispanic background, 20% are of AngloSaxon background, 4% are of Jewish lineage and 10% are of other ethnic groups. 56% of the population is that of adults 18-25 years of age, while 30% are that of adults 25-35 years of age, 14% of the students are over 35. These diverse groups of adults seek guidance and support to complete degree programs in the aforementioned offerings to expand their opportunities in life, find fulfillment or gain higher positions in their field of work. Respective of this feat to educate adults in a predominately Black population is the institutions administration: The president, Provost, V.P. of Finance, V.P. of Human Resources, V. P. of Development, Deans of the four respective majors, Program Chairs for each major, affiliated faculty; all of whom are Anglo-Saxon with one of the deans being an Indian woman and another being of Jewish lineage. The other two deans are White males. With a Hispanic Director of Admissions, and other administrative staff, all of whom happen to be of African descent, to include a Registrar and two Associate Registrars. The staff of seven has overlapping and unclear job duties including admissions, financial aid help, registration, academic support, record keeping, advising, etc. Despite an unsympathetic work environment, they are the most compassionate to the students goals, as they are generally from similar socio-economic backgrounds and life situations (adults returning to school, while supporting a full-time job with families) and wish to see these students succeed. So it is rare for students to experience anything less than perfect customer service and attention. The titles of the staff are set, however they interact often and rely heavily upon one another to fulfill duties in admissions, degree planning, advising, record keeping and academic support.

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The issues in bureaucratic structures are huge; nevertheless, we will focus on how not addressing the issues of conflict, bordering on bullying and harassment can escalate in the workplace. Administrators are constantly confronted with issues of moral conflict. Conflict is inevitable for any organization. It is arguably healthy to face conflicts as people become acquainted and learn of each other. People come from different facets of life, and of diverse backgrounds; even those of the same ethnic background can be quite different. Aside from having different moral and ethical background and upbringing, people face issues of different socioeconomic class, religion, value systems and education. These facts about the individuals in a community govern their overall responsive behavior and attitude. It can become a precarious environment if the establishment of a sound, moral bureaucratic system is not in place. It is as Rawls argues, according to Sandel (2009), that we must subscribe to a, social contract-a hypothetical agreement in an original position of equality (p. 141). If we do not have a standard of agreement, however, these inescapable issues can largely affect productivity and morale. In this case, the dean being the leader and the one to manage day-to-day dilemma has the added duty to foster a collaborative, respective, inclusive and trusting system where faculty and staff can adequately work to support the goals of the university. Moreover, the organization has the ethical responsibility to empower their employees to further in life and provide adequate professional development to enhance the overall scholarship of these service workers of education. Nevertheless, in this case, the dynamics of not addressing conflict has become the ingredient for disaster. The financial aid representative is a young, single mother of 25 years of age. As the youngest part of the team, she is often sidelined when she presents valid ideas for smoother

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productivity. Her efforts to service 600 students go unnoticed and she is constantly being yelled at by older, more seasoned administrators. On several instances, she misses lunch as appointments are scheduled for her without her input or consideration. Other staff members barge into her office and practically throw papers at her desk. If shes on the phone, servicing a student no less, a staff would enter her office and commence talking and giving directives. Snide comments are made of her when she walks by. Each day is tedious and loathsome as she is undermined and accused of errors before she is given the opportunity to explain herself and before it is uncovered that she committed no error in the first place. It is painfully obvious that she is demoralized. She is compelled to have a meeting with the dean, who rushes her out of the office and is emotionally detached. Her concerns to the dean are further diminished and she is made to feel as if she is being overly sensitive; at one point, the comment regarding her grievances was, Oh, youre strong, you can handle it. This is a common stereotype reserved for women of color. Hackman and Johnson (1995) supports that leaders should be effective communicators; they discuss how influence is an important component in leadership, and how skills that involve regulating the behavior of others are part of the leaders repertoire (p. 428-429). The seven administrative principles of a leader are listed as: Develop perceptions of credibility Develop and use power bases effectively Make effective use of verbal and nonverbal influence cues Develop positive expectations for others Manage change Gain compliance Negotiate productive solutions(p.429) The question becomes, to what degree should the financial aid rep handle it? Has the
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

dean effectively communicated support for a just and fair environment? More intrinsically, how

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can the dean make effective use of her communication skills to stop the abuse on the financial aid rep and maintain respect and enthusiasm from her peers? Granted, our accounts, perceptions and analysis of certain situations are riddled with prejudice based on our personal background and moral/ethical codes of living. Freire (1998) outstandingly expresses how we have our own personal biases from which we operate, and discusses how we should recognize our condition of unfinishedness; he continues to say, that the material, social, political, cultural, and ideological conditions in which we find ourselves almost always generate divisions that make difficult the construction of our ideals of change and transformation, and yet, he know[s] also that the obstacles are not eternal (p.55). As administrators of higher education, we are held and bound to a higher order of thinking, even in our unfinishedness; that even with these limitations, we can openly agree, that we must go outside of our limitations to agree to be fair to everyone.

DISCUSSION Consideration and accountability is not contracted to the faculty and other staff for their bad behavior. Rather, we discuss our limitations as a whole, and place accountability on the leader; in this case the dean. It is similar to cases where the principle of any K-12 setting would be responsible for the actions of teachers, or parents accountability for their children. This is not to demerit the intellect and competence of faculty; it is broadly based on ethical responsibility of the leader. For lack of knowledge into studies based upon faculty/staff relations, it is tabled for another time.

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Based on personal guiding histories and experiences, we are duty-bound to explore the white woman and black woman relationships in higher education settings. For this case, the accused white woman, who is in the power role, has allegedly not fully accept the black woman, the financial aid rep, of being equal due to critical humanistic separators like age, race and socioeconomic status. We may critically analyze the behavior and lack of action of the dean and find that it may have nothing to do with racial prejudice at all. A glaring observation is the absence of preparation and development in the implementation of social justice in higher education administration. Foster (2004) renders an analysis of educational leaders and believes that its practice needs to be reconsidered; he calls for potential leaders to be educated in the morals and determinations of selfgovernance and democracy (p. 184). It can be reasoned that many people in higher education settings do not have adequate training in the areas of social justice. Further study into the ethos of higher educational leadership is necessary to remedy the gaps of inequality. In Chapter three of Leadership for social justice, Cambron-McCabe (2010) discusses the need to explore how leadership, social justice and equity matters intersect; she further progresses how it should be part of the instruction and preparation for K-12 school administrators (p. 35). Nevertheless, her study fails to address how administrators of higher learning should undergo the same training. Because of the collective issue of the implicit hierarchy in higher learning situations, exploration in this area would prove valuable to this position. We recognize a leaders influence on the culture of the organization; we expect her to address and change the situation. In relation to the institution, it is important to define culture. In J. Thomas Wrens The Leaders Companion: INSIGHTS ON LEADERSHIP THROUGH THE AGES

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(1995), Edgar Schein discusses organizational culture as, the result of a complex group learning process that is only partially influenced by leader behavior (p. 273). While only partial credit is given towards our leaders ability to shape the climate and culture of our institutions, the need to revisit this claim is necessary, since there continues to be substantial evidence of how their behaviors greatly affects an organization. Leaders are more influential than described by Shein. We would also like to explore what John Rawls (2009), reminds us of in Michael Sandels Justice: Whats the right thing to do? He says, No one deserves his greater natural capacity or merits a more favorable starting place in society (p. 178). He begs us to not lose sight of equality because of our personal feelings of entitlement, and our false senses of how to treat others who we think do not deserve similar treatment based on their backgrounds, ages, and socio-economic statuses in life. Finally, the critical assessment is still based upon interpretation. It has become common knowledge that what can be misinterpreted, shall be misinterpreted. Our limitations also flourish from lack of knowledge in the areas of addressed or deepened research. A lasting reminiscence is how Schein (1995) offers guidance for organizational culture; he says if the groups survival is threatened because elements of its culture have become maladapted, it is ultimately the function of leadership to recognize and do something about the situation. It is in [this] sense that leadership and culture are conceptually intertwined (p.273). We can look at this in the humanistic outlook of John Rawls, where Mandel (2009) discusses his veil of ignorance perspective; that is, when we cease to look at others with our biases and considerations of their differences in backgrounds (p.141). Using this paradigm, we would operate

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and manage from an original point of equal and egalitarian platform (p.141), and actually fight to maintain fairness and justice in our dealings with one another.

References Cambron-McCabe, N. (2010) Leadership for social justice: Making revolutions in education (2nd ed.). Marshall, O., Oliva, M. (Eds.). Preparation and development of school leaders: Implications for social justice policies. p. 35-54. Boston: Pearson:

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Foster, W. P. (2004). The decline of the local: A challenge to educational leadership. Educational Administration Quarterly, 40; 176-191. doi: 10.1177/0013161X03260360 Freire, P. (1998). Pedagogy of freedom: Ethics, democracy and civic courage. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield: Chapter 3. Hackman, M.Z., Johnson, C.E. (1995).The leaders companion: Insights on leadership through the ages. J. T. Wren (Ed.), Leadership Communication Skills (pp.428-431). New York, NY: The Free Press Sandel, M. J. (2009). Justice: Whats the right thing to do? New York: Farrar, Stauss and Giroux Schein, E. H. (1995). The leaders companion: Insights on leadership through the ages. J. T. Wren (Ed.), Defining Organizational Culture (pp.271-281). New York, NY: The Free Press