As a follow up to the previous post related to teachers' comfort with teaching ethics, this month will focus upon issues related to character development. In The 7 Habits ofHighly Effective People, Covey (1989) contends when a person is principle-centered
then his or her core values serve as an anchor, keeping him or her from being
thrown about by the storms of life.
Therefore, character means that he or she will live based on a set of
deeply held, carefully defined, values that the person isn’t willing to break. Since knowledge of
right compared to wrong is more than a simple process of being aware of
specific social rules, and doing the right thing is not a simple matter of
putting those rules into practice, Nucci (1997) contends moral education must
attend to issues of social cognition and moral reasoning. However,” if individual moral actions are
guided by choices and not simply the result of unreflective habit, then the
issue for character education rests not with inculcation and habit formation,
but in understanding how it is that people judge the worth of their own actions
in relation to their world view and sense of themselves as moral beings” (p.130).
Sarbin (1986) contends
the notion of character as a set of externally provided traits and habits needs
to be reconsidered. Instead, a view in
which the moral self is constructed rather than absorbed and is being continuously
updated and reconstructed should be emphasized. Nucci (2000) cited Noam's (1993) and Blasi’s work concerning
the moral self, whereby morality may or may not be a central element of the
general narrative constructed by a person.
Therefore, Blasi’s perspective infers that a central feature of moral
character is actually the degree to which being a moral person attains salience
as a part of that person’s self-definition.
A person may basically
be an animal endowed by nature with some very primitive instincts, yet, Simon (2009)
believes each person has the capacity to learn and grow in awareness. This process makes it possible for him or her to
become more than mere animal through the processes of socialization and
character development. Simon astutely
notes this process is difficult, painful, complex, and generally life-long; resulting
in a great deal of diversity related to true character.
Since followers
evaluate the actual or aspiring leader’s character, competence, and commitment,
Seijts and Kilgour (2007) believe any perceived gaps between what the leader communicates
and actually does impacts the leader’s credibility. It is therefore reasonable to understand why
followers become disillusioned whenever a leader reflects mere images of the
values he or she purports to uphold, resulting in followers’ believing the leader
does not show principled leadership. As a result, the perception of ethical
leadership depreciates, thereby adversely impacting the leader’s ability to effectively
lead. To lead effectively, it is
essential for a leader to walk ethically rather than merely talk about
ethics. In the laboratory known as the classroom, where young minds and hearts first learn paradigms of social leadership, the classroom leader, also known as the teacher, needs to be especially cognizant of this need for principled leadership.
References
Covey, S.R.
(1989) The Seven Habits of Highly
Effective People: Restoring the character ethic.
New York, NY. Simon and Schuster
Noam, G., & Wren, T.
E. (Eds.). (1993). The moral self. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press
Nucci, L
(1997) in Walberg, H. J. & Haertel, G. D. Psychology and educational
practice. Berkeley:
MacCarchan. p. 127-157.
Sarbin, T. (1986). Narrative psychology: The
storied nature of human conduct. New York:
Praeger
Seijts,
G. H., & Kilgour, D. (2007). Principled Leadership: Taking The Hard
Right. Ivey Business Journal,
71(5), 1. Retrieved from EBSCOhost
