Ethical Leadership in Crisis Management: The Role of University Education

Ethical leadership is a necessary ingredient for successful crisis management. The study outlines generalizable prescriptive remedial steps that can be taken by business leaders faced by crises. But these remedial steps are simply the "bricks and mortar" of effective crisis management. The "pulsating soul" of ethical leadership is required to give such remedial steps the necessary moral compass for the initiation and sustained directional focus required for successful crisis management operationalization. The study's objective and purpose are twofold. First, it outlines a model of crisis management derived from recent case studies of best practice and briefly indicates how such practices reduce financial losses to the organizations concerned if correctly implemented by ethical leaders. Second, the study aims to show how ethical leadership required for effective crisis management might be nurtured through specific ethics-oriented postgraduate university instruction. The study suggests that these two aspects, ethical leadership and prescriptive steps to follow in the event of a crisis, are not only mutually reinforcing but also indispensable in effective crisis management.