Whether you are an educator or administrator you will understand and acquiesce to the statement that “Leadership is the greatest human force on earth”.
By inference, you may then surmise that ethical or ‘good’ leadership then is the greatest human force for good on earth. The question remains then, why
do we not teach our teachers…and our students...the skills of leadership? Or if we do, why do we wait until they are months away from graduation?
In January 2007, the AACSB released new requirements for all MBA School accreditation, a summary of which that states the following:
1. Ethical behavior is paramount to the delivery of quality business education
2. Educators must strengthen all components of their curricula in all
disciplines to emphasize the importance of individual integrity and corporate responsibility to business success
3. The school may embed the measurement of accomplishment of learning goals that incorporate ethical consideration into decision-making
4. Schools should assume great flexibility to fashion curricula to meet their missions and to fit specific circumstances of particular programs
5. Students must be measured both before they entered the school and after they graduate for improvement in levels of ethical behavior
Failure in school to demonstrate an ongoing commitment to creating a culture, climate and curriculum conducive to developing ethical conduct in the student would be a significant concern to
the Teams (AACSB) report
In addition the Ethics in Education Task Force found that educators must:
- ‘Ponder deeply and creatively’ on how to advance the awareness, reasoning skills, and core principles of ethical behavior that will guide business leaders…students must be grounded in the duties and rewards of stewardship and responsible use of power
- Culture, climate and curriculum should support ongoing commitment to ethical conduct by all participants and effective delivery of ethics content
- Students should learn how to act on their values in confronting unethical behavior
- Students should learn how to understand and prioritize their values in order to be read to deal with values conflicts that occur when for example, success or security clash with justice or honesty
In development with several MBA programs, Transcende has created a complete, self funding, solution to measuring and delivering improvement in values based, ethical behavioral improvement. If you would like to find out more, contact us at highered@transcende.net