Module manager: James Dow
Email: J.Dow@leeds.ac.uk
Taught: Semester 2 (Jan to Jun) View Timetable
Year running 2026/27
This module is approved as a discovery module
Leaders in all sectors face the challenge of helping and motivating others to identify the right goal or vision for their team/organisation, and coordinating their efforts to pursue those goals successfully. This module is designed to develop your critical engagement with leadership. It will equip you to identify and answer a range of ethical questions about when and how people should seek to exercise leadership over others, as well as when and how they should be held accountable for what happens under their leadership. You will develop your abilities in evaluating arguments from the philosophical ethics literature, in critically analysing the leadership insights of experienced professionals, and in applying these to case studies illustrating the challenges of leadership today across business, sport, politics, and beyond. The module will address diverse perspectives (e.g. African as well as European approaches to what constitutes good leadership) and how the ethics of leadership intersects with other aspects of ethics (e.g. justice, the distinctive challenges faced by women or minority ethnic leaders in being seen as an ‘effective leader’ or ‘strong leader’, or in having their credibility or authority recognised). Please note this is an optional module and runs subject to enrolments. If a low number of students choose this module, then the module may not run and you may be asked to choose another module.
This module aims to equip you (1) to identify and explain the ethical issues that apply to the exercise of leadership in formal and informal settings; (2) to evaluate a range of arguments about how leaders ought to respond to these challenges and explain how competing arguments should be taken into account when defending an overall judgement of how leadership should be exercised on a given occasion; and (3) to defend your assessment of the ethical merits of how leadership has been exercised on any given occasion, or across a period of leadership.
These will be achieved through a mix of interactive lectures, insights from leadership practitioners, readings, seminars and online formative assessed exercise.
The lectures introduce the core concepts, readings and arguments: they will also model the way in which ethical issues can be identified and addressed using resources drawn from those materials. Insights from practising leaders show you real-life, developed examples of how ethical concerns can guide the exercise of leadership in a variety of contexts, and of the challenges that face practitioners in seeking to exercise leadership responsibly. This can happen through the involvement of guest lecturers who are leadership practitioners. It also happens through the library of video profiles of leaders developed for this module, each of which offers an example of evaluating the ethical merits and defects of a particular well-known leader.
The seminars deepen your understanding of key concepts and arguments and of competing academic views about what makes leadership ethical. They also train you in applying both these materials and the example of various real-world leaders to case studies drawn from real life. You will develop increasing skill in producing reasoned arguments to defend your considered judgements about how a leader should act when faced with a variety of different challenges.
On successful completion of the module students will be able to:
1) Identify and explain the importance of the key issues that determine how ethical leadership is exercised.
2) Evaluate the merits and defects of a variety of approaches to assessing ethical conduct in leadership.
3) Apply ethical concepts and arguments to how leaders respond to the challenges of their role and situation across a variety of leadership contexts.
4) Defend their considered ethical judgement about how leaders should respond to the challenges they face, and the way in which particular leaders have actually done so.
Skills Learning Outcomes
On successful completion of the module students will be able to:
5. Communicate ideas and understanding clearly and concisely, using appropriate academic language (Academic and Work Ready skill)
6. Identify ethical questions and use ethical frameworks when analysing issues arising in real-world contexts (Work Ready, Enterprise and Sustainability skill)
7. Use reasoning and judgement to solve problems (Academic and Work Ready Skill)
The syllabus may change from year to year to cover different issues, according to what is considered most important and most relevant to the practice of leadership today, and in response to developments in leadership ethics research.
A typical schedule of topics is:
1. Leaders and responsibility
2. Theories of leadership and their ethical significance
3. Leadership and ‘legitimacy’ (when can and should leaders use positional authority?)
4. Leadership, trust, and credibility.
5. Manipulation and persuasive leadership
| Delivery type | Number | Length hours | Student hours |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lectures | 11 | 1 | 11 |
| Discussion forum | 3 | 1 | 3 |
| Seminars | 5 | 1 | 5 |
| Independent online learning hours | 10 | ||
| Private study hours | 71 | ||
| Total Contact hours | 19 | ||
| Total hours (100hr per 10 credits) | 100 | ||
Students have opportunities for formative feedback throughout the module through seminar-based activities.
They also will receive written formative feedback on their (formative) ethical evaluation of a leader, submitted online in blog form, in response to one of the module’s library of video profiles of leaders.
In addition to the formative feedback available to students in these ways, each student is also invited to complete ONE piece of formative work in preparation for their summative assessment which will receive written feedback. Students are given a choice of: essay plan; exposition of an argument; objection and reply; or literature review.
Students should read and reflect on (i) the feedback they received in previous summative assessments, (ii) the PRHS marking criteria and (iii) the specific guidance provided on the summative assessment in this module, and identify for themselves the type of formative feedback that will be most beneficial for them.
| Assessment type | Notes | % of formal assessment |
|---|---|---|
| Essay | Essay | 100 |
| Total percentage (Assessment Coursework) | 100 | |
Resit is by the same task (essay) but a different question must be chosen from the list.
Check the module area in Minerva for your reading list
Last updated: 30/04/2026
Errors, omissions, failed links etc should be notified to the Catalogue Team