Moral Complexity in Leadership: Evaluating Personal and Professional Integrity <i>Purple Hibiscus</i>, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

“Moral Complexity in Leadership” cases and teaching notes help business instructors harness the power of fiction to prepare students for the moral and ethical dilemmas they will face throughout their careers. Meaningful fiction challenges students intellectually and emotionally; it reveals the inner worlds of human players and enables learning that can be difficult to access via case studies, commentary, or reporting. Through literature, students will wrestle with the kinds of problems they will face as leaders looking to make courageous decisions aligned with their moral codes. Using fiction to spark dialogue on moral issues will challenge students to read critically and carefully; to listen carefully and empathetically; to facilitate and participate in open—and sometimes contentious—conversation; and to articulate well-reasoned opinions. The readings and discussions will lead students to understand more fully what enables people to make choices congruent with their values; to choose actions that convey care for the systems within which they operate (or for which they are responsible); and—perhaps most important—to determine how people can avoid getting themselves into trouble. The works in this series represent a wide range of settings, viewpoints, and cultural frameworks; the characters are complex and contradictory, and the systems within which they operate (whether family, organizational, or cultural) influence them in varied ways. These cases have been taught to executive, full-, and part-time MBA student audiences for years. The series aims to increase students' understanding of moral frameworks and to enhance their skills in facilitating and participating in healthy and productive dialogue about complex and provocative issues. In this installment of the series, “Evaluating Personal and Professional Integrity,” students will examine Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's award-winning first novel, Purple Hibiscus, a coming-of-age story with lessons that can be applied to broader human dynamics regarding a life of integrity versus a divided life, the classic rationalizations that can justify enormous harm, and the pull between defiance and obedience, between silence and speaking up. The novel, published in 2003 and set in post-colonial Nigeria, is narrated by a shy 15-year-old girl named Kambili Achike, who lives a comfortable life but experiences verbal and physical domestic abuse perpetrated on her, her mother (Beatrice), and her brother (Jaja) by her father (Eugene), a respected community leader who is a devout Catholic and known for always coming to the aid of those less fortunate outside the family. The clash of these two juxtaposed realities of the divided self have far-reaching consequences on Kambili's entire family.