Virtue ethics for flourishing leaders

This article builds upon important work on leadership practices and behaviours in schooling. It shows how approaches informed by virtue ethics may enable educational leaders to be increasingly authentic and emotionally intelligent, to build higher-performing teams and ensure more consistent staff and student flourishing. It demonstrates why ‘values’ are not enough and illustrates the merit of ‘virtues’ (operationalised as behaviours) in school culture. It also shows how ethical frameworks (from Kant and Mill to Aristotle), implicit in leadership decision-making, may help or hinder educational leaders when it comes to their own flourishing and that of the schools they lead.