Best Practice

A culture of ethical leadership: Five approaches

Leadership/school profiles Senior leadership
As we emerge from the pandemic, ethical leadership has never been more important. But what does it look like? Primary school head Jim Mepham looks at five main approaches and the principles of ethical decision-making


Ethical leadership in schools is a hot topic.

There have been a number of articles, blogs and webinars published on this topic of late, not least Matt Bromley’s piece in this very organ on ethical leadership during Covid.

My own experience of 13 years of primary headship is that leadership is, overwhelmingly, about making decisions with an ethical dimension. Indeed, I wrote in 2020 about how Stoic philosophy can help us to place values and patience at the heart of our leadership (Mepham, 2020).

The most complex decisions for headteachers are often dilemmas for which there is no clear rule book to follow.

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