134 Ethics in Higher Education: Values-driven Leaders for the Future
leadership has become an all-pervasive study of the human condition in
our times, it is remarkable that leadership has tended to be studied
largely in relation to business, and politics, but rarely for its own sake.
The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate ways by which ethics has
become essential component of good governance in higher education
management. The paper draws extensively from the author’s own
experience as a manager of a large higher education institution, and
from his long association at leadership level at higher education
leadership. The paper, nonetheless, seeks a theoretical undergirding of
ethics in higher education management. By so doing the paper seeks to
move the ideas about leadership away from the constructs established in
business and management sciences, and draws in large measure from
philosophy, behavioural sciences and ethics.
9.2 Discussion
9.2.1 Underpinning Markers of Leadership
Leadership surely entails the capacity to galvanise, or mobilise
people by a strategic utilization of available resources to achieve set
objectives. The resources, both financial and human, but also the ability
to strategically read human psychology, and to understand timing and
place are the tools in trade for a study of leadership. To that extent
therefore, leadership facilitates and enables. But Leadership is about
people – their anatomy, their psychology and their gifts, and their
skills^1. The amazing thing is that almost everyone exercises leadership
in one aspect of life or another, even at one time or another – in the
home, in community or neighbourhood, and in various aspects of human
endeavour. Leadership is an abiding constant in human life. It is
unimaginable that there could be any human activity that happens
without leadership. We all somehow and sometimes exercise leadership.