Teaching The Moral Leader

This book is a comprehensive, practical manual to help instructors integrate moral leadership in their own courses, drawing from the experience and resources of the Harvard Business School course 'The Moral Leader', an MBA elective taken by thousands of HBS students over nearly twenty years. Through the close study of literature--novels, plays, and historical accounts-- followed by rigorous classroom discussion, this innovative course encourages students to confront fundamental moral challenges, to develop skills in moral analysis and judgment, and to come to terms with their own definition of moral leadership. Using this guide's background material and detailed teaching plans, instructors will be well prepared to lead their students in the study of this vital and important subject. Featuring a website to run alongside that links the manual with the textbook and provides a wealth of extra resources, including on-line links to Harvard Business School case studies and teaching notes this manual forms a perfect complement to The Moral Leader core text also by Sandra Sucher.

The detailed and hands-on nature of the guide makes it possible for instructors, with or without a specialized background, to replicate the 13-session Harvard Business School course, or to integrate moral leadership into an existing course, or as a module, or as stand-alone sessions. The manual presents flexible class plans, easily adaptable to a wide variety of business and academic topics. It suggests how to adapt the course to other settings, provides supporting materials, and reviews the approach to teaching "The Moral Leader," differentiating it from other literature-based courses. The author, a Harvard Business School professor with a successful record in teaching this course, also brings into the text the kind of real world understanding of effective leadership development that comes from decades of experience as a high level corporate executive.

An accompanying student book, focused on class preparation and the context of each work, helps students address questions like: What is the nature of a moral challenge? How do people "reason morally"? How do leaders - formal and informal - contend with the moral choices they face? How is moral leadership different from leadership of any other kind? Struggling with these questions, both individually and as members of a vibrant learning community, students internalize moral leadership concepts and choices, and develop the skills to pursue it in their careers and personal lives.