Moral Leadership: Facing Canada's Leadership Crisis

Paul G. Thomas is a professor of political science at the University of
Manitoba and the co-author of Canadian Public Administration:
Problematical Perspectives.

Moral Leadership is a readable and thought-provoking, but ultimately
unsatisfying, examination of what the author sees as the moral
bankruptcy of leaders in nearly all sectors of Canadian society.

Evans starts by recording his disgust with the cowardice of Canada’s
top military leaders at the time of the Somalia inquiry. (He suggests
that there was a cover-up by the Chrétien government to avoid
accountability on the issue.) He then proceeds to extend his blistering
criticism of un-principled leadership to politics, the public service,
business, and the media. In his view, leadership is moral courage, which
consists of being prepared to “take the fall” when things go wrong.

This view ignores the realities of uncertainty, interdependency, shared
power, and conflicting values that characterize most tough leadership
situations. According to Evans, business leaders face the greatest
challenge in determining what is right, because they are not guided by
any ethical premise. In fact, there is a central normative premise for
business: it consists of serving the long-term interests of its
investors.

Politicians and public servants wrestle with a more complex array of
competing values and interests when they try to define “the public
interest.” Early in the book, Evans seems to be part of the chorus of
people who love to denigrate politicians and public servants. Later, he
softens his stance by suggesting that there are talented and principled
leaders in all fields; we just don’t know who they are. Ultimately,
the fault is with ourselves, it seems, since we are “unable to agree
on what principled leadership should look like and in what voice it
should speak.” Evans has his own view on the issue, but it is a
simplified and unrealistic perspective on leadership.