This course is part of the International Leadership Skills for Workplace ExpertTrack
International Leadership: Ethical Leadership and Decision-Making
Explore frameworks for ethical decision-making that can be applied in organisations around the globe to ensure ethical leadership.

- Duration2 weeks
- Weekly study5 hours
- 100% onlineTry this course for free
- Included in an ExpertTrackCourse 3 of 5
- Get full ExpertTrack access$39/month
International Leadership: Ethical Leadership and Decision-Making
Explore how ethics unravels the dark side of leadership
Developed by Coventry University and delivered by lecturers with specialist knowledge of the field, this online short course in international leadership will introduce you to the fundamentals of ethical leadership.
Discover how ethical leadership is used to make effective decisions in organisations across the world.
Study the theory of ethical decision-making and leadership, including Kohlberg’s theory of moral development, and examine how you can apply these insights to your day-to-day work within your organisation.
By the end of the course, you will have a solid foundation in ethical decision-making, including an understanding of the models, frameworks, and difficulties involved.
Learn how to be an ethical leader
What is ethical leadership? This course explores ethics and its role in decision-making within organisations.
You will have a chance to explore how ethical decision-making models provide a framework for leaders to understand the effect of moral awareness, judgment, intention, and action or behaviour outcomes among members of your organisation.
On the course, you will have the opportunity to make decisions for yourself based on ethical frameworks and evaluate different perspectives of ethical leadership.
Understand the challenges faced in ethical leadership
How do you handle an ethical dilemma? This is one of the key questions you’ll tackle on this course.
Using case studies and referring to ethical theory, you’ll analyse leadership actions in challenging situations and evaluate choices when presented with ethical dilemmas as a leader.
You’ll have the chance to be introduced to ethical decision-making models and given you the opportunity to discuss contemporary cross-cultural issues involved in leaders’ decision-making.
Syllabus
Week 1
Ethical Theory
What is ethics?
In this short course, we’re going to explore ethics and ethical decision-making models.
Ethical decision-making models
Now that you have an idea about what ethics is and different theories of how ethics can be viewed, let’s see what ethical leadership is.
Perspectives on leadership ethics
Next, we are going to examine some of the work of prominent researchers who have explored issues relating to ethics and leadership.
Unethical leadership
As we’ve been exploring this week, unethical actions by a leader can have a negative impact on their followers.
Week 2
The Essence of Ethical Leadership
The principles of ethical leadership
We're now going to apply what we have learnt about ethical leadership to a real-life case-study of Oxfam.
The dark side of leadership
There exists a dark side to leadership, in which leadership can be unethical and destructive. We'll explore that here with the help of a case study of Facebook and Cambridge Analytica.
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What will you achieve?
By the end of the course, you‘ll be able to...
- Evaluate and analyse leadership choices and actions in challenging situations of ethical dilemmas
- Discuss examples of contemporary cross-cultural issues involved in leaders’ ethical decision-making
- Identify concepts of ethical leadership at the individual, organisational and societal levels
Who is the course for?
This course is for those wanting to improve their leadership skills to continue their professional development and/or progress into a leadership role.
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