Trustworthiness and Conscientiousness as Managerial Virtues

Abstract

There is no shortage of descriptions of allegedly virtuous managers. In a society that regularly glorifies individual over collective accomplish ments, we are deluged with characterizations of successful coaches, heads of public agencies, and chief executive officers. Such descriptions are so commonplace that they invite considerable skepticism, and they should. Aside from the fact that such descriptions are often motivated by shameless self-promotion, there is a great difference between label ing an element of character a virtue and proving it to be so. Is it possible to develop a model that describes a virtuous manager in most kinds of work organizations? That is the project in this paper. The first section of the paper reviews the field of virtue ethics and lays out the requirements of a generic model of virtue. The second section describes those features of the management role common in typical work organizations. The third section considers what might be said about the virtue associated with one aspect of management -ensuring cooperation. The fourth section takes up the issue of the virtue that obtains from a second facet of management?leading. The final section speculates about the implications of this analysis.