Liberal Education, Leadership, and Values

Abstract

The study of leadership brings important resources to both the theory and practice of liberal education through its focus on the phenomenon of human values. Appearing in many forms, the values theme has become central in much of the contemporary leadership literature. The study of values has been as well a basic and perennial dimension of liberal education in its commitment to address the fundamental questions of the human condition. Along with that centrality and that heritage come complexity and confusion in most contemporary academic contexts concerning just what values are and how they function, and the ways they can be studied, or, in some sense, taught. For leadership educators, there is the pointed question of how they will give more precision to the tasks and responsibilities of both the exercise and the study of leadership in terms of values? An inquiry into values and valuing has the potential simultaneously to enrich the self-understanding and the practice of both leadership studies and liberal education. In focusing on values as human powers, as patterns of human agency, leadership education has the potential to contribute to the creation of a robust contemporary model of integrative and transforming liberal education that exemplifies its heritage. It points the way toward linking disciplines to one another, connecting knowing with doing, and integrating intellectual and personal development.