Rehumanizing ethical leadership: communal competencies, listening practice and character formation

Purpose Contemporary organizations face a leadership crisis rooted in impoverished relationships and demoralized ways of being with one another. When institutions abandon genuine dialogue and character education, they lose the ability to build communities where people can truly flourish. Restoring our humanity requires rebuilding character through communal orientation and practice. Design/methodology/approach We propose an ETHICAL leadership model grounded in virtue ethics, in its many cultural and historic forms, and dialogic listening, an attuned posture of being-with and virtuous practice. Findings The model comprises seven interconnected competencies: Emotion regulation, Trustworthiness, Hope, Interdependence, Communitas, Adaptability and Listening. Each represents a practice of wholeness with attitudinal and behavioral dimensions, intellectual and moral capacities, individual and communal practice, sustained through dialogic listening. Originality/value This new model integrates and builds upon other important theorizing, identifying leadership as a communal virtue practice and its listening foundation as a dialogic holding of the middle way, addressing such threats as distrust, despair, apathy and alienation.