The ability to incorporate your ethical beliefs and values within your team and organisation is critical to being an effective leader. In this article, we explore how in work environments we are constantly facing ethical dilemmas as we approach our decision-making processes and, as a case study, we reference Daniel Andrews, Premier of Victoria, and in particular his handling of the COVID-19 situation throughout 2020.
Daniel Andrews, the Premier of Victoria, must surely have counted as the most vilified Australian politician of COVID-19. From the mishandling of the hotel quarantine system in particular through to social distancing and self-isolation mismanagement more generally, the Victorian Labor Government copped a beating in mainstream and social media during 2020. And understandably so, given the alarmingly high death toll registered in that State compared to Australia overall, e.g., 820 of 908 as at 5 December[1].
As is the case worldwide, the Victorian Government had to respond quickly, and often without precedent, to the scourge wrought by the coronavirus. And with the buck resting, as it does, with the government leader, Dan Andrews found himself subject to constant and often virulent scrutiny. Take these headliners as examples: “Daniel Andrews’ leadership is superficial and a failure” (Greg Sheridan, the Australian, 6/8/2020)[2]; “Accountability in a pandemic: Why aren't more people mad at Dan Andrews?” (Jacqueline Maley, the Sydney Morning Herald, 6/8/2020)[3]; or “Daniel Andrews’ Victoria: Scenes from a Failed State” (Christopher Carr, Quadrant Online, 12/9/2020)[4]. Of course, there’s also the opposing view and the pro-Dan camp remained strong, with the Age/Channel Nine’s Ipsos poll of 25 October recording a 52 percent approval rating for Andrews as preferred premier, compared to 18 percent for the Opposition Leader, Michael O’Brien[5].
Those following it will know that the political commentary on this topic was copious and largely partisan. I do not intend to add to it here. Rather, I venture beyond the politics into the ethics of the decision making at the hands of the Victorian Premier, asking whether his leadership deliberations were made chiefly in terms of consequences, duty and/or virtue.
Notably, while this discussion uses Dan Andrews as the main example, it’s important to note that ethical dilemmas are faced by all sorts of leaders in all sorts of contexts. There is relevance in what follows for a broad range of worker learners.
Consequentialism
First, let’s consider Andrews’ decision making through the lens of Consequentialism. Consequentialism is an ethical theory that judges whether or not something is right by what its consequences are. For instance, most people would agree that lying is wrong. But if telling a lie would help save a person's life, consequentialism says it’s the right thing to do. There’s a type of cost/benefit analysis process at play here - If we are primarily interested in the consequences or outcomes of our actions, we might evaluate those actions (indirectly) by evaluating their results (their costs and benefits). An action that has bad consequences would therefore be considered a wrong action. The worse the consequences, the “more wrong” the action. Good consequences mean that the action that produced them was right. In other words, we subtract the costs from the benefits of our actions in order to produce good outcomes.
Taking the easy target of the hotel quarantine fiasco, it’s difficult to discern that measured deliberations were undertaken and due processes put in place to ensure a good outcome for those directly involved and, ultimately, for the citizens of Victoria. The costs far outweighed the benefits.
To be fair, it can be difficult, or even impossible, to know what the result of an action will be ahead of time (which is considered a flaw of the consequentialist approach) and this would arguably have been the case in this particular example. Also, in some situations , consequentialism can lead to decisions that are objectionable, even though the consequences are arguably good. In a school, for example, a principal might expel a student for unacceptable behaviour (likely an objectionable decision according to the student’s parents and others) in order to preserve a positive learning environment for others in the class (an arguably good, yet not assured, consequence). Another problem is in evaluating outcomes. How good or bad a state of affairs really is can be hard to determine or controversial, particularly if it involves conflicting values, as is incontestably the case in current circumstances.
Deontological Perspective
Now let’s take a deontological perspective. Deontology is an ethical theory that uses rules and moral laws to distinguish right from wrong. If we think we are bound in principle to do our duty, to do what is prescribed or eschew what is proscribed, regardless of the consequences, then we are guided by deontology . Our actions will be right or wrong depending on whether or not they conform to the rules. In a broad sense, deontologists live in a universe of moral rules, such as: it is wrong to steal; it is wrong to tell lies; it is right to keep promises; it is right to pay one’s debts, etc. Many workplaces, e.g., denominational schools, specify quite fine-grained rules and moral laws to guide workers’ behaviour and conduct.
Unlike consequentialism, which judges actions by their results, deontology doesn’t require weighing the costs and benefits of a situation. One does one’s duty by following the rules.
Did Andrews follow the rules? In a sense, it would seem so. In the case of social distancing measures, for example, Andrews reacted quickly, warning Victorians on 10 March 2020 of “extreme measures”[6] ahead and declaring a state of emergency on 16 March[7]. However, it was in the ways the rules were carried out that failure lay. Consider again the quarantine and contact tracing arrangements that were put into place and proved disastrous.
While acknowledging these failures, Andrews tended, initially at least, to look elsewhere for onus of responsibility. In the case of the hotel quarantine fiasco, he announced a judicial inquiry in July, declaring that “[i]t is abundantly clear that what has gone on here is completely unacceptable and we need to know exactly what has happened.”[8]
Deontology can produce results that many people find unacceptable. It’s ironical, in Andrews’ case, that it was the leader himself (among many others) who found the results of his own decisions regarding quarantine enforcement and the like unacceptable. And this calls into question ethical (and, in this context, unavoidably political) considerations as to where the buck stops in the application and enforcement of rules.
Virtue Ethics
Thirdly, let’s consider Andrews’ leadership decision making from a perspective of virtue ethics. This is a branch of philosophy developed by Aristotle and other ancient Greek philosophers who thought that character should ground our actions. It is the quest to understand and live a life of moral character. Virtue ethicists essentially believe that we should act so as to express and practise personal virtues and avoid vices.
Good actions are seen as those that display virtuous character, like courage, loyalty or wisdom. Bad actions display the opposite, such as cowardice, treachery and ignorance. Most virtue ethicists would also argue that the virtuous person is one who acts virtuously as the result of rational thought rather than through instinct. They can defend their actions as ethically sound, such as in the case of a teacher, through a sense of loyalty, honouring their promise to give a misbehaving student extra chances and additional support.
Did Andrews exemplify good character traits throughout the pandemic? And which particular acts of virtuous conduct did we expect of him?
What are the virtues of a “good leader” in a democratic society? You might be able to list a few that are unproblematic, but others are more controversial. The problem is in knowing which behaviours are virtuous and how virtuous they are, especially since we sometimes face having to choose between behaviours that display different (or even competing) virtues. And given that there is no definitive list of what constitutes human or professional virtues (or vices), it is difficult to even begin to frame the quality of Andrews’ leadership in this way. However, hindsight commentary will no doubt debate the strength of character of the man himself in leading Victorians through the current crisis.
2020 was an unenviable time to be a government leader (or indeed a leader in any business faced with layoffs and retrenchments) anywhere in the world. Leaders were being constantly called upon to make often instantaneous decisions as new cases and outbreaks occurred. There were limited precedents and often no right answers. Daniel Andrews copped plenty of flak for many of his government’s actions and for not falling in line with federal directives[9]. Victorians suffered terribly, and will no doubt indicate to what extent they attribute this to the State’s leadership at the next election.
The enduring question, which I’ve attempted to raise in the provocation above, is what lies beyond the political and socio-economic imperatives that we saw play out in the State and can be found at the heart of the Victorian leader’s decision making?
And, of course, although I’ve weighed heavily on Andrews here, we are all of us, as worker learners, regularly faced with ethical decisions and dilemmas in the day to day workforce. Understanding how and why we respond in the ways we do can prove empowering in constructing the ways we do our work.
REFERENCES
[1] https://www.health.gov.au/resources/total-covid-19-cases-and-deaths-by-states-and-territories
[4] https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2020/09/daniel-andrews-victoria-scenes-from-a-failed-state
[9] e.g. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-09-28/morrison-government-message-andrews-open-faster/12709928
Jeanne Allen is Associate Professor of Teacher Education and Higher Degree Research Coordinator in the School of Education and Professional Studies. She has worked in tertiary education since 2005 after an extensive career in secondary teaching and school leadership. Her research expertise is in teacher education, standardised educational contexts, teacher identity, and student engagement and retention. In 2018, she was named national leading researcher in the field of Teaching and Teacher Education by the League of Scholars. She is immediate past co-editor of the Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education.
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