The process of developing a new framework, such as the personal and professional values-integrated framework, helps to explain the dynamics of the ethical decision making required of adaptive leaders for appreciating divergent perspectives. Ethical analysis frameworks can help to identify the ethical dimensions in academic disciplines and provide a method for justifying ethical decisions. Published frameworks, however, have some limitations to easy, practical use. The purpose of this paper is to use the five sources of ethical standards identified by the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics [21] to describe and explore consequentialist and deontologist forms of ethical reasoning for deciding matters of morality in education. A literature search identified published frameworks that define the components of ethical decision making. On this basis, a new framework, called the personal and professional values-integrated framework, is constructed. Consideration is given to areas and practices in the guidelines or rules for the process of forming ethical reasons and variations that are less easily accommodated by these ethical frameworks. The idea of Will as described by Chinese philosopher Mencius (371-289 BC) is used to gain insight into some of the implications of ethical decisions. It is demonstrated that leadership rules in education are realized by acknowledging the reasons for an action, and ethical decision making is defined as conforming to the criteria pertaining to these considerations as well as the professional conduct expected.

ethical decision making, behavior, values