What is Ethical Theories

In recent times ethics and leadership have become dominant concerns in business. The foundations of the business establishment have been shaken by the examples of insider trading, manipulative accounting, and blatant fraud. The cause of ethical compromise can often be traced to the failure on the part of the leadership to actively promote ethical ideals and practices. In the current scenario, it is therefore, essential to give training on ethical leadership. This chapter adopts a three dimensional approach integrating the novel The Devil and Miss Prym into the study of ethics by exploring various related leadership theories. It harnesses the multifaceted nature of literature, which presents the interaction of a variety of characters with radically different beliefs, desires, and behaviours, thus increasing the complexity of an ethical dilemma. Charismatic and Servant leadership have been mapped to virtue ethics. Transactional leadership adopts ethical egoism as an ethical perspective. The transformational leader adopts the utilitarianism approach. Authentic leadership is based on altruistic principles. Deontological ethics is explained with Value Centered leadership. A thematic analysis of the novel has been done to exemplify the components of the leadership theories with an ethical perspective.