LEAD 6113 Module 1 Comparison of Ethical Frameworks Example

Four Lenses on One Appeal: Comparing the Ethics of Justice, Critique, Care and the Profession on a Nursing Student's Request for a Third Attempt

Student Name

American College of Education

LEAD6113: Ethical Leadership and Social Justice

Module 1 Assignment

Instructor Name

October 12, 2026

Introduction

As associate dean for undergraduate nursing at a composite public university in Georgia, I hear about a dozen appeals a year from students dismissed under our progression policy, which ends a student's enrollment after a second failed nursing course. Each appeal asks for a third attempt. The policy says no; the appeals committee can say yes. This paper compares four ethical frameworks that leaders in education use to reason through such decisions, places them beside a research definition of ethical leadership and applies each to one appeal, described here with details changed.

The Appeal

The student, whom I will call Ms. T., failed pharmacology in her second semester by two points and failed adult health in her third semester by four. During the adult health course her mother was hospitalized for six weeks, and Ms. T., the oldest of four siblings, was caring for younger brothers while working 25 hours a week. She did not request an incomplete or withdrawal because, she wrote, she did not know those options existed for personal reasons. Her clinical evaluations are strong. Her appeal asks to repeat adult health one more time.

A Definition of Ethical Leadership

Before comparing frameworks, it helps to define what is being asked of me as a leader. Brown et al. (2005) described an ethical leader as someone who visibly acts in ways people recognize as right, in their own conduct and in how they treat others, and who spreads that conduct through conversation that runs both ways, through praise and consequences, and through the choices the leader makes in public. The definition matters here because the appeal is not a private judgment. How I decide, and how I explain the decision, teaches faculty, staff and students what our program treats as fair.

The Ethic of Justice

Shapiro and Stefkovich (2021) describe four ethical paradigms for educational leaders, beginning with the ethic of justice, which asks what laws, rules and rights apply and whether they are applied fairly and consistently. Under this lens, the policy exists to treat all students alike, and granting Ms. T. an exception that was refused to others would be unfair. The justice lens also asks whether the rule itself is just and whether it was applied correctly: she was entitled to know about withdrawal options, and if the program failed to tell her, the rule was not applied on equal terms.

The Ethic of Critique

The ethic of critique asks who benefits from a rule, who is burdened and whose voices shaped it. It turns attention from the individual case to the structure. Our two-failure rule was adopted twelve years ago to protect licensure pass rates. Under this lens, the questions are whether students with caregiving and work obligations, often first-generation students, are dismissed at higher rates, and whether the rule protects the program's reputation at the expense of students whose circumstances it never considered. Ms. T.'s appeal is then evidence about the policy, not only a request about herself.

The Ethic of Care

The ethic of care asks what a decision means for the relationships and the people involved, and what response would help this person grow. It does not ignore rules, but it asks a leader to attend to particular circumstances and to the student as a person. Under this lens, Ms. T.'s six weeks of caregiving, her narrow margins and her strong clinical record matter a great deal, and a response might combine a third attempt with support she lacked the first time: a reduced work schedule, advising and a plan for what happens if a family crisis recurs.

The Ethic of the Profession

The fourth paradigm asks what the profession's standards and the best interests of the student require, and Shapiro and Stefkovich (2021) place the student's best interests at its center. For nursing, the profession's obligations extend to the public: the program must graduate nurses who are safe. The American Nurses Association (2025) code of ethics also commits nurses to respect for persons and to social justice, and nurse educators carry those commitments into how they treat students. Under this lens the question is whether Ms. T. can become a safe nurse with one more attempt, and what the program owes both her and her future patients.

Comparing the Four

The frameworks ask different questions: justice asks whether the rule was applied fairly, critique asks whether the rule itself is fair, care asks what this person needs and the profession asks what safe practice and the student's best interests require. In Ms. T.'s case, three of the four lenses point toward granting a supported third attempt, and the fourth, justice, raises a question about the program's own failure to inform her that weakens the case for strict application. The comparison also shows the limits of each lens alone. Justice without critique would defend a rule that may be unjust; care without the profession could graduate someone unsafe.

The Strongest Case for Saying No

Fairness to the comparison requires stating the case against the appeal at its strongest. Three students were denied third attempts last year, and at least one of them faced family hardship that, on paper, looked similar. Granting Ms. T.'s request without a clear principle would make the committee's decisions look arbitrary, and arbitrariness is itself an injustice. The program also answers to the state board of nursing for its graduates' first-time licensure pass rates, and faculty adopted the rule after a year when those rates fell sharply; relaxing it case by case could, over time, bring that pressure back. Finally, there is a risk to Ms. T. herself. A third attempt that ends in a third failure would cost her another semester's tuition and leave her with more debt and the same outcome.

These arguments do not defeat the appeal, but they change what a good decision looks like. They require that any exception rest on a principle the committee could apply to the next student, that the program look again at the three earlier denials, and that support be built into the third attempt so it is a real chance rather than a delayed dismissal.

What the Comparison Means for My Leadership

Applied together, the frameworks suggest that I should support the appeal with conditions and, separately, ask the faculty to examine whether the policy and the way students learn about withdrawal options are fair. Brown et al. (2005) remind me that the way I communicate the decision matters: the committee's letter should explain the reasoning, so that faculty see the frameworks at work and future students see a consistent standard rather than a favor. Later modules in this course will apply a formal decision model, examine equity data on the policy and analyze its ethical implications in full.

Conclusion

Four ethical frameworks produced four different questions about one student's appeal, and together they produced a better answer than any one alone. For a leader, the value of multiple paradigms is not that they settle hard cases automatically but that they make visible what each single lens would miss.

References

American Nurses Association. (2025). Code of ethics for nurses. https://codeofethics.ana.org/

Brown, M. E., Treviño, L. K., & Harrison, D. A. (2005). Ethical leadership: A social learning perspective for construct development and testing. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 97(2), 117-134. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2005.03.002

Shapiro, J. P., & Stefkovich, J. A. (2021). Ethical leadership and decision making in education: Applying theoretical perspectives to complex dilemmas (5th ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003022862