https://ijedal.com/index.php/ijedal <p>International Journal of Educational Administration and Leadership: Theory and Practice (IJEDAL) is an national and international peer-reviewed, non-profit, Professional scientific journal. IJEDAL is a journal that accepts manuscripts related to educational administration and leadership. The journal is published online twice a year. IJEDAL publishes research employing a variety of qualitative and/or quantitative methods and approaches in all areas of the educational administration and leadership field. IJEDAL welcomes articles from different institutions and countries.</p> <p>There is no publication fee for the manuscripts published in IJEDAL. As the publication language of the journal is in English, the authors of the manuscripts that have accepted to publish must have proofreading after all editorial, and peer review processes have been completed.</p> en-US ijedaljournal@gmail.com (IJEDAL JOURNAL) ijedaljournal@gmail.com (Contact and Support ) Thu, 25 Dec 2025 16:39:12 +0300 OJS 3.3.0.13 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss 60 https://ijedal.com/index.php/ijedal/article/view/29 <p>This paper provides an analysis of the ethical dimensions embedded in Western management and leadership theories in education. It explores the moral philosophies underlying key management and leadership models, including scientific, bureaucratic and human relations management, and transformational, instructional, distributed, ethical, adaptive and culturally responsive leadership. The respective strengths and limitations of these theories are examined in terms of context-specific applicability and pragmatic problem-solving capacities. The analysis reveals that these leadership theories are intricately interwoven with foundational moral philosophies, highlighting their internal conceptual coherence and cultural alignment. However, despite offering principled frameworks for ethical decision-making, this paper argues that these Western theories often lack contextual adaptability and tend to overemphasize measurable outcomes, while the subjectivity of moral character remains an underexplored limitation. Hence, the paper advocates for a non-foundational epistemology as a more flexible and pragmatic approach to theory building about educational management and leadership. This perspective enables leaders to navigate diverse and dynamic educational settings by integrating multiple ethical perspectives and refining practices based on empirical evidence. By moving beyond the constraints of foundational moral philosophies, non-foundational epistemology provides a more responsive and inclusive framework, realigning leadership theory with the complex and evolving needs of educational organisations.</p> Reynold J. S. Macpherson Copyright (c) 2025 International Journal of Educational Administration and Leadership: Theory and Practice https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0 https://ijedal.com/index.php/ijedal/article/view/29 Thu, 25 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0300