Rowing with Kant, Mill and Aristotle: Navigating Leadership Ethics in Sport

As many of you know, since last year I’ve been living in Finland, studying a master’s degree in Sport Management. The program is called "Responsible Management and Business of Sport."

In the past ten days, two major events captured all my attention. The first was the final exam for one of my courses, “Ethical Leadership.” The second was the Jyväsjärvi Soutu, a rowing regatta for which I was in charge of recruiting, training, and managing a team of students to compete.

Coxing the crew towards the finish line

During the race, I rowed with my team under the guidance of Reijo Lahtonen, the mastermind behind our club, Vihtavuoren Pamaus. I also volunteered as a coxswain for two other crews, which I met just ten minutes before the start. We competed in "Church Boats," a category of wooden boats with fourteen rowers and a cox. These are large but stable boats, making it possible for many participants to learn the basics of rowing just before the races began.

These two concerns—my exam and the regatta—inevitably merged in my mind throughout the event. The first ethical framework that came to mind was Kantian ethics. I remember my first encounter with this topic: it made perfect sense. The deontological approach emphasizes duty—doing the right thing simply because it is right, regardless of the consequences.

Facing the task of leading an inexperienced crew in a competition, this perspective felt hard to apply. Knowing how much learning is required to row properly and the limited time available, it was impossible to prepare the team adequately. Strictly interpreted, Kantian ethics might have led me to say: “Sorry, but I cannot prepare you to meet my technical standards, so I must step away from the crew.”

While Kantian ethics provides a solid framework for acting with integrity and moral consistency, in this particular situation its demands were difficult to fulfill. The deontological approach requires acting according to universal principles, ignoring the consequences. This can be useful in structural or institutional decisions, but in the dynamic and relational context of a regatta with inexperienced crews and time constraints, it becomes rigid.

Kant’s framework might have led me to prioritize the abstract duty of not participating if I couldn't ensure proper preparation, overlooking the shared experience, learning-by-doing, and emotional well-being of the rowers. It didn’t offer a guide sensitive enough to the human particularities of the situation.

Luckily, Stuart Mill proposed an alternative theory: utilitarianism. According to this view, an action is morally right if it tends to promote happiness for the greatest number of people. From this angle, if the crew had a good time, then my decisions were morally sound. My guidance became more motivational than technical, encouraging the athletes to maintain a steady rhythm. This focus on consequences is what drives elite athletes to make sacrifices in pursuit of Olympic medals.

However, I still had to weigh whether to push for better times—risking overload or injury for less experienced rowers—or to ensure everyone enjoyed the race. After all, they were there for fun and camaraderie.

A performance-centered approach might have overwhelmed the less trained crew members, turning the race into a bad experience or even a physical risk. A focus on enjoyment would leave everyone feeling good but might not push them to discover their full potential.

A third theory, Aristotle’s virtue ethics, emphasizes the leader’s moral character and ability to guide others toward the common good. This could apply to my own crew, whom I had trained for several weeks and who would follow the rhythm I set. Still, each team member needed to make their own effort, so given the limited time, it wasn’t the most practical strategy for achieving our competitive goal. And it was even less applicable to crews I had just met on race day.

Our happy crew after a job well done

The last theory I had studied—and the freshest in my mind—was the ethics of care. This perspective emphasizes relationships, empathy, and responsibility in ethical decision-making. What attracted me most was its focus on the specificity of situations and real human connections. In this view, the right actions were not those aiming for an abstract concept of “perfect technique,” as the deontological approach might demand, nor those maximizing speed or pleasure, as in utilitarianism. There wasn’t time for a character-driven approach either, so care ethics gave me the best guidance.

Given the short window I had with each crew—about 10 minutes between boarding and the start, and 30 minutes of racing—this theory allowed me to act differently with each group. One team was composed of office colleagues who had raced before. I gave motivational instructions, focusing technical advice on those with less experience—not aiming for perfection, but for technique that would help them row together as a team. Competing against a hospital team gave them a reason to push themselves.

The second crew came from a CrossFit gym, so I knew they were capable of a higher physical output. But I also had to make sure individual efforts didn’t disrupt team unity. I emphasized coordination over individual strength, knowing they were used to pushing themselves, and that with the right guidance, that effort could benefit the group.

Back on land to celebrate

Reflecting while writing these words, I realize how often we use these different ethical approaches when making decisions. A youth football coach who benches the top scorer for missing two practices is applying Kantian ethics: doing the right thing, even if it hurts the team. A 15-year-old rower who skips a birthday party for a regatta is thinking in utilitarian terms, valuing the outcome. A basketball player picked for their locker-room influence reflects a coach’s belief in the power of Aristotle’s virtuous leadership. A track coach who brings an underperforming athlete to a meet because their parents are divorcing is showing care ethics—focusing not on results, but long-term development.

I never imagined Aristotle and rowing would share a paragraph—and that someone would take the time to read it. If you did, thank you. These past weeks have shown me how rich sport is as a lens for understanding life’s big questions. Just like in sport, we must reflect on the decisions we make, the arguments we use to justify them, the consequences they bring, and the responsibility we carry for them.