James Legler, Ph.D., is an emeritus professor of leadership and ethics. He presently teaches courses in ethics and management and advises students in the department. After graduating from Concordia College, he attended Officer Candidate School and spent three years in the U.S. Navy as a lieutenant and was stationed in Vietnam and Newport, Rhode Island. He returned to his hometown of Detroit Lakes, Minnesota, and was in business for 12 years where he managed 40 employees and ran a successful automotive parts company. He sold the business and returned to graduate school. He has a Ph.D. in organizational development and corporate training from Oregon State University; an MBA in organizational behavior from Marylhurst University in Portland, Oregon; and a master’s degree in organizational communication from North Dakota State University.
Before coming to Concordia College, he was an associate professor of business management at Wartburg College. He was hired as the director of ethical leadership and as an associate professor at Concordia. In this position, he developed the ethics curriculum at Concordia, taught management and ethics courses, and ran the center. As the director for 12 years, he conducted monthly business ethics luncheons, developed annual ethics seminars for the business community, and worked with more than 100 organizations with seminars and consulting in the area of ethics.
His research was in the area of case studies, and he has published several cases in journals and textbooks. He focuses on “best practice” companies who excel in the area of ethics.