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June 2008 · Volume 90 · Number 5
EthicsEthical LeadershipWhat sets ICMA members apart is that they bring an ethics-based approach to their leadership. They recognize that the leader is not likely to have all wisdom and that followers either have important contributions to make or may even have the facts and knowledge necessary for the leader’s decisions. During my manager days, I coined a term for this. I said I was not the “city manager,” I was the “city manageable.” I have always believed in trying to provide the vision and to keep the goals well-defined for the organization, but I always knew that I was carried on the shoulders of the garbage collectors, the police officers, the firefighters, and the inspectors. They needed to do well before I could do well. Ethical leadership encompasses three realities:
Ethical leadership as We know it is not universalEthical leadership is not the universal norm. It might be considered an ideal in those cultures derived from or significantly influenced by ancient Greco-Roman civilization, but that certainly does not represent a majority of the world. Dr. Stuart Gilman, who has done much work on the international level on conflict of interest, points out that in some societies family obligations are paramount. He writes that it is not uncommon in the Middle East for individuals to use a government job to benefit their families. In this type of culture, taking care of family members is considered the right thing to do. Nepotism can be particularly difficult to tackle in a culture where it is seen as a virtue, Gilman also says. I do not believe that these other cultures are “bad” and that ours is “good.” Remember that I said that ethical behavior might be considered an “ideal” in our culture. But I also wonder if it is the norm, even in our culture. What we as a profession consider ethical behavior is not the norm for a majority of the world’s population. It is not even the norm for all who live and work in our society. American professional public administration places great emphasis on ethical behavior. You represent the core of that profession. You are special! Because of that, you need to be conscious of your role as an ethical leader and not take it for granted. Trust is the foundationTrust is both the foundation of and the result of ethical leadership. As Dr. John Knapp, Mann Family Professor of Ethics and Leadership and the first director of the Frances Marlin Mann Center for Ethics and Leadership, Birmingham, Alabama, points out, these are cynical times, and they have led to a “trust deficit.” He cites a National Opinion Research Center survey where, in 1979, 51 percent of Americans agreed with the statement, “Most people can be trusted.” In 2006, that had fallen to 33 percent. There are three dimensions of trust that lead to ethical leadership. Those dimensions are credibility, respect, and fairness. In Dr. Knapp’s model, each dimension has three components. The components of credibility for a leader are: Transparency: Requires open and accessible communication. Competence: Ability to properly manage human and material resources. Integrity: Consistency in applying proper values to the proper vision. The components of respect are: Professional development: Supporting professional development and the appreciation of the role and value of each employee. Collaboration: Collaborating with employees in relevant decisions. Caring: Caring for employees as people with lives outside of work. The components of fairness are: Equity: Equity in terms of rewards and recognition. Impartiality: Impartiality in hiring and promotions. Justice: Combining a lack of discrimination with a process for appeal for those who might be aggrieved. I challenge you to hold yourself and your organization up to the mirror of Dr. Knapp’s model to see whether you are meeting the mark for ethical leadership that builds trust. Values and vision are at the Core of ethical leadershipEthical leadership that is composed of the combination of vision and values-based management (as opposed to compliance-based management) is the best approach. I recognize that the local government profession has some unique history that has traditionally downplayed the role of values. The ethical foundation of public administration has been distorted by two perspectives, both of which amount to a refusal to acknowledge a defined set of values. One perspective is the model that divorces administration from policy making or from “politics.” The other is the effort to make political science more precise through empirical analysis and values-free behavioral studies. Emphasis on the “science” in political science coincided with the growing belief that it is wrong to impose value judgments, which has often come to mean that “it is wrong to make value judgments” or even that “it is wrong to acknowledge that you have values.” Dr. James Bowman traces the abandonment of values to Woodrow Wilson, the father of the study of public administration. The distinction between policy making and policy execution was fundamental to Wilson’s thinking. This distinction has been perpetuated by the supporters of the council-manager form of government. Bowman writes that this “dualism obscured ethical dimensions of public administration since it placed most administrators beyond the province of moral responsibility.” The idea is that the public manager will just follow orders—do what he or she is told—without regard for the ethical dimensions of the policy to be executed. Successful public managers have never just followed orders. Contrary to folklore, these managers do not draw a line between policy making and policy execution. It may be a cliché, but it’s true: The effective public manager must not only do things right; he or she must do the right thing. That is a brief historical perspective. ICMA membership officially pronounced that to be “history” in 1982 with the adoption of the ICMA Declaration of Ideals. This short, 11-point declaration is more relevant to real ethical leadership than the entire ICMA Code of Ethics. This declaration provides us with values to guide us in developing and administering policies. It is interesting that this declaration was adopted in 1982, about the time that we 1960s socially conscious flower children were reaching our mid-30s and taking on more responsible roles in our profession. John Dever, at that time the city manager of Sunnyvale, California, and president of ICMA, spoke at the 1986 ICMA conference: Our friends in academia have rediscovered political “power.” Effective government no longer seems of interest to them. Recently, the dean of one of our most prestigious graduate schools of government stated that the primary function of a local chief executive is to broker power. I wonder, in that scenario, who looks out for the powerless. It is time that we all quit worrying about who is to blame and instead focus on how we can make a difference. . . . The way we can make a difference, then as now, is to lead with a clear vision governed by an articulated set of values, well articulated in the Declaration of Ideals: Members of ICMA dedicate themselves to the faithful stewardship of the public trust and embrace the following ideals of management excellence, seeking to:
Ethics is about values and about values-based management. Leadership is about vision: having one, sharing one. Apply this set of values to your vision and you can become an exemplar of ethical leadership. Ethical leadership is a combination of righteous goals and righteous behavior, righteous ends and righteous means, righteous policy and righteous administration. Ethics advice is a popular service provided to ICMA members. The ICMA Executive Board members who serve on the Committee on Professional Conduct review the inquiries and advice published in PM magazine. ICMA members who have questions about their obligations under the ICMA Code of Ethics are encouraged to call Martha Perego at 202/962-3668 or Elizabeth Kellar at 202/962-3611. |
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