Tenant 12: Seek No Favor
“Seek no favor; believe that personal aggrandizement or profit secured by confidential information or by misuse of public time is dishonest.”
The question of intent versus outcome is one of those marquee conversations in our business If you accomplish the wrong thing for the right reason, is that better or worse that accomplishing the right thing for the wrong reason? We live in a precarious balance between actualized, bottom line results, and the ethical guidelines which govern how we get there. Complicating the issue further is that our positions as public administrators often leave us accountable to perceptions rather than purely objective reality.
In short, we are held accountable for results, means, and the public perception of both.
Yikes.
Tenet 12 of the TCMA code of ethics is intended to blanket ethical matters that members may encounter in day-to-day activities. It covers everything from accepting gifts to endorsements to making investments under a conflict of interest. The premise, while far ranging and written in shades of gray, is absolutely clear in its central theme. As a manager, seeking favor for your authority, position, or access to privileged information is a really, really bad idea.
What makes this tricky is that there might not be anything wrong with accepting front-row seats to a game or concert, in and of itself. It might well be that this was just a friend giving you a gift because they wanted to do something nice for you. It is just our calling as managers to look beyond the objective reality, even beyond intent, to see how that action might be perceived by others.
There are allowances made throughout the guidelines for specific instances during which it is ethically acceptable. The tenet, for example, is not intended to “isolate members from normal social practices where gifts among friends, associates, and relatives are appropriate for certain occasions.” For other situations, such as a personal conflict of interest between a manager and a developer, a simple public disclosure is enough to provide an ethical footing.
Above all, we are stewards of the public trust. This means that we must sometimes decline an innocent offer because it might appear to be something much different to others. It might seem draconian and overly severe. But, taking a black and white position on a shades of gray issue keeps us from rationalizing ourselves, and our profession, into trouble.
*Tenet 12 is under review by ICMA, and therefore it or some of its guidelines may be altered or better defined in the near future as TCMA will review the outcome of ICMA’s review and determine if it, too, will adopt changes.
(Article authored by Boyd London, Managing Director, FirstSouthwest and Matt McCombs, Assistant to the Town Manager, Addison. Edited by members of the TCMA Ethics Committee.)