Achieving Ethical Competence for Public Service Leadership

Terry L Cooper

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781317477761
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book shows students entering the public service as well as professionals in the field how to become ethically competent to provide the leadership needed to advance the public interest. The book doesn't just talk about ethics. The contributors describe how ethical competence should guide organizational conduct. All chapters are original, and written by experts in the PA field for this book.

1

In Pursuit of Ethical Competence

Terry L. Cooper and Donald C. Menzel

The pursuit of ethical competence is a lifelong process that is replete with challenges, trapdoors, and, all too often, roads not taken. This is an especially challenging task for public service professionals who rise to significant positions of leadership. It is also difficult for young men and women committed to public service values and a career that calls on them to advance the public interest. On-the-job tensions and pressures—some subtle, others not—frequently collide with personal preferences and organizational mandates to create ethical blind spots in the eyes of even the best-intentioned individual. These are the moments that truly test one’s ethical competence.

A cursory survey (see Table 1.1) of recent textbooks finds increasing attention focused on acquiring ethical competence for public service leadership.¹ Moreover, a 2006 survey of U.S. local government executives found that eight out of 10 say that ethics is “extremely important” to success. No other knowledge or skill (budgeting, program evaluation, policy analysis, public-private collaboration) came close to the value placed on ethics and integrity (Menzel 2010, 2). Similar evidence was reported by Paul Light in his 1999 book The New Public Service. His study included telephone interviews with 1,000 graduates of the top 13 public policy and administration schools in the United States. In their responses to his questions, the highest-rated skill “considered very important for success” for their current job (across federal, state, and local governments) was “maintaining ethical standards” (75 percent to 89 percent). However, when asked what their schools were “very helpful in teaching,” only 48 percent selected “maintaining ethical standards,” suggesting that there is a huge gap between classroom instruction and on-the-job realities.

It is imperative that men and women entering the profession, as well as those already in the field, become ethically competent to provide the leadership needed to advance the public interest. But what does it mean to be ethically competent? How does one achieve a satisfactory level of ethical competence? How does ethical competence contribute to effective public service leadership? These are the central questions addressed in this book. They are challenging questions and, as the reader will discover, they are the subject of much discussion and debate. In this chapter, our objective is to provide a “big picture” perspective on these important issues. A related objective is to launch a full discussion of the various ways in which ethical competence is defined and pursued. This chapter does not present a universally agreed-upon definition of ethical competence or a precise set of steps or measures that can be taken to guide the reader in his pursuit of ethical competence. However, we believe that these goals are worth pursuing. Let’s begin.

Table 1.1

Selected Texts with an Ethics Emphasis in Public Administration (arranged by most recent year of publication)

	Ethical competence	Leadership
The Responsible Administrator (6th ed., 2012), T.L.Cooper	Competence treated as a design approach to ethical reasoning, responsibility, decision-making skill, and organization development	Emphasizes the design of organizational structure and culture, along with relationships among members
Ethics Management for Public Administrators (2d ed., 2012), D.Menzel	Stresses ethics management as a competency	Emphasizes exemplary leadership as a tool for promoting ethical behavior in public organizations
The Ethics Challenge in Public Service (3d ed., 2012), C.W. Lewis and S.C. Gilman	References expertise as an ethical competency and a broad set of values as implied competencies	Stresses role of administrative leaders in building a strong ethical culture
Achieving Competencies in Public Service: The Professional Edge (2d ed., 2010), J. Bowman, J. West, and M. Beck	Includes ethics among a broad set of public service competencies	Discusses leadership traits, style, and behavior
Ethics Moments in Government: Cases and Controversies (2010), D. Menzel	Extensive discussion of ethics competencies with specific competencies identified	Leadership highlighted with cases and controversies
The Ethics Primer (2007), J. Svara	References expertise as a competency; emphasizes public duty and other ethical principles	Discusses the responsibility of leaders and followers to elevate ethical behavior in organizations

Ethical Competence²

The concept of competence suggests being able to meet some standard of excellence or qualification to complete a task or job. If that is an acceptable definition, and that definition is applied to ethics in the public sector and to teaching ethics in public service programs, then we are left with a need to define what constitutes ethical conduct or behavior. Unfortunately, defining ethical conduct or behavior outside of formal rules and regulations is not an easy task; nor is there universal agreement on precisely what constitutes ethical behavior. Does that force us, then, to link ethical competence to ethical codes, formal rules, or laws? Not necessarily, but there is a fatal attraction to do so.

How do we define ethical competence when it is often suggested that ethics is organizationally based and looked at from a situational perspective, requiring some level of discretion in ethical decision making and in applying ethical concepts? Simply saying that ethical competence means understanding the law and formal rules and applying them uniformly seems too simplistic. On the other hand, relying on virtue ethics or duty makes the concept of ethical competence unclear except to force us into a “do good, be good” definition.

Eriksson, Hegelsson, and Hoeglund (2007) in looking at the nursing profession, note that since ancient times ethical competence has been central to the provision of health care. Ethical competence, they further explain, is not synonymous with theoretical knowledge but is often linked to understanding and applying codes, laws, and guidelines. In the end, however, the authors conclude that neither ethical guidelines nor virtue ethics by themselves can provide a solid basis for ethical competence. They suggest that deontology (the study of duty-based ethics) must be considered in concert with virtue ethics and formal rules in building ethical competence. And, we would add, so should utilitarianism be considered. When applied to public-sector ethics, this conclusion certainly complicates the process of developing clear guidelines for ethical competence.

Berghofer (2003), in his introduction to The Ethical Competence Framework, recognizes the dilemma created by applying age-old concepts of ethics to a modern society: This tendency results in expediency-focused solutions to ethical issues rather than doing what is right. He defines being competent as “having an ability in sufficient measure that one can perform at an acceptable standard.” He recognizes that the problem with such a definition is that words like “sufficient” and “acceptable” are subjective terms. However, it is the responsibility of members of a profession to make a collective judgment about what constitutes the necessary competencies and an acceptable level of achievement.

Despite the uncertainty in arriving at a clear definition of, or solution to, reaching ethical competence, Kavathatzopoulos (2002) addresses the application of the term to business in the following way: “Ethical competence in business means: (1) high ethical awareness, (2) individual skill to handle ethical issues, (3) functional organizational structure and routines, (4) communication and argumentation skills, and (5) confidence and emotional strength.” He notes that “research has shown that it is possible to assess reliably and train effectively the acquisition of all aspects of ethical competence in business,” suggesting the value of instruction in this area. Ethical competence in public management, says the Finnish scholar Turo Virtanen (2000, 336), is “conforming to moral values and moral norms that prevail in a culture.”

As this brief discussion makes clear, defining ethical competence as merely following socially and/or professionally desirable norms or rules is not sufficient. And, it should be emphasized, neither is submitting to the dominant culture of an organization.

Competence in Context

From the beginning years of administrative ethics as a field of study in the mid-1970s, the focus has been largely on the individual decision maker and much less on designing organizations to support ethical thinking and conduct. Most work has been concerned with addressing ethical quandaries through ethical decision making and the character traits (virtues) conducive to ethical conduct following a decision. The profession has considered the effectiveness of various kinds of external controls such as codes of ethics, regulations, ethics legislation, and accountability mechanisms. That perspective has generated interest in ethics agencies within government, among them the U.S. Office of Government Ethics and its counterparts at the state and local levels. Also, different types of internal controls, including professional values and standards, sensitivity to public opinion, and character, have been discussed at length. That orientation has caused many to think and inquire about the normative foundations of administrative ethics identified with constitutional regime values, founding values, bureaucratic ethics, citizenship ethics, social equity, and the public interest.

The cognitive moral development of individuals has been one of the systematic and consistent lines of research based on the initial work of Lawrence Kohlberg (1980) and carried forward in the field of public administration by Debra Stewart and Norman Sprinthall (1994) in their Stewart Sprinthall Management Survey (SSMS), along with Carole Jurkiewicz (2002) and Richard White (1999) using the Defining Issues Test (DIT). That body of empirical research has caused us to consider the importance of developing principled thinking and its relationship to ethical conduct. Moreover, we have written and talked about ethics education and the training of those preparing for public administration careers, in addition to ongoing instruction for those already in practice, who are more likely to cultivate principled thinking.

It is also true that the organizational structure and culture in which administrators make ethical decisions and attempt to carry them out has often been identified as an important influence for better or worse—usually worse. Research by scholars such as Kurt (1935, 1936, 1951), Stanley Milgram (1974, 1983), Philip Zimbardo (2007), and Robert Denhardt (1981) has informed our thinking about the power of organizations to shape both our thinking and our conduct. Also, in the “real world,” we have been confronted with numerous cases in which organizational hierarchy has prevented ethical conduct and punished those with the courage to persist. These include the Nazi Holocaust, the disasters involving the Challenger and Columbia space shuttles, and the torture of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. The whistleblower literature is filled with examples of the power of organizations to resist ethical conduct and punish severely those who persist in following their conscience and professional ethical standards.

However, a much less-developed skill and kno...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• 1. In Pursuit of Ethical Competence
• Part I. Ethical Competence and Leadership
• Part II. Pedagogical Approaches and Methods to Achieve Ethical Competence
• Part III. Ethical Competence Within and Across Professions
• Part IV. Conclusion
• Index
• About the Editors and Contributors