What Ethical Leadership, Good Governance, and Public Trust Look Like In Daily Best Practice
A City of Trust is not built through slogans, branding, or occasional reforms.
It is built when ethical leadership, good governance, and public trust are woven into the daily operations, expectations, systems, and culture of City government.
In a City of Trust, the people can confidently rely on their government to work hard—in public and in private—only in the people’s best interests.
Santa Clara once worked with purpose to build that kind of government. It can do so again.
1. Ethical Decision-Making Guides Public Action
A City of Trust recognizes that every public decision has an ethical dimension because every decision can impact residents’ lives for better or worse. Public officials need to do the most good and the least harm. Above all else, they need to be vigilant about putting the public’s needs above all others.
A robust decision-making process, that takes into account everything that should go into sustainable decisions that build public trust Good decision-making involves the City Council, Senior Staff, public, consultants, experts, and other stakeholders deliberating about these questions:
- Legal: Can we do it? Are we in compliance with all relevant laws, codes, regulations, rules, etc.? Do we meet both the letter and the spirit of the law? What is the ethical justification for meeting only the letter of the law?
- Goals: What are our short-term goals? Long-term goals? Stretch goals? What unintended consequences can we anticipate? How does this project do more good than harm?
- Feasibility: Do we have the capacity to do this? Can we do it effectively, efficiently, professionally? Long term requirements to anticipate? Does Staff see any problems implementing this? Is this consistent with staff’s personal and professional values?
- Schedule: When will this project start? Finish? Milestones along the way? How will we handle missed deadlines? Incomplete projects? Manage deadlines? Communicate with the public?
- Engagement: What do the people think of this project? Ideas or suggestions to make it better? How did public input make this project better? When and how do we communicate about this with the public as decision-making is proceeding? If we can’t do everything the public suggests, how did we reach that conclusion?
- Financial: Do we have the money? Is this the best use of these funds? What effect will spending the money here have on other similarly prioritized projects? Are funds available for long term maintenance, upkeep, upgrading, etc.?
- Impact: Who will be most impacted by this? Who will win? Who will lose? Is that fair? Are equals being treated equally, except for need, merit? What individuals have rights in this instance and have we protected or advanced those rights?
- Personal/Professional Core Values: How does this help me to be the kind of Council member I want to be? How does this meet our fiduciary duties to the people? How is this consistent with our organizational core values?
- Harm: If one or more people will be harmed, have we done everything we can to reduce that harm? Staff harm? Organizational harm? Risk assessment?
- Politics: Is this politically possible? Do we have the votes? Is any compromise possible with the Council minority? Do we need to form a political coalition? Have we consulted with trusted advisors/experts/consultants? If we have rejected reasonable advice, on what grounds?
- Ethics: What ethical issues have we discussed and resolved? Why is this the right thing to do for the people? For the City organization? For the County? Consider short and long term consequences, fairness, rights and duties, common good?
- Public Trust: As best we can tell now, how, if at all, will this project build public trust?
- Decision/Action: When will the decision be made during a public hearing with adequate time for the public to weigh in? When will it be implemented? How will it be communicated about?
- Evaluation: How, when, and who will evaluate this project? Are course corrections possible and by what process? What will failure look like for this project? What will success look like for this project?
- Accountability: What are the City Council, City staff, and other stakeholders’ responsibilities with this project? Promises to the public? What evidence will be presented to show promises kept? How will we celebrate accomplishments? When will we reflect on lessons learned and ongoing skills training?