Ethics in action: A quick primer for publicly elected boards

Around us and every day, we witness visible examples of ethical behavior: from returning lost money to taking responsibility for a workplace error. But it’s the unethical behavior that makes the headlines. This is the reality that board members of a public entity face. Citizens want integrity, accountability and transparency from elected leaders.

Rather than being legally prescribed, ethics are born from the moral principles that guide us. Not only are they literally “the right thing to do,” but understanding and modeling ethical behavior is important to keep your public school district, city or community college trusted and respected.

Let’s explore what it takes to build an ethical board, common missteps boards can make and how technology can support ethical governance.

6 tips to building an ethical board

Building an ethical board takes work but it is not an impossible effort if you implement the following:

1. Share definitions and expectations. The process of developing an ethical board begins with shared understanding, and that means scheduling regular discussions as part of a board agenda. Materials developed for these early efforts can be saved to share with future board members.
2. Understand (or create) the code of ethics. Most publicly elected boards already have a code of ethics. If yours doesn’t — or if it’s been a long time since it was reviewed — it’s time to take a fresh look. Having and following and committing to the code of ethics is a critical way to create a positive board culture.
3. Offer ongoing training: Onboarding training is important to get every new board member on the same page. But training shouldn’t stop after the first few months or first few completed check boxes. Ongoing training offers refreshers in expectations and learning. For example, boards can regularly discuss hypothetical ethical situations and how to handle them according to the code of ethics.
4. Set up transparent processes: Most boards must follow some type of open meetings requirements, and making meetings, documents and communications easily accessible to the community not only helps meet those requirements but helps the board’s activities be transparent. Visalia Unified School District in California and Montgomery Community College in North Carolina are two examples of boards that pursued solutions to increase district transparency. What is the process when an accusation is made regarding a board member? Do you have a policy on this process?
5. Develop and cooperate with accountability mechanisms: Audits and similar reviews take time and, like any performance evaluation, can cause concern. But for a board committed to ethical behavior, it’s better to learn about potential issues as soon as possible and from a trusted source.
6. Emphasize diversity: Ensure you have the right mechanisms to hear diverse voices from your community, and that diverse voices are encouraged to run for office.

Common missteps board members can make

Even with the best intentions, boards and board members can make common errors when striving to embody ethical behaviors.

Conflicts of interest

Conflicts of interest are one of the most common ethical lapses in board service. At any time, there are numerous news stories about school boards or city councils dealing with fallout from perceived conflicts of interest in past decision-making. To avoid these scenarios, public bodies should collect information about possible conflicts from their members regularly and have recurring discussions on the board agenda about examples of conflicts of interest.

For reference, this list from Investopedia identifies and defines types of conflicts board members may experience:

• Financial
• Relational
• Professional
• Ideological
• Time-based
• Organizational

Ethical dilemmas

Ethical issues play into budgeting, policy writing and even how each board member prioritizes the work. A typical situation might involve a board member who voted on the losing side of a hot-button issue and has to decide how to react. It is every board’s responsibility to try to build consensus, and every member’s responsibility to support the board once a decision is made. But this is easier said than done, which is why discussions about expectations and ongoing training can be invaluable.

Treating training as one and done

Publicly elected boards have a lot of demands on them, and ongoing development can sometimes take a back seat to other matters. But training will pay off in increased efficiencies, understanding, collaboration and more. Your district should have a plan for effective governance training that spans the entire board member lifecycle. If the board expects a district that is continually improving, the board should be modeling this by seeking to continually improve as well.

“If the board expects a district that is continually improving, the board should be modeling this by seeking to continually improve as well.” – Steve Schroeder, Board Member, Sun Prairie Schools

Being complacent

Creating an ethical culture needs to be a sustained effort. Board makeup and board member interests change (leading to possible new conflicts of interest), and new issues arise that require careful study, such as new technologies with ethical implications. Create a regular item in the board agenda to cover ethical considerations, and look at new discussion topics through a lens of ethics and compliance.

How Diligent Community can support ethical boards

When your board or council employs Diligent Community, you gain powerful features that support ethics efforts.

• Store your ethics policy centrally in the document library so that onboarding of new trustees and everboarding of existing trustees around your organization’s ethics can be done easily.
• Key information and research can be brought to the board through the software to ensure that decision-making is data-driven.
• Goals aligned with long-term vision can be tracked alongside agendas to show progress against the strategic plan with transparency to the community.
• The public website provided with Diligent Community allows your organization to build trust and be transparent about decision-making. It creates that ‘single source of truth’ for stakeholders to see information from the board and understand the decisions the board is making. Community members can find information easily through robust search and sign up to receive updates and notifications for future meetings as well as request to speak.
• LiveStream Manager makes it simple for your community to participate in meetings. Because it’s integrated with your agenda, participants can view the meeting and agenda on a split screen, easily following along with the discussion and voting.
• Policy Publisher can help staff and the board to keep their current ethics policy up-to-date, published and transparent to the community.

The right technology choices can take pressure off individual board members and support them in their service.

Following an ethical path takes work, but it is necessary for the board to embrace integrity, accountability and transparency and build trust with constituents. We at Diligent understand this, and we have designed Diligent Community as a solution to support this effort and more.