ETHICS MATTER!
Be Wary of Conflicts of Interest What to do when personal intersects with professional There is an extremely high probability
MARTHA PEREGO, ICMA-CM, is director of member services and ethics director, ICMA, Washington, D.C. (mperego@icma.org).
that at some point in your career, you will have a conflict of interest. Initially your reaction to that premise might be to reject it outright. After all, as a professional with a commitment to high ethical standards, you would never put yourself in a position where someone would question whose interests you are serving. You certainly would never engage in self-dealing. But conflicts of interest don’t always arise by intentional acts. In its simplest form and by its very definition, a conflict of interest pops up when your personal interests or loyalties intersect with your professional obligations. That conflict can and often does present itself in the ordinary course of living your life. Think about it. Unless you build a truly impenetrable firewall between your life and work (which is virtually impossible for anyone working in local government), your personal life will overlap with your professional obligations at some point. And when it does, you need to be alert to it and take the appropriate steps to resolve the conflict. Beyond the unexpected conflicts that arise from your personal life are two other sources of conflicts: taking on a role related to your professional position and intentionally engaging in activity that creates
BY MARTHA PEREGO, ICMA-CM
a conflict. Here are examples in these three spheres and advice for reconciling the conflict.
As you navigate a conflict, will anyone from the outside looking in question whose interests you were serving?
The Unexpected Personal Conflict
Examples of the ways in which your personal life could unexpectedly cross over into your work world are too varied and too voluminous cover. For one manager, the intersection was syrup. A personal hobby harvesting syrup from his backyard raised a conflict-of-interest question in his mind when an investor arrived with a proposal to grow syrup into a local and regional industry. Even though the manager’s harvest was very small and not sold commercially, he stopped to reflect whether he would have a conflict of interest here in advancing this economic effort. Key to the determination that this was not a conflict of interest in fact or appearance was that his venture was purely personal. The output was
Public Management (PM)
International City/County
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ICMA Creating and Supporting Thriving Communities ICMA’s vision is to be the leading association of local government professionals dedicated to creating and supporting thriving communities throughout the world. It does this by working with its more than 12,000 members to identify and speed the adoption of leading local government practices and improve the lives of residents. ICMA offers membership, professional development programs, research, publications, data and information, technical assistance, and training to thousands of city, town, and county chief administrative officers, their staffs, and other organizations throughout the world. Public Management (PM) aims to inspire innovation, inform decision making, connect leading-edge thinking to everyday challenges, and serve ICMA members and local governments in creating and sustaining thriving communities throughout the world.
