Taking their administrative roles, city managers are responsible for following ethical principles in their work. It is expected that local authorities act according to the norms of ethics to address a community’s needs and maintain people’s trust with the focus on certain values. Thus, city managers have specific moral duties and obligations to make right or proper decisions in critical situations (Cooper, 2012). The purpose of this paper is to compare public leaders’ views regarding ethics and discuss their unique perspectives concerning certain theoretical concepts related to the moral code.
Different city managers working in California have rather similar ideas regarding the question of ethics in their activities, and it is possible to identify parallel trends in their views. Thus, local authorities agree that the key focus is on addressing the public trust because people entrust their money and a community’s future to city managers. One more vision shared by several public leaders in California is that their ethical role is in promoting the public good while guaranteeing their actions are beneficial for a community.
Also, the key focus is on transparency as openness and clearness in actions because city managers are watched by the public and media as guarantors of a community’s progress (California City Management Foundation, 2014). From this perspective, each action of a city manager is made for the benefit of a community.
There are also unique perspectives on moral visions and expectations that are formulated by these leaders. For local authorities, being ethical means demonstrating courage and compassion for those persons who are impacted by their activities. Furthermore, city managers often need to resolve ethical conundrums to address the public’s needs. In addition to transparency, they should follow such moral principles as honesty and integrity.
On the one hand, city managers set an example for a community to make people follow them. On the other hand, these leaders take a more active role and work as drivers for a community to lead it the right way (California City Management Foundation, 2014). Moreover, while dealing with dilemmas, city managers are also expected to comment on their actions to inspire their team. Therefore, all these ideas represent unique perspectives of city managers’ regarding their duties as ethical leaders.
Effective virtuous practices that are required by public leaders include demonstrating the ethically responsible conduct, resolving moral dilemmas with the focus on a community’s needs and interests, and maintaining the public good. These key ideas and concepts are actively discussed by city managers of California, and they are directly correlated with major moral principles adopted in public administration.
The main principle of an ethical practice proclaimed by local authorities is the focus on serving a community to enhance the public good (California City Management Foundation, 2014). As a result, a leader works to address the public’s expectations and trust, which are two important concepts to mention (Cooper, 2012). Ethical puzzles and dilemmas are also discussed by city managers because these concepts are associated with making morally difficult decisions referring to conflicting views and actions to take.
As it is stated by public leaders, they are expected to act ethically when serving communities because of the public trust in their activities. If these leaders are not virtuous, they cannot effectively resolve dilemmas and they do not address people’s expectations. Therefore, taking leadership roles in public administration, persons need to concentrate on the question of ethics to guarantee that their actions contribute to the public good.
References
California City Management Foundation. (2014). Ethics in public service. Web.
Cooper, T. L. (2012). The responsible administrator: An approach to ethics for the administrative role (6th ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.