In some of the past articles I have dealt with issues of ethical conduct, administrative responsibility and maintaining organizational integrity and relevance in the public services. I want to believe that by now you as the reader must have picked up the closeness of these aspects and the extent to which they connect and give meaning to each other. This week I want to further look at the issue of protecting what we could call the ìpublic officersí principalsî in the wake of possible corruption in organizations and by unethical superiors. That is how individual administrators often confront the system and their superiors who may want or attempt to dislodge ethical conduct.
First, letís understand who the ìprincipalsî of public officials are. Public officials or more specifically public servants, are generally accountable to their organizational superiors, politicians or elected officials, the judiciary as the legal framework in general would spell out, and ultimately the citizenry. All of these groups of people are in one context or the other the principals of or to the public administrators. However I want to argue that in any democratic setting we always, justifiably so, assume that, of these, the citizenry are or should be the ultimate principal to which all public administrators remain accountable to and in whose wisdom and good they are obliged to deligently serve. This is so, for as long, as we assume and expect that public organizationsí goals are or should be congruent with the expectations and interests of the citizenry.
In this context therefore, public sector managers are presumed to be acting responsibly as fiduciary principals of the public. We are however, to note that this is not always the case and in public services we often have organizations and managers who deviates from their public mandate and become either self serving or collude to advance some other powerful forcesí interests. It is when situations like these occur that the public administrator, as an individual, may find it fitting and ethically correct to define the limits of their responsibility to the institution in order that they maintain their ultimate responsibility to the citizenry, as the premiere principal. The basic assumption here is that public administrators as a collective and more importantly individually, understands the broad legal, moral and ethical parameters and the extent to which they can actually use all these aspects to deal with corrupt and unethical practices within their own institutions, especially if they have to challenge their superiors on moral, ethical and sometimes legal dictates.
The big question becomes what really guides the behaviour of public administrators to make the right decisions as to when to play the ethical card against their superiors and sometimes even their organizations? One obvious aspect is the common and inherent responsibility to superiors of subordinates and the latter├¡s loyalty to those above him/her. Anytime, organizations or superiors deviate from known ethical practices to corrupt ones, the subordinates are always typically caught in conflict between their formal obligation to their superiors who have higher levels of responsibility and authority in the organization and the subordinates├¡ assumed fiduciary relationship with the citizenry. The dilemma is here├û. ├¼objectively, public administrators are accountable both to their superiors and to the citizenry – proximately and routinely to the former, but ultimately and more importantly to the latter├«.
The above dilemma is ultimately the one whose understanding by administrators defines and decides the extent to which the surbordinates become what maybe termed the ëpublic protectorí in the wake of rampant corruption in public organizations and one way of ensuring that superiors who have responsibility and authority in these organizations are restrained from using such to serve individual interests that normally compromises the citizenís right to access national or local resources. Overall, the dual obligations of the subordinates come into conflict and put a significant and very important test to their subjective responsibility. Public organizations that have a sizeable number of subordinates, who are conscious of their fiduciary role and responsibility to the citizen, are less likely to be riddled with corruption and unethical conduct, by those who yield power and authority; superiors.
In the context of the above, what are the expectations on subordinatesí loyalty, as it is challenged by its two way connection, to the superior and to the citizen? Any conflicting feelings of loyalty require that subordinates be able to assess the limits of their accountability to their superiors, because in such situations, their ultimate obligation to the citizenry may actually require that they breach their loyalty to the institutional hierarchy, by taking the necessary legal, ethical and sometimes moral actions to protect the public. This is however, one of the most daunting challenges facing subordinates in public organizations. A commitment to ethical conduct in an organizational environment that breathes and exumes corruption can be a very lonely and costly pursuit for subordinates. The reward an individual gets is normally harrassment, scheming, social ostracism and sometimes even dismisal from work.
Often the risks and hazards of committing to ethical conduct and administrative loyalty are narrowed to individual decision making and choice to be different and in essence to become the sacrificial lamB. It can be a choice of either going away quietly and resigning to protect your own individual integrity, a more popular choice for many, or going away noisely letting the system know why your are going away and that there is need to protect the public interest. It is these two scenarios that daily confront our public officials as we see seemingly increasing cases of corruption and unethical conduct in our public services. How capacitated and committed are the subordinates within our public services, such that they can act as the first line of protecting the citizenís interest in the wake of corrupt practices by their superiors? Can they handle these cases of conflicting loyalties and more importantly, do they understand and embody their role as ultimately subordinates of the principal that is the citizenry? I donít wish to answer any of these questions; neither do I claim to know the extent to which we can measure the current situation on these aspects in our public service. You might as well know more than I do.
