Crosby B.C., Bryson J.M. - Leadership for the Common Good (2005)(en)

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Resolve Conflicts Among Principles, Laws, and Norms

When applied to a specific case, principles, laws, and norms often conflict with each other. Ethical leaders help constituents decide how to resolve such conflict. They can make a case for why one principle, law, or norm should trump another. For example, if a law contravenes a constitutional provision, they emphasize the need to uphold the constitution above all other laws. They can offer a balancing approach; for example, by guaranteeing business owners considerable autonomy in how they achieve governmentmandated emission controls. Thus the principle of liberty is balanced with the principle of environmental stewardship. Ethical leaders also are able to reinterpret conflict to suggest how competing principles, laws, or norms might be reconciled. For example, WBCSD members remind businesspeople that they will have neither autonomy nor security if the world’s natural resources are destroyed. Thus environmental stewardship is cast ultimately as a way to guarantee business viability.

Understand the Design and Use of Formal and Informal Courts

The setting for the ethical practices described here is a formal or informal court. Ethical leaders know that the design and use of these settings critically affect which policies and behaviors are subjected to judicial scrutiny and which sanctions are meted out. Courts often determine which adopted policies, programs, and projects are actually implemented and which are halted entirely or rendered ineffectual. As noted in Resource D, the key considerations that leaders should include in their strategies for designing and using courts are conflict management and sanctioning capabilities, rules governing conflict resolution, jurisdiction, conflict management methods, and rules governing access.

Conflict Management and Sanctioning Capabilities

Ethical leaders identify those (including themselves) who have the authority and skills needed to resolve residual conflict and make binding decisions about applying ethical principles, laws, and norms as well as sanctioning conduct. They may consider these

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judges’ record of wise and fair decisions or their level of training in strategizing about whether and how to attempt to argue a case before them. Ethical leaders may need to work for increased judicial authority—for example, the ability to levy higher fines or sentences for violations of a law. They may need to help some publics (customers of polluting industries, for instance) apply the sanctions they control (such as purchasing power). They may need to help people in their coalition apply peer pressure or acquire additional skills in conflict management or legal procedures. The organizers of the African American Men Project are relying on the sanctioning capacity of the African American community itself to affect the behavior of young African American men. The project planners are sponsoring a Dream Assessment Initiative, in which “dream assessors” encourage students in grades five through twelve to define their dreams and aspirations, and develop a plan to make their dream a reality. Additionally, the project is working with Brother Achievement, which is training hundreds of mentors to work with young African American men.

Leaders recognize that policy makers (whether on a board, in a legislature, or administrators or executives) act as judges when they consider whether or not a recipient of funds is complying with policies and contracts. They can apply sanctions, as in giving more money or refusing to do so. Thus the African American Men Project and Vital Aging Network have included accountability mechanisms in their work programs to help funders judge their accomplishment and accept them as legitimate.

Rules Governing Conflict Resolution

Ethical leaders analyze the rules (such as due process) that govern the courts acting on the cases that concern them. They help constituents develop strategies for taking advantage of the rules or altering them. For example, WBCSD officials are helping shape a number of Voluntary Environmental Initiatives (see Christmann and Taylor, 2002) that serve as an informal court judging whether a corporation is living up to agreed-upon environmental standards. WBCSD recognizes the importance of using independent verification of company reports so that the findings of a court will be seen as legitimate. An obvious impetus for establishing voluntary initia-

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tives is the desire to avoid litigation in many national courts, where rules require or allow a lengthy and costly process, and sanctions can be severe.

The African American Men Project is working with the Hennepin County courts system to alter formal and informal rules that make it difficult for young men involved with the criminal justice system to escape it. For example, the project advocates developing or continuing educational programs and networks to help these young men become productive citizens. The project is also working with the National Leadership Institute on a process for expunging the criminal records of men who have been released from prison and completed probation and parole.

Jurisdiction

Ethical leaders recognize that a dispute over the legitimacy or application of an enacted policy will be channeled to courts on the basis of jurisdiction (that is, whether the authority of the court covers the substance or location of the dispute). They may have to move through a hierarchy of courts, in which successive courts have authority over the ones below them. They may strive to alter a court’s jurisdiction or create a new court (such as the Voluntary Environmental Initiatives just mentioned) that will have jurisdiction over the cases that concern them.

Conflict Management Methods

In designing and using courts, ethical leaders strive, if possible, to use the conflict resolution methods that are most likely to produce outcomes that are the intended objectives of the policies, programs, and projects they support. For example, relying on legal findings by formal judges or members of a jury may be highly effective, if the judgment is legitimate and enforceable. Leaders also recognize the merit of using other methods, such as mediation, to avoid some of the cost (to pocketbooks and relationships) of adversarial proceedings. Members of the African American Men Project are working with a committee of judges, corrections officials, and others to develop a community response to “liveability crimes,” such as street corner drug sales and prostitution, in poor

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neighborhoods. The solutions might include informal sanctions by community residents, mediation among neighbors, or restitution agreements.

Rules Governing Access

A formal court usually has precise rules about selecting judges and juries, qualifications of lawyers and other officers of the court, types of cases it will consider, and in what format. Informal rules, such as a requirement that substantial funds be devoted to arguing a court case, also determine who has access to a formal court. Ethical leaders help constituents alter or take advantage of these rules so they can obtain a favorable verdict for their policy or program.

Helpful Tools

We recommend two exercises for helping you or your group practice ethical leadership. Exercise 4.8 helps you analyze the ethical principles, laws, and norms that apply to the policies you support. Exercise 4.9 helps you assess the ethical leadership of an individual, group, organization, or network.

Exercise 4.8. Analyzing Ethical Principles, Laws, and Norms.

1.What ethical principles bestow legitimacy on the policies supported by our group or coalition?

2.How are these principles connected to “higher law,” such as widely shared religious beliefs, or international treaties and protocols?

3.What are we doing to enact these principles in our own words and deeds?

4.What laws and court decisions support our desired policies?

5.What norms might we expect key stakeholder groups to apply in support of our desired policies?

6.What conflicts exist among ethical principles, laws, and norms that are applicable to our desired policies?

7.How might we deal with these conflicts?

8.How might pertinent ethical principles, laws, and norms need to be reinterpreted or updated to apply to the current issues that concern us?

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Exercise 4.9. Assessing Ethical Leadership Capacity.

You may use this exercise to rate a group, an organization, or an interorganizational network. You may reword the questions to rate your own or another individual’s ethical capacity.

If the exercise is done by a group, each member should fill in the ratings individually; the ratings can then be pooled to produce a group rating.

Respond to the questions by checking one of the three boxes after each.

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Exercise 4.9. Assessing Ethical Leadership Capacity, Cont’d.

When you are done with the ratings:

For Working Alone

1.Develop a list of the ethical strengths of the individual, group, organization, or network on the basis of the items ranked Good/Well. Note a few of the reasons these items were ranked highly.

2.Develop a list of the ethical weaknesses of the group, organization, or network on the basis of the items ranked Poor/Poorly. Note a few of the reasons these items were given a low ranking.

3.Also note which aspects of the items rated OK/Acceptably need improving.

4.Identify specific actions you can take to build on the identified strengths and overcome identified weaknesses.

For Working in a Group

1.Develop a list of the ethical strengths of the group, organization, or network on the basis of the items that most group members rated Good/Well. Note a few of the reasons these items were ranked highly.

2.Develop a list of the ethical weaknesses of the group, organization, or network on the basis of the items that a majority of the group ranked Poor/Poorly. Note a few of the reasons these items were given a low ranking.

3.Identify and discuss aspects of other items that need improvement.

4.Agree on specific actions the group can take to build on the identified strengths and overcome identified weaknesses.

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Summary

Visionary leaders focus on creation and communication of shared meaning in formal and informal forums. To do this, they seize opportunities to be interpreters and direction givers in a situation of uncertainty or difficulty, offer a compelling vision of the future, postpone a full-fledged vision during crisis, and adeptly design and use forums. Political leaders focus on making and implementing legislative, executive, and administrative policy decisions in formal and informal arenas. They mediate and shape conflict within and among constituencies; build winning, sustainable coalitions; overcome bureaucratic resistance; and adeptly design and use arenas. Ethical leaders educate others about ethics, constitutions, other laws, and norms; promote awareness of how ethical principles, constitutions, other laws, and norms apply to specific cases; adapt principles, laws, and norms to changing times; resolve conflict among principles, laws, and norms; and adeptly design and use courts.

The next chapter turns to the work of policy entrepreneurship— coordination of leadership tasks in the course of a major policy change effort. We also focus on discerning the common good.

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quirements; subsequent chapters are devoted to individual phases of the policy change cycle.

Before going further, we should note that public policy has both substantive and symbolic aspects. It can be defined as substantive decisions, commitments, and implementing actions by those who have governance responsibilities (including, but going beyond government), as interpreted by various stakeholders. Thus public policy is what the affected people think it is, and based on what the substantive content symbolizes to them. Public policies may be called policies, plans, programs, projects, decisions, actions, budgets, rules, or regulations. Moreover, they may emerge deliberately or as the result of mutual adjustment among partisans (Lindblom, 1959; Mintzberg and Waters, 1985). Exhibit 5.1 presents brief definitions of public policy and other key terms in this chapter.

Understanding Policy Change

The policy change process can be described as a seven-phase cycle (Figure 5.1), in which a shifting set of change advocates work in multiple forums, arenas, and courts to remedy a public problem. The phases are interconnected and build on each other, but policy entrepreneurs are seldom able to march through them in an orderly, sequential fashion. In the case of a highly complex public problem such as AIDS or global warming, the cycle (and “re-cycling”) may extend over decades. The effort to enact solutions for less complex problems, such as homelessness in a particular city, may be successful in a much shorter period. No matter what, the same set of leaders and constituents who began a change effort may not be able to see the effort all the way through the cycle. Moreover, new leaders and constituencies are likely to join the process all along the way. Wise leaders attend to timing and are prepared to handle disruptions and delays throughout the process.

The policy change cycle is an orienting framework rather than a precise causal model (Sabatier, 1991). It contains a set of repeating and intersecting loops that highlight the frequency and pervasiveness of feedback throughout the cycle. The phases of the cycle and their central actions are on page 160.

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Exhibit 5.1. Policy Entrepreneurship

and the Common Good: Some Definitions.