Reference no: EM133469533

The city manager has an excellent relationship with one of the councilmembers and gets a lot of political support from him regarding her recommendations. The councilmember makes time to meet every week with the manager and gets updated on all important city matters, including upcoming council agenda items. The manager provides more information to this particular councilmember than the other councilmembers. Based on their strong relationship, the councilmember discusses with the city manager strategy to move initiatives forward and to create majority support on the council for specific actions.

Ethical Dilemmas:

Discussion: This cozy relationship can easily be perceived as favoritism and may well undermine the manager's relationship with the other councilmembers. Whatever a manager's personal views, he or she is supposed to take direction from the council as a whole, not just those with whom the manager is friendly. It's okay to for the manager to talk about issues and concerns outside of council meetings, but regular chats to strategize with a single councilmember about important city matters amounts to influencing votes outside a public venue.

This scenario could also backfire if either the manager takes a new job, leaving the councilmember adrift, or if the elected official leaves office, and the manager no longer has an ally.

These scenarios were developed by Frank Benest and can be found at Markkula Center for Applied Ethics.

Consider

Identify the accountabilities in your scenario.

How you would respond as the city manager.