Ethical leadership and administrative discretion: The fire chief's hiring dilemma

Abstract

Recent efforts to reform government are challenging many of the basic theoretical and managerial assumptions of governance at the federal, state, and local levels. Under the political rubric of reinventing government, reform initiatives have devolved administrative decision making to more local levels. In practice this can result in ethical dilemmas for local government administrators as they attempt to reconcile constitutional governance, legal accountability and political environments with the search for flexibility, innovation, and productivity while mimicking private sector processes and practices. This article describes such an ethical dilemma faced by a local government human resource manager and fire chief who were confronted with the decision to succumb to political pressure from prominent citizens, volunteer fire chiefs and city council members to hire unqualified firefighter candidates, or to discount their input and reject the candidates. The authors describe the ethical dilemma and discuss the importance of practicing ethical leadership to build public trust and accountability in the responsible use of administrative discretion while pursuing the public interest.