Much has changed in the world and in the local government management profession in the 50 years since members voted to approve Tenet 9 on communications. This language reflected norms in 1972, when many technological advances like social media were still very far away!

In our most recent Code of Ethics efforts, ICMA membership recommended reviewing Tenets 1, 4, 9, and 11 of the Code through the lens of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Nearly three years of feedback on the Code culminated with 84% of voting members approving changes to the tenet language. This election had the distinction of having the highest participation rate in ICMA’s online voting history with over 2,500 or 32% of membership casting a vote.

Tenet 9 is about active engagement and constructive communication, ensuring that all members of a community have a voice in the governance process and the opportunity to be heard. This principle in the Code builds and maintains public trust and confidence through professional management practices that enhance a member’s communications.

Tenet 9 of the ICMA Code of Ethics

This revised Tenet 9 language now reads: “Keep the community informed on local government affairs. Encourage and facilitate active engagement and constructive communication between community members and all local government officials.”

The board added a guideline on engagement to Tenet 9 in June 2023 for members to help understand their ethical obligations relative to this language: “Members should ensure community members can actively engage with their local government as well as eliminate barriers and support involvement of the community in the governance process.”

Engaging Face to Face

As a leader in your community, you have visibility within the office and likely when you go about your personal life as well. You may think you’re only running into the store to get a few groceries until a volunteer member on your city’s arts commission wants to know what is happening with a particular project. Perhaps you needed this time away from the office to decompress from the rigors of the position, but now unwillingly find yourself a conversation where you must choose your words carefully.

This profession means life in a fishbowl and frustration can be apparent in your communications. Set limitations on when you are available to engage in person, enlist your deputy for assistance (it’s excellent for their professional development, too), and stick to those boundaries even if it results in some discomfort.

Social Media: Friend, Foe, or Somewhere in Between

A manager’s professional and personal actions can be closely scrutinized, so when it comes to social media, it’s crucial to get it right. Ultimately, your social media activity can impact public trust and confidence.

Keep your responses professional and cordial. Replying to a resident’s controversial social media post in a sarcastic way may feel good in the moment, but you’ll feel differently when you or the organization experience the subsequent fallout. A screenshot of your post is easily saved, and it can unfortunately come up at an inopportune time, even if your better judgment prevails and you delete the post.

This can become an ethics issue. ICMA’s ethics enforcement process requires a written narrative with documentation (such as a screenshot) that supports the allegation from the complainant’s viewpoint. If the facts demonstrate that a member’s social media conduct was inappropriate, ICMA may issue a censure. For more information regarding censures, each year the ethics program shares an annual report available here.

Use Tenet 9 as Your Guide

Tenet 9 serves as a guide for your individual conduct and provides a starting point for your organization’s social media policy. The following list of questions and best practices can help operationalize this tenet language:

• How do you advance the cause of keeping the community informed, encourage communication, ensure engagement, and eliminate barriers in the governance process?
• Are your communications equal in tone regardless of whether it is an easy or difficult conversation? Do you “play favorites”?
• Is the organization’s social media policy embedded within a personnel manual? Does this merit a stand-alone policy?
• How is elected official social media use governed or handled?
• Does your community have a public information officer (PIO) or a position that functions as a PIO? Is this position better equipped to respond when needed and take initiative to post to your organization’s social media account?
• Are your employees aware of a member’s commitment to ethics and why this is important along with good customer service principles?
• At the federal level, there is the Freedom of Information Act. What state or local laws exist to ensure social media communications are captured and provided in results for requests?
• Be civil and clear whether you are expressing your personal opinion or speaking on behalf of the organization.
• Regardless of privacy settings, social media can be very public. If you pause before responding to someone offline, think twice about making the comment online where it can live on permanently.
• There are so many types of social media. Perhaps you have individuals you connect with on professional platforms that should not be in your circle on platforms you use on a more casual basis.

When ethical practices can be implemented in the organization (as outlined in Tenet 9 and its guideline), social media can be an efficient communications tool. Be cautious as social media can be fast-paced and postings (both words and images) may be misrepresented or misinterpreted from the way they were intended. However, your community needs, wants, and deserves timely communication from their local government, so don’t hold back from using social media responsibly to share information.

Reach out to me at jcowles@icma.org to share your successes or seek advice on this thorny issue for you and your organization.

JESSICA COWLES is ethics director at ICMA (jcowles@icma.org).