 Hi everyone and welcome to our ethical leadership program. Andrea Bowman and I will be talking to you today about I'm Jodi Bruins. I'm leadership and civic engagement specialist with NDSU Extension And I'm Andrea Bowman. I also work for NDSU Extension and leadership and civic engagement and work with the lead local program Yeah, so what brings us here today is You may be familiar with our leadership program called lead local and we've done this with many groups across the state of North Dakota many organizations and businesses and One particular piece that we're going to cover today is that on ethical leadership and Even though it's a small section of this particular program. It seems to be the one that gets the most discussion questions and Adults in regards to ethical leadership in regards to either business or those in leadership positions so we hope you gain something from this and It always leads to some good discussion in your organization Yeah, so today we're going to talk about the open record and meeting laws will highlight those laws and also What it means to be an ethical leader and just some best practices for your organization to show transparency So some raffle rationalizations that we've heard people talk about when we do this program You know what how do people rationalize unethical behaviors? Sometimes it's as long as it doesn't hurt anyone as long as my decisions don't hurt anyone. It must be okay Or I've got it coming. They owe me. It's a good cause So victim mentality If it's necessary to ethical Not necessarily Everyone else is doing it. So the age-old adage, right? If you jumped off a bridge would would if you're all your friends jumped off a bridge would you do? and finally, it's a dumb rule and Maybe some laws you might consider dumb, but they're there to protect people and organizations. So Even though it may not make much sense to you um Ethical leadership is proven to lead to a better workplace and a more robust organization And it's really why we talk about ethical leadership is so people don't have to take the time to make these rationalizations You know ethical leadership is really leadership that demonstrates Respect for ethics and values and you want those ethics and values to be part of your organization and what your organization stands for so it's really Why this discussion is important in I think people it's not always a discussion that organizations have So we really want to make sure that Organizations take the time to recognize what their ethics and values are So I included this particular cartoon because I think it gets right to the point of the matter. So Probably familiar with Dilbert. This is the Dilbert cartoon by Scott Adams And so I acted ethically and emailed Scott Adams for permission to be able to use this for the program And so the cartoon reads like this. Have you taken the mandatory training for business ethics? No, but if you say I did then you'll have some money on training save some money on training Which you can spend to decorate your office Well, luckily I haven't taken the training myself. I hear it's mostly common sense anyway So when we talk about ethics It seems like your ethics and my ethics may not align And so like Andrew he said it's important to be talking about it as an organization. So what I might think is ethical if we don't talk about it or you might be divided in in In our ethical decision-making so it has to be a culture an organizational culture So characters really ethics and action. It's what you do when it's how you behave when you think no one is looking And we we have a lot of examples of what we talk about this and you know that yellow that yellow light I think a really common one lately is when you're driving and your phone is buzzing you're lighting up You know, it's you've got you've got that text waiting and the urge to read it is really strong But you know, you're driving and you need to focus on the road and so it's really important to Walk the walk and talk the talk I think When we talk about character and ethics and action, it's there's a lot of parallels to parenting You know, there's always there's always eyes watching you So I think that's an important concept when it comes to ethical leadership and leading a group If you wouldn't want your family to see it on the front page of the newspaper, don't do it You know, and we also recognize that we're all human and we make mistakes and those are going to happen But I think it's it's how we handle those mistakes also And just owning up to them and being honest about about what we've done So how do you practice ethical leadership? It's having a clear framework or an ethical mission So ethics can be really centered around respect for ethics values as well as rights and dignity of others It means that a work environment is governed by fair clear articulated set of rules rather than by personality or politics It should definitely be a topic of discussion If your organization or business work of place work of place of work, excuse me is not discussing ethics It can be left up to interpretation Ethical thought should be connected to ethical actions So as Andrea stated before walking the walk and talking the talk an ethical leadership surely is a shared process And I think it's important to just remember that the leader of an organization can really have a huge impact on on how that Organization is is run and and how it's perceived So duty as we travel across the state we've been into several communities now With our lead local program and had a lot of very meaningful discussions with different organizations and or Participants from different organizations. I should say And with that there's a lot of questions asked Do you want to start us off with maybe one of the most common questions that people ask? Right. So it never fails. It seems like every time we do lead local there's questions about public participation in meetings and People always seem to be surprised at the fact that just because you attend a public meeting Doesn't mean you have the the right to be heard so Let's say I I'm I would like to participate in a county commission meeting or a school board meeting or any Public meeting, okay, and so I show up and I have a problem with the road and I want to speak Does the county commission have to grant me permission? Do they have to allow me to talk Andrea? They don't have to let you talk and this is where we get into the I'd like to call it the layers of ethical leadership or ethical Organizations and so the losses that you don't have to let people speak at a public meeting But best practice is to let citizens have their voice heard So legally you don't have to let people speak at the meeting But it's a it's a good practice to have to let the public have their voice be heard But with that said it's always important to have some parameters For people to follow some guidelines, you know, typically they have to Request to be on the agenda ahead of time and also have some parameters that they have to follow as they only have a certain amount of time to speak And only only speak when when they're called on So I'll reference the office of the Attorney General. This is the North Dakota Attorney General and It's the open meetings guide and so I'll just read what it states about Participation in public meetings a member of the public has the right to attend an open meeting To record or broadcast the meeting but does not have the right to speak So as Andrea said it's best practice if you want to be heard at a meeting to call the county auditor or your Business manager or whatever the point of contact is for that particular organization and asked to be put on the agenda and Hope that you can be heard And so if there's a large contingent that shows up for a particular meeting The county commission or whomever the governing body is This is where it's important to use Robert rules of order and parliamentary procedures So you can you have the right to limit times people are spoken and how many times they can speak So if that's a particular issue, but again, that's pretty rare But it is important to follow those rules and ask to be on the agenda And then I'm quite confident that you would be given the opportunity to be heard But you do not have the legal right to be heard at a public meeting Thanks Jodi and that that leads me into another question that comes up a lot in that's about Noticing meetings and the agenda for the meeting so people know that there's something at the meeting that that interests them And one of the questions that we often get is you know, how far in advance does a meeting have to be noticed and Organizations that have set meetings monthly typically have a System in place where they're not noticing You know the newspaper Well in advance Their their website the front door of the building has the notice of the meeting well in advance Where this changes a little bit is when we get into special meetings and those have been happening a little bit more frequently at the changing times In our in our state in our nation and so those special meetings They need to be noticed as well But those special meetings are noticed as soon as the date and time and agenda is set for the meeting So there's not necessarily a set amount of time that needs to The the meeting needs to be noticed but just as soon as as that special meeting is set And this is come on at several and several of our lead local trainings where people are Confident that they have to let the newspaper or the TV station know two weeks in advance before the meeting Well again, I will reference the Attorney General's office meeting guide So meeting notices prior written notice is required for all meetings of a public entity including committees and subcommittees Generally, there is no me minimum advanced notice period for public meetings Okay, so an entity must provide public notice of the date time and location of the meeting when the governing body is notified So just like Andrea said, it's a good practice to post the agenda as soon as an entity realizes They need to have a meeting So they'll post that outside of the meeting place. Perhaps it's on a door or window Outside the office of let's say the business manager at the school If there's enough time, I know when let's again, I'll reference a county commission meeting They they meet every two weeks on a particular Monday morning The newspaper is waiting for that agenda and notice to be posted in the newspaper But again, if there happens to be a special meeting which there seems to be a lot of those right now As long as you make a valiant effort to let the public know perhaps that's on social media Or posting outside of the business place It's just good practice In most cases people don't mean to break the law But if you can be as transparent as possible, then there's never any chance for people to question your motives Yeah, I heard a really I think powerful statement the other day someone said, you know We just appreciate when organizations communicate a lot because when we when we don't get Communication from them and we feel like they're hiding something we feel like they're doing something wrong and Oftentimes organizations aren't even trying to do anything wrong They just aren't communicating what they're doing with people and so people get nervous when they don't know what's happening Right, even if you don't mean to be doing anything wrong or you have nothing to hide You know if it's left up with two interpretation if you're not being clear with the public What what are they thinking? So it's best to be as transparent as possible Yeah, I think in another thing that's important too is to if you ever have questions on these things You know what the what the law is and what it means to your organization reach out to your local States Attorney or your your parent organization whether it be the Association of Counties or League of Cities School Board Association They have resources available to help you and give you guidance to follow these open and open record and meeting guide Better to ask permission than forgiveness Definitely, is it is there any other questions that you get a lot Jodi when you Travel around the state Yeah, so one thing that's come up a couple of times is the kind of the debate about whether or not If you were appointed to be a committee by a public entity, do you have to abide by public meetings and open records laws and The question has been well if I'm a working group, let's say a county commission has They've created a working group or special committee to study something. So we don't have to abide by those open records laws Well, that's not really true. So again, I'll reference the Attorney General's document on open meetings guide It's actually one of the first first references on this document if a governing body delegate Any authority to two or more people the newly formed committee is subject to the open meetings law Even if the committee does not have final authority or it's just fact-finding. All right, so keep in mind If you're meeting on behalf of a public organization, you too are subject to those open meeting laws So again, it goes back to what we just talked about be transparent Even if you have nothing to hide and you're sure nobody will care That's when you get into trouble So I wonder if I shouldn't just mention to Andrea sometimes I know that We've also gotten a discussion about whether or not If a quorum happens to be At an auction sale or at another public event. Is that an open meeting? Yeah, that's a good question and that comes up a lot in you know anytime there's a quorum of a of an organization present and they're talking about Business, then they're actually holding a meeting The difference there is what they're talking about So when we have we still have counties that have only three commissioners So it's not in common for for them to all be in the same place in our small communities And they can easily have a conversation and not talk about business But the the question is what's the perception to the public when they see three commissioners Talking to each other so that gets into the you know, what's the law? what does the law say and What's the best practice and and what's the the public perception of of the discussion, right? After we had lead vocal in a community who will remain nameless Someone approached me and said all of our school board members vacation together and You know, they may now be breaking the law and They're probably not talking about public business, but what's the perception and so Again small communities people know each other. We're going to see people at public events. Maybe a wedding dance or Church event or school event and you know when you decide to become a leader and throw your hat in the ring know that you are open to that kind of scrutiny and And And we can't stress enough how important it is just to be aware of the perception that you're you're giving off Definitely, so we've talked about the the open meetings a lot There there are also some issues that come up with open records and one right now That's kind of relevant to everything that's happening quickly is just the sharing of information and How that information is shared So when you're a public entity and that's an entity that's receiving public funds, you know You are subject to these open record and meeting laws and that means that The records any documents you're sharing are subject to the the open records So we have to be careful when we're sharing information back and forth Not in the meeting so texts and emails Well that you can set up a time and date for a meeting there You don't want to be sharing actual business or having a back-and-forth discussion about anything business related. So don't hit reply all and Group texts aren't aren't necessarily a good thing unless it just says our next meeting is this date and time So Andrea brings up a good point So I've been referencing the open meetings guide and I'll reference the open records guide And she has the link up there for the Attorney General's website and these are just front and back really easy to Find kind of reference guides. We use them all the time So definition of a record Includes all recorded information regardless of physical form paper email computer file photograph Audio tape recording text, etc. And I think that's really important to keep in mind there was a Decision on the Attorney General's office homepage in regards to I think it was the Bismarck Public School and The opinion he had made in that the question was is some handwritten notes were requested and Someone had thrown the handwritten notes away and just typed up what had been on the notes and The Attorney General's opinion was that those handwritten notes should have been You know should have been kept with your regional meeting documents. So You know, even if there was no intent to be Deceptive or malicious Just know again to be completely transparent keep those documents Because you just don't know who will ask or request those particular documents And it's really important to set to make sure your organization has some conversations about ethics and about the open records and meeting guides You know, these guides are just a double-sided sheet of paper for Open records and one for open meetings So that's something every board member should have and there's also a manual that goes with each of those And that's a good thing for for someone to have on file typically like the secretary or the present So if you have any questions, it's easy to go on reference and then Jodi also mentioned, you know on the Attorney General's website They have all of their Opinions on there. So you can go and see some questions that have been asked about different Organizations and practices and see what their rulings were on them. And so that's a it's a great resource to utilize Do you have anything else that you wanted to add to Jodi? Things that have come up over the over time with discussions in communities We always have some interesting conversations I think I think the most important thing we've talked about it a lot is Your organization needs to have a culture. There's so many entities that we work with who have never had the discussion about ethics So is it ethical if we put a bid out for a particular construction project? I serve on the board and I also bid the project. Is that ethical? If your board has never had the discussion about whether or not We're going to act in an ethical manner Then you're trying to make those decisions When it might be too late. So have that discussion. We encourage you to talk about it before you need to You know present a front of Unity when it comes to respect and honesty And certainly transparency and we've talked about that a lot today. So If you have questions or you want to talk about ethical issues in your organization we have a number of reference materials that we use and welcome your comments on that and We look forward to seeing you again Thank you. Good luck communicating a transparency in your organization