Monday, 21stOctober 2013 (North Side, Anguilla) —The Department of Youth and Culture, Anguilla National Youth Council and Anguillian Youth Ambassadors, organisedan Open Mic Forum on “Promoting Good Governance in Anguilla”, which was heldon Tuesday evening, 15th October 2013. Whilst I’d planned to attend in person, instead I listened to the event broadcast live on Radio Anguilla 95.5 FM.
There were some interesting questions posed by young people in the audience and fitting comments made by knowledgeable panellists. Words spoken got me to thinking about the question, “What is good governance in today’s world?” I heard one of the speakers mention the word integrity, and I thought of how the attributes of ethics and integrity have weighed heavily on my mind. Since last year, I started composing an article on this theme yet the timing for publication didn’t’ seem quite appropriate. I put the draft aside and now, 17 months later, I find myself returning again to write on this subject.
I find myself being inspired by Spirit to put into black and white print the ideas that I’ve had rambling around in my head. It is my hope that these words will help raise our society’s conscious awareness of good governance and the fundamental necessity for us to uphold certain standards to move Anguilla forward. This concept of Move Anguilla Forward seems to be the underpinning of my recent opinion editorials.Perhaps that is because I feel a divine purpose to put my God-given creative writing talents to good use composing well-written, public messages that will encourage the uplifting of people of all ages, especially the youth.
We adults need to step up to the plate and start becoming empowering leaders to guide the children and young people forward. I opine that we need to allow persons who are forward thinking to take the front rows and show us how to bring forth positive changes, so that we don’t continue to fall prey to individuals who are incapable of leading us. It’s important that we choose leadership that has a firm foundation in maintaining ethics and integrity, honesty and truth, respect and diplomacy, courtesy and good manners, as we have witnessed being upheld by President Barack Hussein Obama, and as we’re observing with Her Excellency the Governor, Christina Scott.
What are ethics and integrity?
For a number of years, my father taught an ethics course to dental school students at university and I learned from him. The word ethics is a noun that describes the study of morality’s effect on conduct or a code of morality. Some of the synonyms used for this word are morals, beliefs, integrities, consciences, principles, moral code, moral principles and moral values.
Integrity, which is also a noun, refers to honesty, truth, truthfulness, honour, veracity (meaning a true statement), reliability and uprightness, and is defined as a possession of firm principles. You may ask, “What does the word principles mean?” Principles can be described as ethical standards, a way of working, source or characteristic ingredient – and are synonymous with values, philosophies, ideologies, moralities, doctrines and main beliefs.
On principle because of a particular ethical standard that persons believe in, we have observed unethical practices that have occurred in the workplace in areas such as recruitment and retention of employees. We have also been observant of the lack of ethics and integrity with a number of elected representatives of the people, civil servants, business owners, church leaders, and other individuals in society. I believe there is a direct correlation between a person having strong positive principles and practicing good governance.
As human beings, we fall short of the greatness of God, the Creator. Yet I realise that we were each created perfectly imperfect giving us room for improvement. Everyone of us can and must monitor our behaviour.How we behave towards others does matter.We have to contemplate our own actions and create measurable ways to do better, particularly in the areas of ethics and integrity, being truthful and honest, respectful and diplomatic, courteous and with good manners.
Do people maintain ethics and integrity in today’s world?
In today’s world no matter the rank in an organisation or status in society,people don’t seem to be as concerned about maintaining superior ethical standards. Gone are the days when everyone cared for one another, had understanding and compassion for family members, friends, neighbours, colleagues, and even strangers like the Good Samaritan in the Bible.
We’re so wrapped up in focussing on earning money to pay bills,acquiring material wealth and achieving our goals – that sometimes we don’t care how we go about doing what we do or whom we trample upon to get whatever it is that we want.In the reality of today’s fast paced, technology oriented world, do we even recognise how what we do or how we act – the actions that we often times take – can and do have a negative or positive impact on our own life, as well as the lives of others?
An individual’s life can easily be torn asunder because of another person’s lack of principles. So we must stop and actually contemplate how we can operate from a level of ethics and integrity in our everyday lives.We must bring to the forefront what we observe that needs to be corrected and have the courage to take bold decisive steps and actions to create the necessary positive changes. When we become more consciously aware of what we do, what we say, and how we act, we can create a huge shift in how we interact with people.
One way to begin this process is to start educating and training in this area from pre-schoolers to senior citizens. Those who know how to conduct themselves properly can teach, and those who don’t know can learn.
Raising children with proper training in ethics and integrity
Perhaps our first steps should be to return to the basic principles of “villages raising children” to teach and remind us all that ethics and integrity are an integral part of everything that we do. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, neighbours, teachers, and anyone in the community or with a family connection, shouldn’t hesitate to correct a child’s or even an adult’s misbehaviour – and with loving kindness, or sometimes sternness when necessary, informing the person when he or she is acting up, headed “down the wrong path”, or out of alignment with set standards.
On the job training to maintain high standards
Employers, supervisors and managers have a responsibility to set high standards and to provide training for the people that they have employed and manage or supervise.In each of our organisations, we must maintain this level ofstandards, and assist in training all staff, management and executives toconduct ourselves in this manner. As servant leaders, whose primary purpose is to build up people, we must lead by example. Our mission and vision statements mustsupportethical standards and procedures that have been put in place in all of our organisational and business practices. We haveto ensure these standards are maintained, monitor the compliance, and take appropriate corrective measures for improvementwhenever an individual, even ourselves, isn’t performing up to par.
Creating ethics and integrity in the work place
We mustopenly discusshow to create ethics and integrity in the workplace, and address issues such as unethical practices employers may use to disqualify job applicants or to fire employees,employees who behave irresponsibly regarding assigned duties, or how public servants might not treat all visitors and residents in a cordial manner. Furthermore, we need to speak out when our elected representatives behave rudely towards each other, as well as towards developers who are interested in helping us create employment opportunities for people on Anguilla.
May be if we had more regular town hall meetings with well-trained moderators who intercede when persons speak out of turn or in a discourteous manner, then the public could address such matters with faith in somebody to keep order by maintaining certain standards of dignity, courtesy and respect. If all of our elected leaders, and every person who is in a position of authority, would uphold these positive attributes, both on and off the job, then perhaps we would be able to practice good governance in all departments and organisations.
So how do we promote ethics, integrity and good governance practices?
We could begin by providing education and training to government ministers in the art of effective communications, diplomacy, courtesy, respect for others, ethics, integrity, speaking the truth and other relevant areas. To paraphrase a comment made by one of the panellists in the Open Mic Forum, we need to educate and train our politicians like people have to do in other professions (i.e. doctors, barristers and teachers). Perhaps a school of diplomacy could teach the political leaders how they should behave in public, so as not to be an embarrassment to the people whom they are supposed to serve.I dare say that we would have better governance practices if this were a requirement for elected officials.
I believe that if we want to promote practicing good governance on Anguilla, then we need to start with the basics of building high standards in ethics and integrity, truth and honesty along with transparency. Not only do we as adults need to practice these excellent attributes, but we need to teach them to our children and young people. We need to set examples through our own actions, so there will be no hypocrisy, and everyone can learn from what each person actually witnesses in our own behaviour and the words that we speak and write. The younger generations are supposed to learnfrom us.Thus, we need to set good examples for them.
As well, we need to have more youths speaking up, taking leadership roles, showing us older adults how to change, what new in-roads or paths to create and follow. They are the ones to lead us into a better future. Besides, the youths who have taken on such roles can inspire and motivate their peers to follow suit, and the adults can encourage and mentor young people to becomegood leaders by showing them that we are.
Fortunately, I have found that most young persons are willing to learn – they want to learn. It’s just that we older adults, who have stagnant mindsets, are accustomed to doing things the same old way. We don’t recognise the true potential of youth. We aren’t always quick to change, unless we’ve learned life’s lessons are all about change, and we must be willing to change in order to move forward.
Conclusion on creating good governance best practices
For us to have good governance, to build towards improving how we govern our nation, every public servant, every department head, every elected representative, and every person in our nation, must uphold high standards of ethics and integrity,honesty and truth, respect and diplomacy, courtesy and good manners. No exceptions to maintaining these attributes can be made. Otherwise, the future for all of us will be far less bright and we, as God’s people, will perish.
We all must be the instruments of the changes that we wish to be. We must do whatever we are capable of doing to move ourselves and Anguilla forward.
May God continue to blesseach one of us, as we work together for the benefit of the entire communityinour cherished Caribbean island of Anguilla!
Kay M. Ferguson is a Creative Professional Writer and Editor, whowholeheartedly believes in maintainingthe high standards of ethics and integrity in which she was trained. Tolink with Kay, you may callher mobile 1.264.476.8735 or US andline1.206.388.4848. You cane-mail her atanguillawriter@gmail.com or send an e-message at www.facebook.com/kaymferguson,www.linkedin.com/kay-m-ferguson or tweet#@kaykayferguson.
