CPM Public Sector Leadership & Ethics 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: A public manager discovers that a long-standing departmental policy conflicts with a newly enacted state ethics law. What is the most appropriate first action?
- Continue following the departmental policy until formally updated
- Immediately suspend the policy and notify legal counsel and supervisors (Correct answer)
- Ignore the conflict and wait for guidance from elected officials
- Enforce whichever rule is more convenient for current operations
Correct answer: Immediately suspend the policy and notify legal counsel and supervisors
When departmental policy conflicts with law, a public manager must stop the conflicting practice and escalate to legal counsel immediately.
Question 2: Which leadership style is most effective when managing a crisis that requires rapid, decisive action with little time for consultation?
- Laissez-faire leadership
- Transformational leadership
- Directive (autocratic) leadership (Correct answer)
- Servant leadership
Correct answer: Directive (autocratic) leadership
Directive leadership provides clear, quick decisions essential during a crisis when speed outweighs the benefits of participation.
Question 3: The concept of 'stewardship' in public sector leadership primarily means:
- Managing public resources as a trustee on behalf of citizens (Correct answer)
- Prioritizing the agency's budget growth over service delivery
- Delegating all resource decisions to subordinate staff
- Maintaining strict confidentiality about financial expenditures
Correct answer: Managing public resources as a trustee on behalf of citizens
Stewardship holds that public managers are trustees of taxpayer resources and must act in the public's best interest.
Question 4: An employee reports to you that a colleague is falsifying time records. Under public sector ethics frameworks, you should:
- Counsel the reporting employee to resolve it directly with the colleague
- Document the report and initiate an investigation per agency policy (Correct answer)
- Dismiss the report if the colleague is a high performer
- Wait to see if the behavior continues before taking action
Correct answer: Document the report and initiate an investigation per agency policy
Ethics frameworks require managers to document and investigate credible reports of misconduct through proper channels.
Question 5: Equity as an ethical principle in public management requires that managers:
- Treat every citizen identically regardless of their circumstances
- Distribute services fairly, accounting for differing needs and vulnerabilities (Correct answer)
- Prioritize service delivery to politically connected constituents
- Reduce costs by concentrating resources in high-income areas
Correct answer: Distribute services fairly, accounting for differing needs and vulnerabilities
Equity means allocating resources based on need, not uniformity, to achieve fair outcomes across diverse populations.
Question 6: A public manager who consistently takes credit for team accomplishments while deflecting blame to subordinates is violating which ethical principle?
- Confidentiality
- Accountability (Correct answer)
- Efficiency
- Transparency
Correct answer: Accountability
Accountability requires public managers to honestly accept responsibility for both successes and failures of their unit.
Question 7: Which of the following best describes 'bounded rationality' as it applies to public sector decision-making?
- Decision-makers have unlimited information and always choose optimally
- Decision-makers work within cognitive and informational limits, seeking satisfactory solutions (Correct answer)
- Public managers must defer all decisions to elected officials
- Rational decisions can only be made when there is no political pressure
Correct answer: Decision-makers work within cognitive and informational limits, seeking satisfactory solutions
Bounded rationality, coined by Herbert Simon, acknowledges that managers 'satisfice' — finding good-enough solutions given cognitive and resource constraints.
CPM Public Sector Leadership & Ethics 2
A public manager discovers that a long-standing departmental policy conflicts with a newly enacted state ethics law.
What is the most appropriate first action?