The Relationship Between Leadership and Rules of Conduct in Instilling Ethical Behaviour: Case of City of Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality

Abstract

This research set out to find out what factors drive the ethical conduct of municipal staff members in the City of Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality (CTMM). The rules of municipalities as well as the conduct of the leaders under which the officials serve directly influence the standard of ethics attainable. An understanding of what factors influence the choices made by individual officials is imperative for the attainment of a good ethical standard of behaviour. This will assist municipalities like the CTMM to know what drives its staff members to act and behave ethically at their job, especially when dealing with the public. In this study, a qualitative approach in terms of interviews as a data collection instrument and unobtrusive research techniques was adopted. Staff members from the Human Resource Division and the Operational Division of the Department of Public Works of the CTMM were specifically targeted for the interviews. Responses were obtained online from front desk officers, supervisors, operational managers and human resource managers within the constraints imposed by the Coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic restrictions on business operations and the data analysis was coded using ATLAS.Ti. The codes were grouped to extricate the embedded themes and deductions were made from the evolution of the themes.