Ethical charity governance is revealed not in policy documents, but in how leaders act when pressure tests their values, writes Suneet Sharma.
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Ethics in charity governance is where the gap between policies and practices lies- it shows in what happens when approaches are tested under pressure. These instances are not always predictable or easy to navigate. But you can be prepared for these challenges by being proactive rather than reactive, thinking ahead and modelling strong ethical practices yourself.

Ethics as imperative
If you are a leader in a charity ethical practice is a cultural imperative. It cannot be delegated or derogated. It should be practiced openly even whilst under pressure. That is non-negotiable.

The Chair who lapses into disengagement or avoidance in the face of challenge has made a choice. The Board who collectively refuses to grapple with matters central to their duties, favouring the way things have been done unquestioningly, has made a choice. The trustee who clearly has not read the papers has made a choice.

The hallmarks of ethical governance show themselves in resistance to these choices- that is the imperative.

Meeting the imperative requires three hallmarks: high levels of personal responsibility and cultural ownership and, perhaps the most challenging, consistency.

The individual imperative – bring these hallmarks into your own practice
Self-reflection is key. Building a sense of personal responsibility yourself can take time. Ask yourself, where you have shown ethical rigor or lapse openly and interrogate how you navigate these challenges over time. A commitment to personal development is important to shaping your approach and entrenching ethics over time.

Where possible keep notes of moments worth remembering. Do you find engaging with a particular individual difficult? Do you respond to pressures from different trustees differently? Where could you be more consistent, fair and rigorous? Having this knowledge bank helps you spot patterns, anticipate problems and safeguard your approach. Knowing your blind spots is as important as knowing your strengths in this regard in this context.

Lean into ethical discussion. Most conversations particularly at Board will surface these on close inspection. Practice transparency, openness, and honesty and work to model these behaviours yourself. In doing so note how the collective culture reacts to your approaches. How are your challenges, questions and directives responded to? This can be a litmus test to opening discussions with colleagues and unpacking any ethical challenges you identify. Personal responsibility, however rigorous, has structural limits. The conditions that make ethical practice sustainable are held by the collective.

The cultural collective – building the three hallmarks together
No-one is in this alone. These hallmarks can be navigated in Boards as a standard shown by the collective as well as individually. The skill is in making the presence of others compound the right behaviours rather than lapse into group think or collective derogation.

Think of it as a system of checks and balances. If a Board member lapses into derogation a skilled Chair can softly bring them back to the right path or a Board buddy can establish a place for them to reflect and develop. Building a shared culture towards these behaviours gains and keeps momentum. That is invaluable. A Board and SLT that supports each other and holds each other accountable navigates these more effectively than any individual would alone. A tip is to do this consciously as an embedded matter of culture and spread the responsibility- it prevents a single point of failure. The Chair and CEO one-to-ones are
helpful to surface issues early and build this culture deliberately.

As a trustee had an instance where the charity’s financial health was in question. Under pressure difficulties arose and I worked with an operational colleague to set an ethical baseline and second line of defence to ensure robust decision making and discretion. Having an ally in these instances is important and invaluable- ultimately it safeguarded the process better than self-reliance alone would have.

Building consistency
The most difficult of the three to maintain, consistency requires continuous ethical focus and application. In my experience, environments where the cultural hallmarks are present,
consistency becomes a feature built upon the foundation.

Boards get into healthy practices that compound momentum here: asking about conflicts at each meeting rather than glossing over the item, responding constructively to open challenges and asking consciously how to show up ethically in their decision making.

Continuous learning is vital. A board or team that invests time in, unpacks and reflects on its approach candidly will build towards consistency at a rapid rate. Consistent open discussion and constructive challenge is in itself a symptom of ethical culture. Welcoming the challenge, it presents, and acknowledging that it produces better decisions, is important. A Board or team that is continuously focused on doing without interrogating the method or means loses its way quickly.

Without reflection, what is conversation degrades into accusations of weaponisation of values, culture clash and polarisation. I was once part of a charity where multiple opportunities to safeguard were missed as a result of poor practices and politicisation, despite my warnings. An approach that was consistently ethical and rigorous would have easily caught the failures. The cost is plain. The need for the hallmarks is clear.

Personal responsibility, cultural ownership, consistency are all observable in practice. Recognising them takes work. Embedding them consciously and collectively is what makes ethical culture sustainable. That is how the imperative is met.

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