​Leadership And Conflict Of Interest

Principled leadership means putting the interests of the co-op before your own interests, every time. And we do mean the interests of the co-op here, not the interests of the members, whether groups of them or all of them, which can be different.

Nothing compromises leadership more than a conflict of interest - making a decision about a matter in which you have a personal interest that is not shared by all the members.

It is important that directors learn about conflict of interest and the procedures in place to help avoid it. Because a director's first loyalty is always to the co-op, no matter how much the co-op's best interests may conflict with personal ones. When it comes to conflicts of interest directors should inform themselves and set the bar high.

There's a point here to be made about conflict of interest and housing charges. Directors have a very personal interest in how much the co-op's housing charges are, and this time it's a personal interest that is shared by all of the directors, by all of the members in fact. But when it comes to recommending housing charges to the members that support the co-op's annual budget, there can be only one interest in the minds of the directors: the financial requirements of the co-op. Directors need to set aside any thoughts about the effect of housing charge increases on them personally.

They also need to pay their housing charges on time, every time. Directors in arrears just don't have the moral authority to collect housing charges when they're not paying up themselves.

Good governance and principled leadership - you can't have one without the other

It's not hard to see that good governance and principled leadership are different sides of the same coin. Good governance for your co-op needs principled leadership from the members of the board. You can look at principled leadership as one of the key ingredients that goes into good governance. Good governance is the outcome.