Chief Officers & the Police Code of Conduct: some questions

I have been doing some more pondering on the new police Code of Ethics this morning and some questions occurred to me: specifically in relation to the Chief Officers, on whom this Code will succeed or fail. (Please forgive the messy formatting - Blogger can be a bit clunky at times)

Chief officers | 1.4.3 As the head of your force or organisation you will:	Some Questions…
·        show by personal example how the principles and standards in this Code apply	Ø How will you help people to discern the connections between your personal example and the various standards? Ø On the basis that illustrating the standards through story telling is likely to engender greater understanding, what stories do you need to tell?
·        promote, support and reinforce ethical behaviour at all times	Ø What differential actions will you take (separately) to promote… support… and reinforce etc? Ø How will you build the Code of Ethics explicitly into your recruitment & promotion processes? Ø What resources (if any) will you need to redeploy to do all this?
·        show moral courage to do the right thing even in the face of criticism	Ø What is the right thing? Ø Where do your personal morals, Code of Ethics & the Law overlap, and where do they not? Ø From whom do you expect to face criticism for doing the right thing? (Who has criticised you in the past?)
·        be consistent in what you do and say	Ø Have there ever been any times when what you said and did were not consistent (at or away from work, as the Code demands)? Ø What did you learn from these occasions? Ø How much of this is about being consistent or being seen (by others) to be consistent?
·        promote openness and transparency within policing and to the public	Ø How much will it matter to you that you might promote but don’t achieve the openness and transparency that you think is needed? Ø What (if any) conflicts do you foresee between openness / transparency and other parts of the Code of Ethics? Ø How will you promote and achieve understanding of where these conflicts might be and how to resolve them?
·        promote fairness and equality in the workplace	Ø How much will it matter to you that you might promote but don’t achieve the fairness and equality that you think is needed? Ø What (if any) conflicts do you foresee between fairness / equality and other parts of the Code of Ethics? Ø How will you promote and achieve understanding of where these conflicts might be and how to resolve them?
·        create and maintain an environment where you encourage challenge and feedback	Ø When was the last time you carried out a 360˚ feedback appraisal for yourself? Ø How much overlap was there between the 360˚ tool and the Code of Ethics? Ø How confident are you that your Whistle-blowing systems are fit for purpose & working well? Ø What action can you take to ensure all leaders actively encourage challenge and feedback?
·        be flexible and willing to change a course of action if necessary.	Ø Are you able to recall a time when you didn’t change a course of action when it was necessary? Ø In the context of the Code, what do you interpret this point as really being about? Ø How many of the above questions seem irritatingly picky and pointless to you since once the Code of Ethics is loaded on the intranet as a self-study mini-course, everything will be hunky dory…