"Good advice changes something. Great advice changes the right thing."
Ethics and Professional Standards in Consulting
Professor Sele: Consulting is a trust-based profession. Your clients share confidential information, depend on your independent judgment, and implement changes based on your advice. The ethical standards of this profession are not optional — they are what make the profession worth having.
Section 1 — The Consulting Code of Ethics
SafeHaven consultants are bound by the following ethical principles: Integrity — honest in all communications; never misrepresent findings, capabilities, or qualifications. Independence — provide objective advice; do not allow commercial, personal, or political interests to shape conclusions. Confidentiality — protect all client information before, during, and after the engagement. Competence — only accept engagements for which you have genuine expertise; never oversell capability. Accountability — own your work; stand behind your findings and recommendations, and acknowledge errors when they occur.
Section 2 — Managing Conflicts of Interest
A conflict of interest arises when a personal, financial, or professional interest could impair the consultant's ability to provide objective advice. All conflicts of interest must be: Disclosed to the client at the start of the engagement. Assessed — is the conflict manageable or does it require the consultant to step back? Managed — if manageable, document the conflict and the mitigation measures applied.
Undisclosed conflicts of interest are a serious professional ethics violation — they undermine the independence that is the consultant's primary value to the client.
Section 3 — Confidentiality in Consulting
Consulting engagements produce sensitive information about clients' security weaknesses, organisational failures, and strategic vulnerabilities. This information: is protected by the consulting contract and by professional ethics; must not be shared with third parties — including other clients — without explicit client consent; remains protected after the engagement ends; must be stored securely and disposed of appropriately when retention is no longer required.
Information learned about one client must never inform advice given to a competitor client — even implicitly.
Section 4 — Professional Development and Competence
A competent security consultant maintains and develops their expertise continuously: stays current on the Liberian security environment, regional developments, and international best practice; pursues professional certifications (ASIS CPP, ISO 31000 lead auditor, etc.) where relevant; maintains a network of professional peers for knowledge exchange and peer review; acknowledges the limits of their expertise and refers clients to appropriate specialists when a question falls outside their competence.
Accepting an engagement for which you are not competent is not only professionally unethical — it delivers real harm to clients who make decisions based on inadequate advice.
- •Consulting ethics: integrity, independence, confidentiality, competence, accountability
- •All conflicts of interest must be disclosed, assessed, and managed — undisclosed conflicts are an ethics violation
- •Client confidentiality continues after the engagement ends — forever
- •Never accept engagements outside your competence — the harm is real
- •Continuous professional development maintains the competence the code of ethics requires
"A client offered me a very significant contract on the condition that I would not work for a named competitor during the contract period. I had already agreed to advise the competitor on an unrelated matter. I disclosed both engagements to both clients. One said it was acceptable with agreed information barriers. The other declined to proceed. I lost the contract. What I kept was my integrity and my reputation for transparency — both of which produced better contracts in the years that followed. Professional reputation is a long-term asset. Protect it in every engagement, even when it costs you in the short term."
A security consultant's professional reputation is built on: