NHRI Leadership: an introductory guide discussions at commission meetings should be treated as confidential outside the NHRI, including where the matter concerns people who are or could be at risk or where the matter concerns confidential personal information, for example, relating to staff. At each commission meeting, commissioners should declare any actual, possible or perceived conflict of interest in relation to any item on the agenda and then withdraw from the discussion of that item. Where an actual, possible or perceived conflict of interest arises during the course of the meeting, the commissioner concerned should immediately declare the conflict and withdraw from further discussion of the matter in question. All declarations of conflict of interest should be recorded in the minutes of the commission meeting, along with a statement that the commissioner concerned withdrew from discussion of any matter to which the conflict was relevant. 4. The senior executive officer The SEO is the most senior staff position in the NHRI. The SEO usually reports directly to the institution head. The position may report to the commission in a commission-model institution. All staff then report to the SEO directly or indirectly through the NHRI’s particular staffing structure. The position of SEO is located as the pivot within the NHRI, between the top leaders and the staff. The top leaders are statutory office holders with independent mandates, legal roles and responsibilities, and very public accountability directly to the parliament. The staff are generally civil servants, or equivalent to civil servants, who operate within a hierarchical structure according to the rules and procedures of civil service or equivalent employment The SEO has to meet requirements, expectations and demands from above and below. This position, therefore, can be the most difficult and the most challenging within an NHRI. Often neither the top leaders nor the staff appreciate this inherent difficulty. To be effective the SEO needs the support both of the top leaders of the institution and of other staff leaders and the staff generally. The SEO’s most important roles are to be the principal adviser to the top leaders and the enabler of their work. The SEO needs to have a broad overview both of the human rights context of the country and of the work of the NHRI so as to be able to advise the top leaders. This does not mean detailed knowledge of everything – that is not possible. But it does require a good general understanding of the human rights situation and of national and international human rights law. As the enabler, the SEO must also have expertise and experience in management at a senior level. That is required to be able to implement the NHRI’s strategic and operational plans and its policy and other decisions. The SEO must manage, monitor and report on the NHRI’s implementation of its policies and procedures affecting staffing and resourcing, including those relating to gender equality and gender mainstreaming. These two roles of adviser and enabler are the essential dimensions of the SEO’s pivotal role within the NHRI. The SEO manages the NHRI on behalf of the institution head and, in a commission-model NHRI, the commission collectively. The top leaders set the direction, the strategy and the priorities and allocate the resources and then the SEO operationalises it all. The SEO is responsible for day-today management. Difficulties can arise where the top leaders involve themselves excessively in day-to-day management. For example, staff can become confused when they receive instructions from both top leaders and their direct superviser. They may not know whose instructions to carry out, what instructions to carry out in the case of inconsistency or to whom they are accountable. As a result, lines of direction, supervision and accountability break down and the NHRI’s operations 22