The rules of the Code of Professional Conduct for Management Consultants take into account several aspects to assess the professionalism and ethical behaviour of consultants:

Knowledge and skills. This is the foundation of consultants’ professional behaviour. First and foremost, a consultant must have the knowledge and skills required by specific clients. Any consultant should critically evaluate his or her knowledge and experience when exploring the feasibility of a new assignment or when a situation arises during a project that requires additional knowledge and skills. A professional consultant will never accept an assignment for which he or she lacks the skills, even if he or she is unemployed and ready to take on any assignment.

Preventing conflicts of interest. How to avoid conflict between the interests of the client and the counsellor is one of the most sensitive issues of professionalism and ethics of counselling. The goal of counselling is to achieve the best possible results in the client’s best interest. Therefore, when agreeing to work for a client, a professional counsellor will never allow his/her interests to conflict with the client’s interests.

Objectivity and impartiality. Professional consultants strive to be as objective and impartial as possible, free from bias, try to keep emotions under control and not let prejudices affect the quality of services and recommendations. A consultant, if he is a true professional, will refuse to work on a project if he is unable to guarantee his objectivity.

Confidentiality. This is a universal principle that professional consultants adhere to. The disclosure by a consultant of any information about his client, as well as the use of such information for the purpose of obtaining benefits and advantages for himself, his firm or other clients, is absolutely unacceptable. The client must be confident that he or she can trust the adviser.

Commissions. Whether an adviser pays or receives commissions is a sensitive issue. The prevailing attitude of professional counsellors is as follows. It is considered unethical to pay a commission to a client in order to obtain an order. It is also contrary to the code of ethics for a consultant to agree to accept a commission in exchange for recommendations made in the right way. However, it is considered normal practice for a consultant to pay remuneration to specific individuals or organisations who have recommended him or her to a client. However, the client must be made aware of this and should not object to it.

Adequacy of costs. Professional counsellors assume that the benefits derived from the provision of counselling services should be commensurate with the costs incurred by the client. In other words, the ethics of management consulting suggests that consultants should demand a “normal” or “reasonable” fee for their services that is consistent with current standards and practices of the profession.

Public interest and client ethics. In the practice of counselling, situations arise where the client’s interests conflict with the interests of society. The counsellor may find the client’s actions to be harmful and undesirable to society, or even illegal, according to societal norms or personal opinion. In such situations, an ethical consultant will refuse to undertake the project. On the other hand, the consultant can add significant value by helping to reduce the harmful consequences of decisions and improve the social responsibility of the client’s business.