Editor’s Note: This week’s PoliceOne First Person essay is from PoliceOne Member Patrick J. Welsh, who retired in 2012 after a 26-year career with the Dayton (Ohio) Police Department. In PoliceOne “First Person” essays, our Members and Columnists candidly share their own unique view of the world. This is a platform from which individual officers can share their own personal insights on issues confronting cops today, as well as opinions, observations, and advice on living life behind the thin blue line. If you want to share your own perspective with other P1 Members, simply send us an e-mail with your story.
By Pat Welsh
Police1 Member
In Danger, Duty and Disillusion: The Worldview of L.A. Police Officers (Waveland Press, 1999), author Joan C. Barker conducted extensive research and interviews of officers, from recruit class to retirement. Her findings identified five phases of a law enforcement career:
1.) Idealism,
2.) Competence,
3.) Disillusion,
4.) Resolution, and
5.) Retirement.
Her research and findings regarding the culture of the law enforcement profession highlight the exigency executives need to recognize in hiring, training and supporting their officers and supervisors.
Law enforcement executives need to recognize that as the profession has gone from strict law enforcers to problem solving to community oriented policing, the front line officer has not been a part of the process.
Police executives have employed management styles ranging from a strict paramilitary structure, to micro-managing, to partnership management. Each has its pros and cons, but the failure of each of these styles can be found in executive’s not understanding the career phases their various staff is in at any given point. Many executives are trying to do the right thing, for the right reasons, at the right time, but are doing it in the wrong way.
This failure fosters the culture of death many agencies are experiencing. The death of morale, the death of hope, the death of protecting and serving — all are symptoms of a larger problem. The lack of morale and satisfactory performance are not the problems. They are the result, or symptoms, of a greater organizational disease — ineffective executive leadership.
The executive leadership, or lack thereof, is mimicked by those being led.
If the organizational leadership philosophy is, “Do it because I said so,” then the rank and file will treat the citizens they encounter the same way.
And, citizen complaints will flow often and with greater passion. Repeated citizen complaints eventually devolve into allegations of civil rights violations — and for some agencies a DOJ investigation. Law enforcement executives are then faced with “what do we do now?”
The Path to Real Leadership
Police executives can start by looking at where the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice goes during their investigations of police agencies. This section of the DOJ uses information from a variety of sources, including, but not limited to: community members, agency officers, incident reports, policy and procedures, agency documents and practices.
Police executives can do the very same thing — before bad things happen.
Either on their own initiative, or with the assistance of trained mediation professional’s, police executives can begin the process of communicating with the community and their officers, as persons not objects.
I believe that Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box (The Arbinger Institute, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc, 2010) is a must read for police executives and supervisors to get on the path of achieving organizational team work and positive police-community results. It is more than the “thinking outside the box” lexicon preached on the leadership circuit — it is a pointed analysis and helpful guide to get out of the box and stay out of it.
By the way, that box looks an awful lot like a coffin — where all the dead weight of your department is piled up.
Every member of the department needs to get mentally tough and achieve real results of protection, service and leadership. Every officer, supervisor and executive is capable of being a true leader — in their cruiser, on their squad, in their division, on their department.
Supervisors can legitimately assign responsibility to others, without assessing blame. Shortcomings — or even failures — should be an opportunity to learn and grow. Discipline can be handed down without destroying motivation and good performance. Everyone has responsibilities and shortcomings — but that doesn’t justify treating others as objects of scorn and blame.
Every member of the organization should, rather than looking for excuses and assigning blame, ask themselves these four questions in everything they do:
Am I...
• Doing the right thing?
• At the right time?
• In the right way?
• For the right reasons?
If the answer is “yes” to each question, then the organization is following the path of leadership. If the answer is no to any one of the questions, then the organization is on the path of cultural death. This is a profession to “Protect and Serve” others, not ourselves.
Every member of the department needs to step out of their coffin and step into their cruiser as a true warrior dedicated to a career of leadership, protection and service. It is their duty and their calling.
Police executives can, and must, lead by example. The resurrection of department morale and improved performance won’t happen overnight.
It won’t happen by just writing a new Vision Statement.
It won’t happen by issuing new and improved Manuals of Procedure and Executive Orders.
New life for departments and the communities they serve will be hard work. It will involve setting aside ego’s and pre-judgments, not only by department members, but by community leaders and their followers. Police executives can either choose to engage in risk management through displaying and fostering leadership, or crisis management when the inevitable disaster strikes.
Part Three (to be posted two weeks from today) will explore the lessons learned by a major culturally diverse city and its police department when a handcuffed African-American prisoner broke out a cruiser window and leapt off a bridge to his death.
About the Author
Major Patrick J. Welsh retired in 2012, after a 26-year career with the Dayton Police Department (Ohio) and now lives in Colorado. Major Welsh began his 30-year criminal justice career as a Prosecutor in 1982. In 1986 he answered his calling to a career in law enforcement and joined the Dayton Police Department, where he served as a Patrolman/Detective, Patrol Sergeant , Lieutenant (Operations, Narcotics and CID) and Major (Operations). Major Welsh was a certified instructor for OPOTA, teaching both recruit classes and in-service training. Major Welsh is a graduate of the FBINA, the Police Executive Leadership College and member of IACP. Major Welsh is also a member of the John Maxwell Team, the leading professional group of coaches, trainers and speakers on leadership. Major Welsh is a team instructor with the Southern Police Institute (SPI) on the Legal Issues in Prosecuting Homicide Cases. Major Welsh is the founder and President of PJ Welsh and Associates, LLC. His website is a free LEO resource on a wide range of law enforcement issues including: leadership, legal updates, training and courtroom testimony. Major Welsh can be contacted through his website, www.CourtSurvival.com.
