Leadership
Preparing for the future is an ongoing process that begins the first day on the job
Your subordinates will look to you for answers in the moment of truth. Will you be ready for them?
From grappling to weapon retention, this year’s “What Cops Want” survey responses reveal what skills officers say are missing and how training programs can evolve
Learn about how to curb abuse in your agency or facility
Study of J. Edgar Hoover’s life reveals that he was one of the most successful leaders in law enforcement history, regularly demonstrated the following traits of great leadership
Just as we expect our best leaders to be highly competent, credible, and genuine, we also expect those traits from the best followers
As a police chief, if you got hit by a bus tomorrow, would someone in your agency be ready to step into your role?
Here are four keys to making accountability and responsibility touchstones of your leadership, and of your agency as a whole
Here are two things you can do to prepare yourself to be a more knowledgeable — and therefore more attractive — candidate for the position
Are these qualities you already possess — thus making you an innovative investigator — or are they qualities you might add to your set of skills to improve your ability to lead your investigations?
The facts leading to the conclusion that there is a pattern of citizen mistreatment — quite deliberately encouraged by Ferguson’s city governance — are sound
In many places, failure to cooperate with other public safety entities is not an option – there’s no embarrassment in asking for help when the situation requires it
Any person in (or seeking) a position of leadership must develop the ability to do collaborative work — this is becoming an increasingly more important aspect of leadership
To become a police chief, most individuals follow one of two paths, either rising through the ranks within their department, or coming in from the outside
Foundational knowledge, coupled with solid ethical guidance, is always the path to success
Even if your department uses a set rotation that repeats every X days, there are always exceptions that have to be factored in for vacations, training, sick time, and other minutiae of working life
In a small agency, the police leader may work shoulder-to-shoulder with officers on the street, and kinship felt among officers and leaders in such cases must be managed as an asset and not a liability
Bad leaders don’t want feedback — or simply ignore it when given — but courageous leaders crave feedback and seek it on a daily basis
Employee mistrust of police leadership contaminates relations with communities — then, when emotionally charged incidents occur, the already-strained connection breaks apart
Chief Malasuk took a mission statement and built a culture around it, holding officers liable for their own success
Do not lose sight of the fact that law enforcement is — and has always been — one of the most prestigious professions
Morale is a thermometer for the health of your department
Those in supervisory and leadership roles can either be motivators or morale busters to the organization depending upon the approach of those police supervisors
Some people calling for changes in policing probably do have a handle on the answers to those questions, but I contend that many do not
Chief Bret Farrar and Assistant Chief Mike Zaro have quietly done a lot of work in speaking with — and working with — agencies about what happened in Lakewood, the aftermath, and the lessons learned
“The great need for anyone in authority is courage.” — Alistair Cooke
Tell any 100 cops that law enforcement suffers from bad leadership and 99 will agree — the one who doesn’t is probably the chief
There is a vast under-reporting on assaults against our officers, and it is not the fault of the FBI — it is the fault of police leadership
Working street cops, supervisors, and FTOs who transition new officers from the academy to the street are the real experts in the assessment and training of new cops
President Ronald Reagan’s “Trust, but verify” policy on ensuring that the Soviet Union was holding up their end of the deal on reducing the nuclear weapon stockpile isn’t a bad idea for police supervisors
When the public hear no comment they think the police did something wrong and are trying to cover it up — when the officers from the involved agency hear it they feel angry and betrayed by their leader
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