7 habits of successful police officers

If you want to be the kind of officer that others respect and want to emulate, this is what it takes to get there


What personal traits do you have to possess for your peers and the public to think you’re one helluva cop? In other words, what does it take these days to be a successful police officer?

We previously reported the views of nationally known trainer Kevin Davis on the qualities of a successful policing agency. Now we’ve asked Davis to construct a companion list, itemizing the attributes of successful officers, those stand-out hard-chargers who are best constituted to take care of business effectively and legally in even the most challenging assignments.

“Success is not defined by time on the job,” says Davis, a veteran with a medium-size municipal agency in northeast Ohio. “You may bring some of these qualities with you when you start on the job and you can develop them all regardless of tenure.”

These traits are not all-inclusive, nor are they static goals, he points out. “They require constant nurturing and reinforcement. But in my observation and experience, if you want to be the kind of officer that others respect and want to emulate, this is the core of what it takes to get there.”

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