By Dr. Danny L. McGuire, Jr.
An officer has just been involved in a use-of-force incident. No one appears seriously injured, but the scene is loud, confused and recorded from three directions. One officer is talking too much. Another has shut down. Dispatch keeps asking for updates. A commander wants answers.
The supervisor arrives already angry because the radio traffic sounded undisciplined. Before getting the facts, the supervisor begins correcting officers in public, snaps at dispatch and argues with a witness. Then comes a promise about what will happen next, before anyone knows whether it can be kept.
Within five minutes, the original incident is no longer the department’s only problem.
This is a composite example, but experienced supervisors have seen some version of it. The supervisor may know policy, tactics and the law. The intent may be sound. What is missing in that moment is command of self.
That is the hidden leadership danger in policing: A supervisor can remain technically functional while becoming operationally unreliable.
Rank is not self-command
Self-command is the ability to keep pressure, ego, fatigue and emotion from taking unauthorized command of your behavior. It does not mean feeling nothing. It does not require becoming passive, soft or endlessly calm. Police supervisors deal with human beings at their most unpredictable, sometimes on the worst day of their lives. Anger, fear, frustration and urgency are normal responses.
The question is not whether you experience pressure. The question is who makes the next decision: the professional you have worked to become, or the version of you reacting to the moment?
That question is operational, not philosophical. Supervisors do not have to be in a foot pursuit for the body to react as if something important is at stake. In a 2024 study, 25 experienced officers worked through five realistic management scenarios, including resolving conflict between colleagues, delivering difficult feedback and commanding a critical incident. Their heart rates rose during every task and sometimes began rising before the task started [1]. The body can shift under pressure even when the work is verbal and no physical exertion is involved.
Acute stress can also reduce the mental bandwidth a supervisor needs most. A review of four emergency-service simulation studies found that acute stress can interfere with complex thinking and verbal memory while making risk appear greater [2]. In plain language, pressure can make it harder to remember details, weigh competing information and judge what the moment actually requires.
Protecting your judgment under pressure is an operational responsibility.
Across decades in public service — as a police sergeant and through work in Special Operations, HBT, SWAT support through the Weapons of Mass Destruction Safety and Support Team, undercover narcotics investigations, and hostage/crisis negotiation — I learned that pressure rarely stays contained within one person.
Loving, caring for and advocating for my son, who has profound support needs, made that lesson personal. When he is overwhelmed, the tone, pace and emotional state I bring into the interaction matter. I cannot help him regain stability if I bring more urgency, frustration or ego into the room.
That experience shaped my leadership philosophy: Before we can steady another person, a family or a squad, we must first take command of what we are contributing to the moment. Pressure travels through voice, posture, timing, facial expression and decision-making. The squad feels it immediately.
I learned that lesson long before I held rank. The first time I bought drugs undercover, I was 21 years old. I had left college without finishing, and my law enforcement experience consisted of serving as a Police Explorer, cadet and community service officer in Palos Heights, Illinois. I had just completed the academy and limited street training when I was hired as a special agent with the Cook County Sheriff’s Department’s South Suburban Drug Initiative and assigned to NEMEG, a long-term covert narcotics task force.
My assignment that day was a street-level buy in Ford Heights. I had received little practical guidance, had very little idea what I was doing and felt profoundly underprepared. I was petrified. But I calmed myself enough to focus on what was directly in front of me and complete the buy. I did not feel confident or fearless; I simply kept fear from taking command of my behavior.
That experience shaped how I later supervised: Officers need clear direction and realistic preparation before entering uncertainty. It also taught me that self-command is not the absence of fear; it is the ability to regulate yourself well enough to act deliberately while fear is fully present.
Recognize when pressure is affecting your leadership
A supervisor does not have to scream or throw equipment to destabilize a team. The damage is often quieter: repeated interruptions, a sarcastic roll-call comment, an impulsive radio transmission, an inconsistent personnel decision or a conversation avoided because it has become uncomfortable.
Under pressure, supervisors can mistake impatience for decisiveness, controlling behavior for maintaining standards, defensiveness for command presence and avoidance for patience.
Consider an officer who challenges a decision during roll call. The supervisor feels disrespected and turns the disagreement into a public contest of authority. The original issue might have required a two-minute private conversation. Instead, everyone watches a 15-minute power struggle. The supervisor may technically win, but the squad learns the wrong lessons: Questions are dangerous. Embarrassment is a leadership tool. Protecting rank matters more than solving the problem. Public correction is sometimes necessary. Public humiliation almost never is.
On chaotic scenes, the same pressure pushes some supervisors to issue directions before confirming what happened, who owns which task or whether the information is reliable. Others stall, disappear into policy or wait for higher rank to carry the decision. Confidence does not make incomplete information accurate, and avoidance is not caution. In both cases, emotion is operating without supervision.
Become the supervisor your officers can count on
In “Hard Reset: Reliability Under Pressure,” [3] I describe the goal as reliability under pressure. That does not mean supervisors never make mistakes. It means the people around them can count on their standards even when the situation is uncertain.
Your officers should not have to determine which version of you reported for duty. They should not have to calculate whether a reasonable question will produce a thoughtful answer or a personal attack. They should not have to manage your mood while also managing a critical incident.
That reliability begins long before the major call. It is built during ordinary briefings, small disagreements, late-night notifications and uncomfortable personnel conversations.
A simple way to remember the sequence is RESET, a quick supervisory self-command check to use when pressure begins to narrow judgment:
Honest repair does not surrender authority. It shows officers what accountability looks like when rank is not being used as a shield.
Better supervision requires practice
Self-command is not a personality trait that some supervisors possess and others lack. It is a skill that requires repetition, feedback and practice.
Experts featured by the National Institute of Justice compare officer wellness to preventive maintenance: something leaders build into daily operations, not something they address only after a breakdown. They also emphasize the accumulated effect of routine stressors — deadlines, reports, poor supervision and the pressures that follow officers shift after shift [4].
The word ongoing matters.
Research on training tells a similar story. In a 2021 study, officers completed a shortened one-day program designed to improve awareness and regulation of their physiological response under stress. Unlike earlier, longer versions, the single day produced no significant behavioral or physiological improvement, either immediately or at follow-up [5].
One study does not establish the ideal length of every leadership course. It does reinforce a practical point: Self-command is not information we hear once and own forever.
Supervisors build this capacity the same way they build other reliable skills: repetition, feedback, realistic practice and honest review.
Start when the stakes are low. Notice what happens inside you during a routine disagreement, late relief or a critical email. Practice separating facts from assumptions before the next major scene demands it.
Pay attention to how officers respond to you. Are they comfortable bringing you problems? Do they ask questions? Do they trust you to hear information you may not like?
Those everyday interactions can tell you a great deal about the kind of supervisor you are becoming.
The challenge for every supervisor
The hardest person a police supervisor will ever command is the one looking back from the mirror.
Policies can direct behavior. Training can improve skills. Experience can sharpen judgment. But none of those automatically prevent anger, fatigue, fear or ego from taking control of the next decision.
At the end of your next seven shifts, ask yourself: Did my presence lower the temperature, clarify the mission and help my officers perform — or did people have to manage me while they were also managing the incident?
Then ask the harder question: If every officer handled pressure exactly as I did today, would I trust this department on its worst day?
Rank answers who is in charge. Your conduct answers whether people are safer because you are.
References
1. Di Nota PM, Scott SC, Huhta J-M, Gustafsberg H, Andersen JP. (2024). Physiological responses to organizational stressors among police managers. Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback, 49(1), 85–102.
2. Regehr C, LeBlanc VR. (2017). PTSD, acute stress, performance and decision-making in emergency service workers. Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, 45(2), 184–192.
3. McGuire DL. (2026). Hard Reset: Reliability Under Pressure. Crosstown Coaching LLC.
4. Violanti J, Stiver W, Grupe D. (2020, January 29). Key points about stress and wellness for law enforcement leadership [Video]. National Institute of Justice.
5. Di Nota PM, Arpaia J, Boychuk EC, Collins PI, Andersen JP. (2021). Testing the efficacy of a 1-day police decision-making and autonomic modulation intervention: A quasi-random pragmatic controlled trial. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, Article 719046.
About the author
Dr. Danny L. McGuire, Jr. is a second-generation law enforcement professional and retired Chicago Police Department sergeant with decades of experience in law enforcement and public service. His background includes service as a special agent with the Cook County Sheriff’s Department’s South Suburban Drug Initiative, where he was assigned to NEMEG, a long-term undercover narcotics task force. His experience also includes patrol, Special Operations/HBT, SWAT support through the Weapons of Mass Destruction Safety and Support Team, and service as a chief hostage/crisis negotiator.
Dr. McGuire is the founder of Crosstown Coaching and author of Hard Reset: Reliability Under Pressure. He serves as executive director of the Public Service Institute at Calumet College of St. Joseph and director of First Responder Wellness for Jacquelyn Augustine & Associates. He is an ICF Professional Certified Coach (PCC) and an Illinois Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC). Contact Danny at danny@drdanny.com.
