By Philip Mancini, MPA
Policing is at a crossroads. Departments nationwide contend with historic staffing shortages, declining applicant pools and rising public pressure. At the same time, the calls for service officers respond to have grown more complex — often involving mental health crises, community mistrust or volatile interpersonal conflict. The traditional chain-of-command model, once the backbone of law enforcement supervision, is no longer enough.
Today’s frontline supervisors must do more than enforce policy or manage shift schedules. They’re expected to lead teams through uncertainty, navigate morally ambiguous situations, and earn trust inside and outside the department. That kind of leadership isn’t about command presence — it’s about adaptability.
Drawing on my experience as a former Sherman Block Supervisory Leadership Institute (SLI) facilitator, this article explores how law enforcement agencies can begin developing adaptive leaders — supervisors trained not just to give orders, but to think critically, respond flexibly and guide others through the gray areas that define modern policing.
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Why adaptive leadership matters in today’s policing environment
Leadership in policing is often built on technical expertise — knowing the policy, following the checklist and executing the plan. But increasingly, the problems supervisors face aren’t technical at all. They’re complex, fast-moving and without clear solutions.
Adaptive leadership, as described in “The Practice of Adaptive Leadership,” offers a framework for distinguishing between technical problems — those with clear solutions — and adaptive challenges, which require learning, experimentation and collaboration across all levels of an organization.
In law enforcement, this might involve a sergeant managing tensions between veteran officers and new hires or navigating community outrage after a controversial incident. These aren’t problems with easy fixes. They require supervisors to lead conversations, hold space for discomfort and remain calm under pressure, all while maintaining operational readiness.
Adaptive leadership isn’t about having all the answers. It’s about creating conditions for stakeholders to find the answers together.
Why new supervisors struggle — and how adaptive thinking helps
The transition from officer to supervisor is one of the most challenging shifts in a law enforcement career. One day, you’re part of the team; the next, you’re managing it. The badge may be the same, but the expectations change overnight.
Newly promoted sergeants grapple with role clarity, team dynamics and the pressures of decision-making. Many were recently peers with the officers they now lead. The transition can feel isolating, particularly when they face resistance or must enforce standards without bias or appearing authoritarian.
The instinct is often to resort to technical solutions — policies, checklists and the chain of command. But those tools only go so far. Challenges like low morale, fractured team dynamics or ethical gray areas aren’t problems with clear answers. They’re adaptive by nature.
Supervisors must be equipped to manage their stress, remain open to feedback and foster an environment where officers can reflect, grow and adapt. Without that foundation, many default to extremes: trying to stay “one of the guys” to avoid conflict or clamping down with rigid authority. Neither approach works for long.
Agencies that want better leaders need to prepare them for this transition, not just with procedures, but with principles that help them lead through complexity, uncertainty and change.
How to build adaptive leadership into department culture
Developing adaptive leaders requires more than a promotional exam and a policy binder. It takes intentional, experience-based training that prepares supervisors to navigate the ambiguity and complexity of real-world policing.
Programs like the Sherman Block Supervisory Leadership Institute (SLI) have embraced this challenge. Rather than focusing solely on technical knowledge, SLI emphasizes the development of adaptive capacity through a structured progression: beginning with self-awareness and personal growth, then moving into team dynamics and peer leadership, and ultimately addressing the broader challenges of leading within — and across — organizational boundaries. Participants are pushed to reflect, engage in honest dialogue and reframe how they understand leadership.
Over the course of 192 hours, participants engage in peer-based learning, case study discussions and, most importantly, an adaptive leadership project designed to tackle a real issue within their agency.
These projects aren’t just academic exercises. At their best, they introduce new ideas, shift internal culture or influence policy — often initiated by first-line supervisors who may not have held formal authority before. Even when the projects aren’t formally implemented, the process builds a curious, collaborative and resilient mindset.
What sets programs like SLI apart is the recognition that leadership development is not just about what supervisors know, but also how they think — how they interpret challenges, respond to resistance and guide others without having all the answers.
What adaptive leadership looks like in the field
Not every adaptive leadership project is implemented exactly as envisioned. That’s not a failure — it’s the point. Adaptive leadership is less about rigid execution and more about learning to lead through uncertainty, adjusting to resistance and staying committed to a broader mission, even when plans change.
One former student entered the program intending to launch a department-wide volunteer initiative. But through the adaptive leadership process — engaging stakeholders, navigating pushback and refining the vision — the project evolved into something the agency hadn’t done in over a decade: a citizen academy. The eight-week program brought 16 community members into direct contact with department operations, building transparency, trust and civic engagement. By the end, 11 participants expressed interest in joining the department’s newly forming volunteer program.
That shift — from a plan to a purpose — captures the essence of adaptive leadership.
Other takeaways are quieter but no less transformative. One supervisor described a personal mind shift sparked by reading “Leadership and Self-Deception,” a core text in the program. The book challenges readers to recognize when they are “in the box” — stuck in a self-focused, defensive mindset — and to instead approach conflict by trying to understand others’ perspectives. This shift allowed the supervisor to stop taking disagreements personally and begin asking what others might be seeing that they were not.
It didn’t always lead to consensus, but created space for understanding. “What might this person be seeing that I’m not?” became a guiding question, and that shift changed how they led their team during tense conversations.
In other cases, the project evolves in response to department needs. One recently promoted lieutenant originally designed a mentoring framework for corporals but quickly recognized that a newer generation of sergeants — often promoted faster and with less field experience — faced even greater demands and liability. With the support of a patrol captain (now the department’s chief and an SLI graduate), the model was adapted to focus on mentoring these frontline leaders. While the program hasn’t been formalized as policy, it’s shaping how leadership development is approached inside the agency — evidence of how SLI alumni in command positions can foster cultural change over time.
Across these examples, a common thread emerges: growth doesn’t always look like a policy rollout. Sometimes, the most meaningful leadership changes happen through reframing problems, asking better questions and modeling steadiness during change. These are not the kinds of lessons found in a manual, but the ones that last.
7 tools to help supervisors practice adaptive leadership
Adaptive leadership isn’t just a philosophy — it’s a practice grounded in habits, mindsets and behaviors that can be developed over time. For law enforcement supervisors facing both operational complexity and cultural pressure, these tools provide a framework for navigating challenges that don’t come with clear answers.
Drawing from the four phases and five key aspects of adaptive leadership taught in SLI, the following tools offer practical ways supervisors can lead more effectively:
- Get on the balcony. Before reacting, pause and gain perspective. Step back from the noise of the moment — what Ronald Heifetz calls “getting on the balcony” — to observe patterns, dynamics and underlying causes. What’s really happening beneath the surface?
- Distinguish technical and adaptive challenges. Recognize the difference between problems that can be solved with policies or procedures and those that require leadership. Technical problems have known solutions. Adaptive challenges require learning, experimentation and shared responsibility.
- Orchestrate conflict and hold steady: Don’t avoid discomfort — regulate it. Effective supervisors know how to surface tension constructively and create space for difficult conversations. They resist the urge to “fix” too quickly and instead hold space for growth and reflection.
- Give the work back: Empower your team to think, solve and lead. Avoid becoming the bottleneck or the fixer. Instead, shift responsibility back to others in a way that builds their capacity and confidence.
- Think politically: Leadership requires reading the landscape and understanding stakeholders’ loyalties, risks and losses. It also requires building alliances, managing effectively and staying connected to dissenting voices without becoming defensive. Leadership isn’t neutral — it’s strategic.
- Know your role in the system: Know your triggers, loyalties and blind spots. Leadership begins with self-awareness. When supervisors understand their identity within the system, they can act with integrity and flexibility, even under pressure.
- Deploy with purpose: Be intentional. Lead in a way that reflects your values, vision and the purpose you want to serve. Adaptive leadership isn’t about holding a position — it’s about moving people and systems toward progress, even when the path is uncertain.
These tools don’t require rank — they require discipline. Over time, they help shift culture from compliance to commitment, from reaction to reflection. In today’s policing environment, that shift isn’t optional — it’s essential.
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Final reflection: Adaptive leadership is the baseline now
The real test of leadership in law enforcement isn’t found in calm conditions — it’s in how we respond when the path forward is unclear. Adaptive leadership provides a framework for doing just that: leading through complexity, not around it. It’s not a theory reserved for the classroom; it’s a daily practice grounded in perspective, reflection and the willingness to grow.
Through programs like SLI, we’ve seen supervisors shift from seeing leadership as a position of authority to embracing it as a responsibility for positive change. Some projects reshape agency policy. Others change how a supervisor runs a briefing, mentors a struggling officer, or handles conflict without taking it personally. The ripple effects are real — even when they don’t appear on paper.
What connects these outcomes isn’t just the success of any single initiative — it’s the mindset behind them. A mindset that values curiosity over certainty, collaboration over control and growth over perfection.
If agencies want leaders who can navigate the realities of modern policing, they must move beyond compliance-based instruction and invest in programs that cultivate reflection, resilience and personal growth.
They must develop supervisors who think systemically, act purposefully and adapt in real-time. Because in this profession, where the stakes are high and the scrutiny is constant, adaptability is no longer a competitive edge.
It’s the baseline for trust — and the foundation for lasting change.
Continue the discussion
- Which of the seven adaptive leadership tools do you use most — and which do you avoid? Why?
- Think of a recent leadership challenge: Was it technical, adaptive, or both? How did you respond?
- How do you create space for feedback and reflection within your team?
- What “default” behavior do you fall back on under stress — and how does it help or hurt your team?
- What’s one way you can give the work back without losing control or accountability?
About the author
Philip Mancini, MPA, is an assistant professor of criminal justice at a faith-based college in Northern California and a former facilitator with the Sherman Block Supervisory Leadership Institute. His work focuses on ethics, leadership and justice. Outside the classroom, he’s a marathoner, coffee roaster and lifelong learner.
