Choosing a career in law enforcement as a woman means stepping into a profession that wasn’t always designed with you in mind. From the first day at the academy, the pressure to prove yourself is constant — on the street, in the squad room and especially when you’re the only woman in the room.
It’s the feeling of standing at roll call, scanning a room full of uniforms and realizing you’re the only woman there. It’s the doubt that creeps in after a tough evaluation or the moment you wonder if asking for help will set you back instead of moving you forward. Most women in law enforcement know that feeling and many have had to navigate their next steps independently.
But a career in policing shouldn’t just be about surviving the job. It should be about growing, leading and helping others rise.
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That’s exactly what Katie Warden, the first female police chief of the Marietta (Ohio) Police Department, and Julie Rodriguez, current president of the National Association of Women Law Enforcement Executives (NAWLEE) and a captain with the Los Angeles Police Department, have done.
Their paths into policing were different, but both women built their careers with intention — learning through failure, leading with purpose and helping others rise along the way. From academy challenges to command-level leadership, their stories offer a real-world roadmap for any woman navigating the key stages of law enforcement: starting strong, building your brand and leading with impact.
This article is from “Forge your future: A career guide for women in policing,” which offers real stories, actionable strategies and tools to help you grow and lead with purpose. Download your free copy, sponsored by the University of San Diego Online, by completing the “Get Access to this Police1 Resource” box on this page!
Starting strong: The first five years
Before Warden and Rodriguez wore their current ranks, both started the same way: a new badge, a new beat and a lot of eyes waiting to see what they would do next. This early stretch, they said, is where mindset matters most, but what does that look like in practice?
For Warden, one of the toughest lessons was learning how to take feedback without internalizing it. Like many female officers just starting out, she felt enormous pressure to prove herself. As one of only three women ever hired in her department — and now the only one still serving — that pressure felt magnified.
“I took a lot of that criticism to heart,” she said. “Sometimes it was malicious, but a lot of times it was just part of the growing pains of me needing to learn how to do my job.”
Over time, Warden learned to distinguish between constructive criticism and personal attacks. Now, as chief, she talks about that openly with her officers. Her message: it’s not about being perfect. It’s about showing up, learning from mistakes and staying in it.
“You don’t have to be flawless, but you have to keep doing the work,” she said.
That mindset, Rodriguez said, isn’t built alone. Mentorship was her early-career multiplier: “Having a mentor from the start — from the first time you apply — is crucial.”
For her, that mentor was Alan Hamilton, now chief of detectives for the LAPD. Early in her career, Hamilton encouraged Rodriguez to take both the detective and sergeant’s exams. She failed both the first time, but he didn’t let her give up.
“He was the one who just kept encouraging me, keep going, keep trying,” she recalled.
Rodriguez’s advice for female officers trying to find the right mentor is simple: find someone who will be honest with you — where you’re strong, where you need work and how to navigate the culture around you.
With younger female officers, Rodriguez often shares one statistic to nudge them forward: in a Hewlett-Packard study, men often applied when they met about 60% of the qualifications, while many women waited for 100%. “That wait can stall a career before it starts. A good mentor helps you take the shot sooner,” she said.
With the right mindset in place and a mentor in your corner, the question shifts from “Can I do this?” to “Where do I want to go next?”
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Building your brand: The next 10 years
Mid-career is when officers reassess their role and purpose — and become intentional about their direction.
For female officers, it’s also when reputation starts to do the talking: colleagues seek you out, supervisors trust you with the hard call and others follow your lead. For Warden, the shift was clear: “People started coming to me for advice and I realized that I was already leading. Just without the stripes.”
That kind of informal leadership, she said, is often the first sign a female officer is ready for more responsibility.
At the same time, life outside the badge gets louder, with work-life balance coming into focus as many female officers start families or take on new responsibilities at home.
Both leaders know that season firsthand.
Rodriguez, a mother of two, noted that LAPD now offers paid maternity and paternity leave, dedicated lactation rooms and light-duty options for nursing officers — benefits that weren’t available earlier in her career. “Young women can now see themselves having both a family and a career,” she said.
Warden, also a mother of two, incorporates that reality into how she leads. She encourages officers to talk early about family, goals and what they want their careers to look like. If someone wants to become a parent, she said, that should be supported — not penalized.
“This job will always be here,” Warden said. “You can have both … a fulfilling career and a happy family.” That kind of support and flexibility, she said, keeps officers invested over the long haul.
Still, mid-career brings new questions — some external, some internal. “Are you still energized by your work? Are you growing? Are you surrounding yourself with people who challenge you?” Warden asked. “If not, it might be time to reevaluate.”
For many female officers, that self-check is the pivot: the work shifts from proving yourself to building others. Rodriguez put it plainly: “Start lifting others up,” she said. “It’s how you grow, too.”
Warden demonstrated what that looks like in practice. When an officer on her team asked about leadership, she laid out the steps: “You’re going to go to leadership school and you’re going to be an acting shift supervisor,” she told him.
Her approach is straightforward: let people do the work with guidance so confidence and trust are real. “Because stepping into a formal leadership role isn’t just about new responsibilities. It’s a full shift in identity, in how you’re seen by others and how you carry yourself moving forward,” Warden said.
For some, that identity shift arrives overnight.
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Leading with impact: Supervisory and executive roles
In Warden’s case, it happened fast.
“On a Friday, I was a sergeant working the street. On that following Monday, I got sworn in as the chief, and they’re like, ‘Here’s your office,’” she said. There was no roadmap, no formal prep — just an empty office and the responsibility of leading a department in need of change.
Feeling unprepared, Warden went back to school. She enrolled in a master’s program at the University of San Diego — one of the best decisions of her career, she said.
The work pushed her outside her comfort zone and gave her structure, tools and perspective. “It was a very humbling experience,” she said. “But I learned so much, and I cannot recommend that enough for people.”
The coursework helped her feel more grounded; it didn’t change the reality of what she walked into. On day one, Warden inherited what she called “a dumpster fire” — toxic culture, micromanagement and distrust.
Officers didn’t feel heard. Morale was low. Rather than go top-down, she listened first. “This is our department,” she told her team. “We’re all in this boat together and you’re going to help me steer the ship.”
The turnaround took time. Trust had to be earned and kept. Over the months that followed, small changes added up. Officers felt more invested. Communication improved.
Culture began to shift. Warden’s willingness to admit what she didn’t know — and to seek the tools to do it better — became the model she wanted to set.
That pressure to land the message isn’t limited to chiefs; it shows up in everyday leadership moments. Rodriguez learned that as a watch commander. “We were having issues with our officers fighting suspects and actually fist-fighting suspects rather than using the tools that we’ve provided them like TASERs, OC spray, batons, stuff like that,” she said.
Her message came from concern: “We care about you guys. We don’t want you to get injured.” Afterward, a sergeant pulled her aside: “You spoke down to the officers like a mother does to a child.”
The comment stung, especially given how intentional she’d been. She asked another lieutenant how he delivered it; he’d used a harder line, warning officers they’d be written up if they didn’t change.
“Sometimes the perception people have of me or how they expect me to deliver something or to say something is sometimes tied to my gender,” she said. Since then, she’s been more deliberate. “Now, I sleep on decisions before delivering messages,” she said.
Impact, for both women, comes back to people. “When someone says, ‘You don’t know me, but you helped me get this job,’ that’s the legacy I want to leave,” Rodriguez said. She has helped countless officers prep for promotions and oral boards — some who have advanced beyond her. “I want people to be better because of something I said or did.”
Warden echoes that. She wants to be remembered not just for policies, but for the culture she helped reshape. When morale was low and trust needed rebuilding, she focused on a space where officers felt supported, heard and encouraged to grow, including conversations that hadn’t always been welcome around mental health, burnout, parenting and boundaries.
“You’re not failing on your own,” she reminds each officer in her department. “If something’s not working, then I didn’t give you what you needed.”
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A career worth building
Warden and Rodriguez’s careers didn’t have a script. They wrote them in real time — in different cities, on different routes — with one constant: do the work, learn from it and bring others with you.
Early on, the pace was fast and the stakes close — academy to street in a breath, feedback that stung before it taught, exams failed and taken again, a mentor who didn’t sugarcoat — until showing up, shift after shift, became the habit that stuck.
In the middle years, their names carried weight. Colleagues came for counsel, hard calls found steady hands, life outside the badge grew louder and support had to be real.
And, as mothers, they watched as policies began to catch up and conversations moved into daylight.
When rank landed, sometimes overnight, the job widened: they listened first, said the hard thing plain, put real responsibility into other hands and let the culture shift in inches.
Their stories, when read together, provide more than just inspiration; they outline a practical path for female officers. Beginning with the right mindset, navigating reputation and balance in the middle, and centering on people as ranks change, these elements shape a successful career. Over time, these strategies bring long-term goals within reach and pave a broader path for the women who follow.
This article is from “Forge your future: A career guide for women in policing,” which offers real stories, actionable strategies and tools to help you grow and lead with purpose. Download your free copy, sponsored by the University of San Diego Online, by completing the “Get Access to this Police1 Resource” box on this page!
