Week 3 - What Leadership Style Should Today’s Law Enforcement Exhibit in a Diverse Multi-Generational Cross-Sectional Workforce?

What Leadership Style Should Today’s Law Enforcement Exhibit in a Diverse Multi-Generational Cross-Sectional Workforce?

This blog entry will focus on Todd Steven Larson’s doctoral dissertation, Generational preferences: A study in police leadership (2017), as partial fulfillment of his degree requirement for the degree of Doctorate of Education from the Grand Canyon University in Phoenix, Arizona.  There is very little literature within the last two years that focuses its attention solely on police leadership styles and the different generations that currently make up our Nation’s law enforcement workforce.  Larson (2017) presents his study to the Grand Canyon University’s College of Doctoral Studies to defend his quantitative research on the preferred leadership styles of the today’s law enforcement officers.

Why should today’s law enforcement leaders adapt their leadership style?  

Larson (2017) argues that the traditional autocratic, hierarchical, or paramilitary organizational structure of current law enforcement agencies across the United States may struggle as it comes to effectively leading the current generational workforce that makes up tomorrow’s leaders.  Long gone are the officers that do not resist the training and command structure of a military organization.  Zemke, Raines, & Filipczak (1999) characterizes those officers as the Veterans, those who come before the Boomers.

Who are today’s law enforcement officers?

Today’s law enforcement multi-generational workforce consists of the Baby Boomers, the Generation Xers, and the Millennials, much like that of the workforce as a whole.  The differences in these generational cross-sections can create conflict and challenges for law enforcement leadership, mainly if the leader exhibits a non-preferred leadership style.  There has never been a time in our Nation’s history that “so many and such different generations with such diversity been asked to work together [to] shoulder” a profession’s efforts to protect and serve its citizens, as now (Zemke, Raines, & Filipczak, 1999); however, Larson (2017) argues that a leader with the preferred leadership style can effectively influence today’s police force with efficient effort.

What are the leadership styles on which the research focuses?

With a multi-generational workforce, what leadership style does most gravitate to in the law enforcement profession: (1) transformational leadership, (2) transactional leadership, or (3) passive-avoidant leadership?  Larson (2017) argues that research show that out of the following three leadership styles, the multi-generational police force of today prefers a transformational leadership style most of all.  The transactional leader is second, with the passive-avoidant leader (or laissez-faire leadership) coming in dead last.

What makes the transformational leader the preferred leader for such a cross-sectional generation of law enforcement officers? 

It is that transformational leadership rests on the “encouragement of high levels of loyalty, commitment, trust, and respect from employees”  (Larson, 2017, p. 15).  Larson (2017) argues it is that, along with the “creative vision through invested supervision, setting direction, and inspiring others” that transformational leaders exhibit towards their followers (p. 15).  The overall majority of the 317 multi-generational cross-sectional law enforcement participants indicate that the characteristics of transformational leaders best match the ideas that today’s officers prefer.  Larson (2017) contends that this form of leadership requires a leader to concentrate on employment of trust, faultless influence, motivation, encouragement, vision, creativity, and informal relationships. 

What does the Larson research hold and recommend to future law enforcement leaders?

The transformational leader holds the highest favor of the three leadership styles in the research, while the passive-avoidant style is the least desirable of all.  Larson (2017) asserts that police officers want their leaders to exhibit some action in the way that they influence others, with the presented response being more akin to the transformational leadership qualities and characteristics (Larson, 2017; Northouse, 2016; Zemke, Raines, & Filipczak, 1999). 

Law enforcement executives must realize that the Millennials are ever more becoming the emerging workers in the law enforcement profession, and the way that these leaders influence the emerging officers may be a factor in the success or the challenges that the law enforcement agency must overcome later (Larson, 2017).  Larson (2017) reveals that from the research a comparison of the Millennials to the other two generational cross-section shows that all are aligned and similar in their preference in leadership style.  This simply means that law enforcement executives, leaders, trainers, and the like should look to incorporate initial, secondary, and advanced training for their officers in the theory and application of transformational leadership to the emerging leaders.  If current law enforcement leaders subscribe to the what the research indicates is the preference of today’s officer’s leadership style, then implementing training programs that reinforce the transformational leadership qualities and characteristics should undoubtedly benefit all law enforcement with achieving a more efficient, effective, and harmonious workplace with productive and competent police officers.  Larson (2017) asserts that it is incumbent that current leadership embrace and exhibit unwavering support for the preferred leadership style to those followers within the agency, revealing the executive’s willingness at adaptation in the application of transformational leadership. 

References

Larson, T. S. (2017). Generational preferences: A study in police leadership. (Doctoral Dissertation). Retrieved from ProQuest Dissertations and Theses database. (No. 10640983)

Northouse, P. G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and practice (7th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.

Zemke, R., Raines, C., & Filipczak, B. (1999). Generations at work: Managing the clash of veterans, boomers, xers, and nexters in your workplace. Atlanta: AMACOM.