Week 9 - The Law Enforcement Leadership Manifesto - Finale

Last week we discussed getting the right people on the bus and the wrong people off (by any means possible) (Collins, 2005) to have a great team.  This week’s blog post, most likely, will be the final blog entry to Leadership in the Public Sector: Law Enforcement.  I may resurrect the blog at some point later, most likely at the end of my law enforcement career, depending on where my law enforcement career takes me.

 

I would also like to establish a disclaimer concerning all blog entries for Leadership in the Public Sector: Law Enforcement, whereby I assert that any and all statements, opinions, references, and remarks are a product of an academic exercise.  I try to make sure my research is sound and comments that I make accurate and correct relative to the time in which I make them, understanding that statements, opinions, references, and remarks can change with a further understanding of the topic of leadership, as seen through the lens of law enforcement.

This week’s blog entry will focus on the Law Enforcement Leadership Manifesto, or in other words, what I find that resonates with me after undertaking Leadership in Public Administration. 

The term manifesto may have different meanings to different people.  The first notion that comes to mind when I hear term manifesto is Industrial Society and Its Future (Kaczynski, 2008), the Unabomber, Theodore John Kaczynski, and his declaration on society and technology.  For me, the term manifesto resounds as a manuscript, a text, or otherwise, an argument that a deranged and delusional person espouses as a pragmatic or rational approach to a complex set of issue.  However, the manifesto is “a written statement declaring publicly the intentions, motives, or views of its issuer” (Manifesto).  So, Manifesto does not have to be negative or positive, rational, or pragmatic; it can just be a statement of a person’s intention, motive, or view.  Likewise, the term law enforcement may have different meanings to different people.

The Bureau of Justice Statistics defines Law enforcement as the “generic name for the activities of the agencies responsible for maintaining public order and enforcing the law, particularly the activities of prevention, detection, and investigation of crime and the apprehension of criminals” (Law enforcement).  My Law Enforcement Leadership Manifesto will describe:

My Law Enforcement Leadership Manifesto

Leadership. 

I view leadership as an action, attitude, philosophy, or belief that the leader can influence, motive, guide, direct, an unlimited number of multifaceted collection of effectual activities, performances, and actions that are positioned in a setting, which involves interaction amongst officers with a mutual relation (followers).  That interaction is not always straightforward, but all too often, it is the complexities of that relationship (leader-officer) or even the interaction that causes the concern in working towards a common goal (Garrick, 2006).  Leadership presents many variables in its equation.  Northouse (2016) even contends that leadership is “a complex process having multiple dimension” (p. 1).

Transformational Leadership. 

Gone are the days of pure compliance, the do as I say, not as I do, autocratic-type leadership in law enforcement.  The carrot and the stick leader no longer is effective in law enforcement in influencing officers to perform or reach desired goals.  Law enforcement officers from each represented generation seem to gravitate to a transformation leader. 

Transformational leadership looks to the “leaders and [officers to] help each other to advance to a higher level of morale and motivation” (Burns, 1979, p. 382).  With a transformation leader in a law enforcement organization, the leader influences and motivates the officer to exceed the leader’s or even the officer’s original expectation in achieving and carrying out more than either requires (Bass, 1985).  This type of law enforcement leader encourages the officer to lay aside egocentricities for oneself and motivates the officer to focus on the greater good, while at the same time increasing the officer’s needs (Maslow’s hierarchy) from that of an environmental dimension to that of intellectual and spiritual aspects (Bass, 1985). 

Gender Leadership.

Chief Amy Prock & Family
Myrtle Beach Police Department

Chief Amy Prock

Women are equal to men in education, even in law enforcement profession; however, women undertake greater domestic roles outside the job.  The domestic roles of women account for the lower percentage of female commanders and agency directors in law enforcement.  The skills of a competent law enforcement officer are somewhat perishable if the skills and tactics are neglected for some time.  If women leave the law enforcement profession to birth and raise children, women all too often face a daunting challenge in returning to the police profession.  The male counterparts do not contend with this challenge.

Chief Cathy Lanier
Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia

Chief Cathy Lanier on Leadership

Women are more effective in democratic and participatory (or transformational) leadership and are equally rated in commitment and dedication to employment as men.  As noted in the previous section, today’s multi-generational, cross-sectional police force gravitate to this type of leadership.  Understanding this assertion, why do women not excel in command and executive levels of the law enforcement profession?


 

Some believe that women experience greater biases due to stereotypical characterizations and their male counterparts do not experience the same stereotypical behaviors to the same degree as women. 

Chief Sandra Spagnoli
Beverly Hills Police Department

Chief Sandra Pagnoli on Women as Chiefs of Police

Many law enforcement agencies, like other public and private organizations, do not make gender diversification a priority when selecting command and executive level positions.  Should law enforcement agencies move towards seeking out and choosing transformational leaders to motivate their officers, one may argue that women leaders could assume those leadership positions.

Seven Police Chiefs
Los Angeles County, California

Moving forward.

So, where do I go from here?  I intend to strive daily to be that adaptive-type, transformation leader to those for which I am responsible.  The support that a transformational leader provides their officers may afford women officers the flexibility to have a family and remain in law enforcement like their male counterparts.  I will also look to achieving pocket success (Collins, 2005) within my unit, with hopes that others under me will produce their form of pocket success that will become infectious and spread like wildfire.  When I leave the profession, I want to say that I had a hand in developing more leaders that have assumed strategic and significant leadership positions in this profession; those that have dreamed big.

References

Burns, J. M. (1979). Two excerpts from leadership. Educational Leadership, 36(3), 380-383.

Collins, J. (2005). Good to great and the social sectors: A monograph to accompany Good to Great. Boulder, CO: Jim Collins.

Garrick, L. E. (2006). 500 years of leadership theory: The challenge of learning to lead. NorthShore Group, 1-15.

Kaczynski, T. J. (2008, September 19). Industrial society and its future. Livermore, CA: WingSpan Classics.

Law enforcement. (n.d.). Retrieved May 20, 2018, from https://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=tp&tid=7#terms_def

Manifesto. (n.d.). Retrieved May 20, 2018, from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/manifesto

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