A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way and shows the way. (John C. Maxwell, cited in Dempsey and Forst, 2011, p. 35)
Leadership is one of the most important predictors of whether organizations are able to effectively function in dynamic environments … and as such the need for effective police leadership is greater than ever. (Pearson-Goff and Herrington, 2013, p. 14)
Characteristics | |
Activities |
Leaders require a blend of management skills (e.g., planning, organizing, budgeting, staffing and directing), personal skills (e.g. the ability to communicate, motivate and inspire others), leadership skills (e.g., strategic focus, analytical competency and cognitive flexibility), and, in policing, a healthy dose of operational experience. … Leadership requires the organization to support the use of these skills to create a learning environment. (Flynn and Herrington, 2015, p. 14)
General personality traits | |
Task-related personality traits |
We make person judgements on the basis of two simple processes. First, a snap judgement of how cold or warm we feel toward the person. Does this person elicit feelings of kindness, affection, admiration? The feeling of cold or warmth that another elicits is intuitively easy to understand – to label someone as ‘very cold’ is to condemn them. It suggests they are devoid of emotions, that they are selfish, and probably untrustworthy in some core respect. Second, a snap judgement of the competence or incompetence of the person. Competence is less intuitively obvious, but refers to the judgement that the person is capable of acting on their wishes and desires – and further, whether they mean us harm or not. We then combine these judgements quickly. These rapidly-formed composite judgements (Cold/Warmth and Incompetence/Competence) reliably and rapidly elicit particular emotions, and these emotions in turn directly and indirectly drive our behaviour toward the other person. (Lyons and O’Mara, 2016, p. 25)
Leaders are judged as both persons and as brands. Being judged as both a person and as a brand has profound implications for how leaders should manage and present themselves within the groups and organizations they lead. (Lyons and O’Mara, 2016, p. 23)
Think about the first time you walked in to a group of people that you didn’t know. Quickly, people rank each other as leaders, as followers, as wise voices, as slightly off-beam, along all sorts of dimensions, and we do this rapidly and quickly. (O’Mara, 2017, p. 85)
It’s time to end the myth of the complete leader: the flawless person at the top who’s got it all figured out. … Only when leaders come to see themselves as incomplete – as having both strengths and weaknesses – will they be able to make up for their missing skills by relying on others. (Ancona et al., 2007, pp. 92, 94)
Distributed leadership is primarily concerned with the practice of leadership rather than specific leadership roles or responsibilities. It equates with shared, collective and extended leadership practice that builds the capacity for change and improvement … When distributed leadership works well, individuals are accountable and responsible for their leadership actions; new leadership roles created, collaborative teamwork is the modus operandi and inter-dependent working is a cultural norm. Distributed leadership is about collective influence – it is not just some accidental by-product of high-performing organisations. (Harris, 2014)
In very practical terms, to be most effective, distributed leadership has to be carefully planned and deliberately orchestrated. It won’t just happen and if it does, there is no guarantee that it will have any positive impact. Letting a thousand flowers bloom is not distributed leadership. The implication for those in formal leadership roles is that they have a key role to play in creating the conditions for distributed leadership to occur. They have to create the opportunities for others to lead. (Harris, 2014)
In policing, different cultures may arise across functions and teams … However, distinctions by rank or level within the organization continue to represent the more prominent descriptions of cultures in policing. (Workman-Stark, 2017, p. 24)
In contrast to the street cop culture, which is focused on the immediate aspects of the job and the risks of the street, the middle management culture is more concerned with management functions and acts as a buffer between patrol officers and upper management. In turn, the top command is consumed with the politics of managing police organizations and being accountable to external stakeholders. (Workman-Stark, 2017, p. 25)
Your mindset is the characteristic way you face challenges and adversity: as opportunities to learn and grow, even from failure (a ‘growth’ or ‘incremental’ mindset), or by retreating to safety, and being wary of failure (a fixed ‘mindset’). Mindsets manifest themselves in how you talk to yourself (‘I can’t do that, because …’ or ‘I’d like to try that, because …’), and in your behaviour (going forward to the challenge, with a determination to learn, or avoiding the challenge because of fears about the stigma of failure). (Knell and O’Mara, 2017, p. 10)
An organization’s mindset is the belief that it and its workforce have about the nature of talent and ability. … Some companies foster a fixed mindset ‘culture of genius,’ in which talent is worshipped. This type of organizational culture asserts that employees either have it or they don’t, when it comes to skills and learning capabilities. Other organizations, however, foster a growth mindset ‘culture of development.’ This type of organizational culture asserts that people can grow and improve with effort, good strategies, and good mentoring. Culture-of-development organizations foster growth mindset, actively seeking to stretch their employees and promote new skills. (Senn-Delaney, 2014)
It’s not the tools that you have faith in – tools are just tools. They work, or they don’t work. It’s people you have faith in or not. (Steve Jobs in Goodell, 1994)
Strongly disagree | Disagree | Neither agree nor disagree | Agree | Strongly agree | |
I am involved in decisions that affect my work. | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
Decisions are made at the lowest appropriate level. | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
I am not closely supervised at work. | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
I can decide how I perform my work tasks. | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
I am easily able to access all the information I need to perform my work tasks. | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
Information flows freely up and down the hierarchy of my organisation. | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
I can suggest improvements to work processes. | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
I feel my opinions about how best to perform my work tasks are listened to. | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
My manager is more concerned with my output than with how I do my job. | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
I can influence the goals and objectives of my job. | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
First, empowering leaders are much more effective at influencing employee creativity and citizenship behavior (i.e., behavior that is not formally recognized or rewarded like helping coworkers or attending work functions that aren’t mandatory) than routine task performance. Second, by empowering their employees, these leaders are also more likely to be trusted by their subordinates, compared to leaders who do not empower their employees. (Lee, Willis and Tian, 2018)
No man is an Island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main. (John Donne, 1624 (2014) Meditation XVII)