3P Leadership – It’s All About the People

 It was sometime in 2011, and I was just assigned to Lieutenant over Special Services, which included the Office of Professional Standards (OPS).  One of the important functions of OPS was to oversee the hiring of new officers.  The process for hiring back then was similar to what most departments do today:

 

            -Job announcement

            -Physical Agility test

            -Written test

            -Panel interview

            -Psychological evaluation

            -Background investigation (including taking a polygraph)

            -Interview with the Chief

            -Hired

 

For the first process I supervised, we had four open positions we needed to fill.  We announced the opening and set a date for the physical agility test on an upcoming Saturday morning.  160 people showed up to compete for four openings. 160!  Of course, there were several that did not pass the physical agility test.  For those that did pass, I then met with them and provided a list of dis-qualifiers that would immediately remove them from consideration.   Examples of dis-qualifiers included a DUI in the last 7 years, any previous use of a felony level drug, or marijuana use in the last three years, just to name a few.  Several people got up and left, including one guy that smoked dope that morning on the way to our testing!

 

Now we were down to approximately 100 applicants.  Those applicants then took a written exam.  About 20 failed, leaving 80 eligible applicants.  Once the rest of the steps were completed, we ended up with approximately 50 applicants that were eligible for hire.  Not only did we fill those four positions quickly, but we also had a list of applicants that we could choose from until we tested again the next year.  This hiring stuff was pretty easy………

 

Those days are long gone.

 

Just this morning, we had our weekly testing.  Three of the eight scheduled to test showed up.  We are still hiring some great candidates, but it is harder than ever to hire and retain good public safety personnel.   People are leaving the profession in droves for safer jobs, better hours, better pay and a more stable family life.  Now more than ever, the first P in 3P, people, must be the primary focus of leadership.

 

Our best shot at finding and retaining good people is to create a culture where leadership adds value to those people.  I firmly believe that more than ever, we need leaders that are engaged in a transformational leadership approach. Copious amounts of research have demonstrated this leadership style will most likely result in a higher level of employee job satisfaction and organizational commitment. These leaders are perceived as more approachable and more responsive to employee needs which creates a higher level of job commitment. Transformational leadership is ultimately about creating a healthy culture and adding value to our personnel. 

In 2019, I conducted a police leadership research project which involved surveying Metro-Atlanta area police chiefs and officers at several different police departments.  This study reinforced the results of other studies done on employee job satisfaction and organizational commitment. The research clearly demonstrated the more Metro-Atlanta police chiefs engaged in a transformational approach to leadership, the higher level of job satisfaction and employee commitment was realized by officers. Those officers working for chiefs that led with alternate approaches were not nearly as satisfied or committed. 

 

So, leadership absolutely must be about our people.  This is certainly a 30,000 foot view of the first P of 3P leadership.  In future blogs, we will discuss what people centered leadership looks like from a practical perspective.  In the meantime, let me finish with a question we can all ask ourselves every day we come to work.  If we allow this question to be at the core of everything we do in our roles, this will help us maintain a people centered leadership approach, no matter what our day may bring.  Every day, ask yourself………….

 

How can I add value to my people?

 

If we fail to add value to our people, how can we expect them to add value to the community we serve? The below picture is of one of our hallways on the second floor of our headquarters, which is home to our command staff. It serves as a reminder for all of us of why we come to work every day. 

If you have any questions, comments or ideas, please email me at ThreePleadership@gmail.com

3P Leadership

I loved being a detective. Of all the positions I have held in law enforcement, being Detective Robison has always been my favorite.  Looking back, I am not even sure I was that good at it, but I loved immersing myself into the investigative process. There was a great deal of satisfaction associated with being able to bring a case to fruition. As a detective that was often assigned child cases, I especially enjoyed locking up people that hurt children.  As far as I was concerned, I had found my niche and wanted to spend the rest of my career being Detective Robison.

All of this changed when my Chief called me into his office and told me I was next on the promotional list, and he needed me to go back to the road as a front-line supervisor.  That past year, I had done what “I was supposed to do” by going through the promotional process.  Honestly, I never really imagined there would be any chance of me getting promoted, and I was just fine with that.  However, I all of a sudden found myself torn between staying where I was or accepting a promotion to a position I was not overly excited about taking.  After seeking some wise counsel and realizing it could be a career limiting move to turn down a promotion, I found myself back in a patrol car supervising a uniform shift. 

Like many of you reading this can appreciate, I all of a sudden found myself in charge with absolutely no clue what I was doing.  I looked at some of the people I was now supervising, thinking I had no business telling these great officers what to do.  I had no awareness related to the differences between having rank and being a leader.  Ultimately, I did not feel I had the credibility to lead, and I was not sure how to change that.

So, I did the best I could and focused on trying to take care of my officers.  I had been fortunate enough to work for some supervisors that took good care of me, and I figured it made sense to try to do the same in my new position.  It was here that I began a new chapter in my career.

And……….It was here that I truly fell in love with leadership.

Over a decade later, I have come to appreciate the privilege, and responsibility, of leading others, especially those that have chosen a career that exists to serve people.  In a nutshell, I have learned that leadership is all about people, and those people are most effectively led by leaders that lead with purpose and passion. That’s it………….leadership is ultimately about leading  people with purpose and passion. This 3P Leadership approach will be the foundation of my monthly blogs moving forward.  The next three blogs will break down the three P’s of leadership, and then we will cover a variety of leadership topics that will hopefully benefit us all as we all continue to grow and develop.

Thanks for reading this, and thanks for joining me in this leadership journey!

If you have any questions, comments or ideas, please email me at ThreePleadership@gmail.com