There are problems with defining the term ‘leadership’. Leadership often gets confused with the management function because, generally, managers are expected to exhibit some leadership qualities. In essence, leaders are instruments of change, responsible for laying plans both for the moment and for the medium and long-term futures. Managers are more concerned with executing plans on a daily basis, achieving objectives and producing results.
Top police leaders have a responsibility for deciding, implementing, monitoring, and completing the strategic plans necessary to meet the needs and demands of the public they serve. Their plans are then cascaded down through the police structure to those responsible for implementing them. Local commanders may also create their own plans to meet regional demands. The planner’s job is never finished: there is always a need to adapt and change existing measures to meet fresh circumstances.
Planning is a relatively mechanical process. However, the management of change is notoriously difficult. Some welcome change and the opportunities it brings; others do not because it upsets their equilibrium or places them at some perceived disadvantage. Mechanisms for promoting plans and dealing with concerns need to be put in place. Factual feedback and suggestions for improvement should be welcomed as they can greatly improve end results. When people contribute to plans they are more likely to support them because they have some ownership in them.
Those responsible for implementing top-level and local plans may do so conscientiously but arrangements rarely run smoothly and require the application of initiative and problem solving skills. Sergeants, inspectors, and other team leaders – and even constables acting alone – should be encouraged to help resolve difficulties as they arise. Further, change is ever present and can’t always be driven from the top. It’s important that police leaders and constables at operational and administrative levels should be stimulated to identify and bring about necessary changes – no matter how small – in their own spheres of operation, thus contributing to a vibrant leadership culture.
The application of first-class leadership skills is important: quality is greatly influenced by the styles leaders adopt and the ways in which they nurture individual talent. Leadership may not be the first thing recruits think of when joining the police. Nonetheless, constables are expected to show leadership on a daily basis in a variety of different, often testing situations.
“Leaders are instruments of change, responsible for laying plans both for the moment and for the medium and long-term futures.”
Reflecting on my own career, I was originally exposed to an autocratic, overbearing organisation where rank dominated. However, the force did become much more sophisticated in its outlook as time progressed. As a sergeant, inspector, and chief inspector, my style was a mixture of autocratic and democratic, with a natural leaning towards democratic. Later, in the superintendent rank, I fully embraced the laissez-faire style, making full use of all three approaches. For example, at one time when standards were declining in the workplace I was autocratic in demanding that they should be re-asserted. When desired standards were achieved, I adopted a democratic style to discuss the way forward with my colleagues. When all was going well again, I became laissez-faire, allowing individuals to operate with only a light touch. The option to change style was never lost but the laissez-faire approach produced the best ever results I had enjoyed in the police.
Although I used these three styles, the labels they carry are limiting and do not reveal the whole picture. Real-life approaches are more nuanced and more imaginative than rigidly applying a particular leadership formula. Sometimes more than one style can be used at the same time: it is possible to be autocratic with a person who requires close supervision and laissez-faire with someone who is conscientious and over-performing. Today, leadership style is centred upon diversity, taking into account the unique richness of talent that each individual has to offer.
Individual effort and team work are critical to the fulfillment of police plans. To value and get the best out of officers and support staff, leaders need to do three things. First, they must ensure that there is no place for discrimination of any form in the police service. Discrimination can stunt personal and corporate growth and cause demotivation and even sickness. Second, they should seek to balance the work to be done with each individual’s motivators. Dueling workplace requirements with personal needs is likely to encourage people to willingly give of their best. Motivators vary from person to person although there are many common factors including opportunities for more challenging work and increased responsibility. Finally, leaders must keep individual skills at the highest possible level, including satisfying the needs of people with leadership potential. Formal training is useful but perhaps even more effective is the creation of an on-the-job, incremental coaching programme and mentoring system.
Police leaders need to create plans and persuade those they lead to both adopt them and see them through to a satisfactory conclusion. If plans are to succeed, change must be sensitively managed and leaders at all levels should be encouraged to use their initiative in overcoming implementation problems. Outside of the planning process, those self-same leaders should deal with all manner of problems that beset them on a daily basis so as to create a vibrant leadership culture. Plans are more liable to succeed if officers and support staff feel motivated and maintain the necessary competence to complete tasks.
Headline image: Sir Robert Peel, by Ingy The Wingy. CC-BY-ND-2.0 via Flickr.
The post Essential considerations for leadership in policing (and beyond) appeared first on OUPblog.
YALSA President Shannon Peterson and I have been talking about her presidential theme of Amplified: Speaking Up for Teens and Libraries, and we were discussing the effort to build strong ties between YALSA and our members and library administrators. In May and June, I wrote a six-part series for this blog on how to work with library managers and administrators. Those posts were based partly on a survey that YALSA conducted of members who identified as supervisors and managers. One of the things we asked was what were some of the buzz words, lingo, and hot topics that made managers prick up their ears and listen. So here are some of those terms and ways you might incorporate them into your conversations with your managers:
ROI. This is manager-speak for “return on investment.” It’s really pretty straightforward. Managers want to know that if the library invests time, money, personnel, and equipment on a service, program, or collection, there will be some return on that investment. What kind of return? Maybe you can demonstrate that the effort you invested in putting on a dynamite program resulted in increased circulation in a particular area or from a particular demographic. Maybe adding a service, like homework help, resulted in reaching a previously under-served segment of the community. The more you can collect data (track circulation before and after the program; keep count of the number of new cards that were issued to participants in a new program or service, etc.), the easier it will be for you to show your managers how much return you got from your investment.
Sustainability. This is a big one for managers. They want to know that any new (or existing) program, service, or collection is sustainable. Doing a program or creating a collection with one-time funds, like a grant or gift, is fine as far as it goes, but what happens next year and the year after? If you start a grant-funded homework center, for example, how are you going to pay for it in future years? Will you have to continue to seek grants or raise funds every year, or will it become part of the library’s budget? If it becomes part of the budget, will something else have to go? Who will be responsible for deciding? Sustainability requires long-term thinking.
Community Engagement, Community Health, Fostering Community. Managers have to see the library as part of the larger community. Your library director may sit on various community-wide committees or boards, or work closely with other city or county department heads. It is important to them that the library be seen as part of the community, not as something off to the side. This is especially true if the library is in effect competing for funds with these other departments. So the more your programs and services can demonstrate that the library is engaging the community and helping to create and sustain a healthy, enlivened community, the better. When you report on your teen volunteer program, for example, don’t just say how many teens volunteered for how many hours; talk about how the program helps teens be engaged in their community, and take pride and ownership in it.
Workforce Development; College and Career Readiness. These topics are related to community engagement. The library is excellently placed to be part of the greater local effort to ensure that community members are able to be productive members of society. Just be sure that your manager knows how your programs are helping teens get jobs, get into college, and prepare for careers. Highlight the skills your teen volunteers are learning. Promote any programs you do for SAT prep or college application writing. Be sure your director is aware when teen volunteers move on to become paid library workers.
Output Measures. Output measures tell how the library is being used: circulation, visits, reference questions, program attendance—as opposed to input measures, which tell you what you have to work with: collection size, budget, cardholders, etc. Output measures are often of great interest to library boards and administrators, so the more output measures you can supply to your director, the better. Some of these are simple counts; others can be calculated, like circulation per capita. So, for example, if you know how many teens are in your service area, and how many teen items are circulated (or how many items are checked out by teens), you can calculate teen circulation per capita. If you can show that this number is growing, as a result of your programs or collection decisions, this will get the attention of the people who make the decisions in your library.
Value-Added. This is pretty much what it sounds like: the “extras” of your services, programs, and collections, the things that go beyond expectations and make a positive contribution to the library and the community. Maybe you can show that your program not only entertained the teens, but brought in new users, and also recruited new volunteers for the library or other organization in the community: that’s value-add!
Organizational Culture. Every organization has its own culture, meaning its own values, vision, norms, systems, even language. Making sure that what you do fits into that organizational culture is a good way to be heard in the organization. Of course, sometimes we think our organizational culture needs to change: to be more positive about teens, for instance. It’s all right to strive to change organizational culture, but it is wise to do it gradually and, as much as possible, within the norms of the organization. And if you can show that something you want to do fits in with the vision and strategic plan of your library, you are more likely to be successful.
These are just a few terms that came up. You have probably heard others—maybe you have even wondered what they mean, or how you can fit into your manager’s view of the library. If you have questions, comments, or other examples to share, please do so in the comments. We all benefit when we understand one another!
Sarah Flowers
YALSA Past President
To celebrate the holidays we asked some of our favorite people in publishing what their favorite book was. Let us know in the comments what your favorite book is and be sure to check back throughout the week for more “favorites”.
Andrew DeSio is the Director of Publicity at Princeton University Press.
If I had to pick a favorite book I’d go with Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Raoul Duke’s romp, along with his trusty attorney Dr. Gonzo, through the desert in search of that unattainable state of euphoria, all the while experiencing American culture at its best and worst, is as pertinent now as it was in 1972.
Thompson is known for his heroic drug binges but his choppy yet flowing prose is often overlooked by his dirty deeds. The fact that he can remember so vividly his exploits in the book while being under the influence is testament to his great mind. He’s one of America’s eminent satirists and humorists, and will be sorely missed.
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