Police Leadership- Police Administration

Hello class, today I’d like to share an excerpt from an article written in Police Chief Magazine regarding leadership. It’s entitles 10 Essential Attributes of Effective Leaders and was written by Kirk Maclean, a lieutenant with the Prince Georges County Maryland Police Department.

When it comes to the knowledge, skills, and ability to embody leadership qualities, most law enforcement executives have the tools and resources to lead successful agencies. These leaders get the job done while working with their communities to solve problems. Those same executives also excel at effective leadership today partially because of the continued career development and advice they received from successful commanders they worked for in the past. Being an effective leader is a great thing but being able to articulate why and how one becomes a strong leader adds true substance and depth to the topic. Most law enforcement officials choose to lead within their respective discipline because they want to successfully direct the execution of the agency’s mission statement as efficiently and effectively as possible. It clearly makes more sense to have someone who understands the goals and objectives of the department provide guidance and direction than to simply have someone without that institutional knowledge attempt the same. So, whether it’s important to have the right people in place to lead in any law enforcement agency is not the question. The question is, instead, what does it take to be the best possible law enforcement leader?

There are 10 must-have attributes that managers (and followers) must possess in order to become highly effective leaders within their organizations.

1. Active Listening To become an active listener, one must first understand the attributes of active listening: 1. Seek to understand before seeking to be understood. 2. Be non-judgmental. 3. Give your undivided attention to the speaker. 4. Use silence effectively.2

2. Education 3. Attention to Detail 4. Directions 5. Evolution 6. Resourcefulness 7. Service 8. Humor

9. Integrity 10. People A quick note regarding humor. It has been said: The most effective leaders use humor to spark people’s enthusiasm, deliver an honest message in a good-natured way, boost productivity, put people at ease, bring teams together, and see the light of a situation. Less effective leaders use humor in negative ways—to show off, cut people down with sarcasm, and overly distract people from the task at hand.4

Thank you and have a good week.