Week 1 Paper (for Hifsa Shakaut)

EMPA 311: Micro Lecture – Week 1:

When we think about Leaders and Managers, we often mix the two into one. Many have written about the distinction between a Leader and a Manager and we all have our opinion of them as well. As Kania & Davis state, “[a] manager is an official who has authority, managerial, and supervisory function.” We can state that so does a Leader, but why do they defer?

Chapter one introduces the acronym POSDCORB which in 1937 Luther Gulick introduced in response to an executive’s work. There is no question that this system of Planning, Organizing, Staffing, Directing, Coordinating, Reporting, and Budgeting is used today and was used for many years as the operative term. It was later replaced by LODESTAR: Leading, Organizing, Deciding, Evaluating, Staffing, Training, Allocating, and Reporting, as a form that is more reflective to today’s organizations. You will see that there are three principal differences between these two methods: Leading, Evaluating and Training. In today’s public service form and especially in law enforcement, leading is a major challenge that is essential to a successful organization.

“Leaders have the process of influencing others towards the achievement of group goals (John Maxwell, Laws of Leadership).” A leader brings motivation, history, interest, character and motivation to an organization to meet the challenges today. We cannot go by one day without reading or hearing in the news some issue that involves a law enforcement agency, whether it is an Officer-involved shooting or implicit biases. Therefore, leadership involves an interaction between the leader, the staff, the public and the situation at hand. A leader must be competent and have true character to move an organization into today’s ever changing world, as must be a manager. I would posit that managers are leaders as well; however, there are distinctions among them.

Warren Bennis made the following distinctions:

LEADER MANAGER

Innovative Administer

Develop Maintain

Inspire Control

Long-term view Short-term view

Ask what & why Ask how & when

Originate Initiate

Challenge status quo Accept status quo

Do the right thing Do things right

Many times you will find that managers emphasize stability, consistency and predictability, whereas leaders emphasize change, vision and influence. No doubt that leaders by their own right have influence, but having legitimate power and unable to transform a department because of the lack of leadership is useless.

In today’s law enforcement (LE), the SARA model is used by both managers and leaders to solve a problem. SARA, Scanning, Analyze, Respond and Assessment gives LE a view of evaluating what is the problem (Scanning), i.e., pedestrians hit on a specific street, then Analyze the issue – what times of day, who is getting hit, where exactly is it happening, etc; and then responding to the issue by formulating an action plan (i.e., better striping, lighting, education). You would then assess whether your plan is working, otherwise, you are back to the beginning of SARA.

In LE and all public service, our rewards system is quite different than in the private sector. In private, the incentives to produce, work hard and get a bonus or commission are more extrinsic, versus the rewards for public service are more internal. LE personnel wants to work hard, but they gain the satisfaction (intrinsic) of seeing an abducted child reunited with their mother or arresting a rapist who has terrorized a neighborhood; this to a LE officer is, in the words of the MasterCard commercial, “priceless.”

Keep in mind that there are many faucets that are involved as participants in the criminal justice system: Law Enforcement Organizations (LEO); Courts; and Corrections. As an example -

LEO COURTS CORRECTIONS

Local (i.e. police/sheriff) State Jail

State (i.e. CHP/DOJ) Federal Prison

Federal (i.e. FBI/DEA) Prosecutors/Defense atty Probation

Chief/Sheriff/Commissioner Judges Parole

Director

All of the above face difficult challenges in managing and leading their respective organization for various reasons that apply to all.

Please review the following videos that are broken up in three parts. The video involves General H. Norman Schwarzkopf’s speech at the WestPoint Military Academy soon after his involvement in the Gulf Wars about “Leaders of the 21st Century.” The video has been termed as the famous “competence and character’ speech by the General. You will find many similarities that apply to today’s LE leaders.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0EkqbQ5XyQ [part I – 9:57 min]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAIhfw9bY5U [part II – 8:58 min]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnaKS9FV-lA [part III – 6:27 min]