An Analysis of Jack Altman’s
Leadership Practices
By: Would B. Graduate
Mgmt355: Leadership in Organizations
Dr. XXX
University of La Verne
May 16, 2012
Chapter 1: Introduction
Note: The first paragraph should explain what the paper is about (for example, the purpose of the paper, about which leader will the paper be about, the leader’s title/position, the organization with which the leader is affiliated, and others).Then it can go to the leader’s background information as described below.
Jack Altman grew up in Southern California. He lived with his loving mother and father but had no other siblings. He said he never felt lonely as an only child because he surrounded himself with friends. Many of those same friends he still remains close with today. His parents exposed him to all sorts of team sports but Jack got more satisfaction from playing individual sports. He attended High Mountain High School and played tennis, ran on the track team and enjoyed skiing for the ski club. Although Jack excelled at all sports, his passion was Desert Racing. His passion for dirt bike racing not only won him many medals but gave him the confidence he needed to pursue his career in law enforcement. Jack knew from a very young age that law enforcement was the career path for him.
Immediately following High School, Jack attended a local community college but decided that the Police Academy was the only type of schooling his wanted to pursue at that time in his life. He graduated from the Police Academy in 1980 and began working immediately for a small Southern California police department. He had his sights set on a job with more opportunities so he transferred to the Tri county Sheriff’s Department in 1984. After transferring to the Sheriff’s Department, Jack was required to do a year of training in the Southern California prison system. Although the prison system was not a job he enjoyed, he claims it made him a better listener and a more confident leader.
In the late eighties and early nineties, he attended the Tactical Officer Academy where he soon became an instructor himself. Jack has a calm personality and believes he was a transformation leader during his time teaching there. After a few years, Jack was soon promoted to Senior Deputy and took a new path in his law enforcement career. He was assigned to ERNET, the Eastern Regional Narcotics Enforcement Team. It was a group of different teams that were located through Southern California. The importance of being a team player was vital to the success of this multifaceted group that spent many hours doing surveillance and going under cover to track drug dealers. Jack was promoted to Sergeant in 1998 and was once again assigned to a Temporary Detention Center. He only spent about a year there and was then transferred to the Surf City Station where he stayed until 2003. While at Surf City, Jack was Watch Commander, Administrative Sergeant and Detective Sergeant. Because of Jack’s past experience in drug enforcement, Jack was transferred back to ERNET, where he worked on a high priority methamphetamine task force.
During his second assignment to ERNET he had a large number of subordinates that were required to answer to him. The Tri County Sheriff’s Department saw Jack’s success at being a leader and assigned him to train new candidates at the Sheriff’s Department Training Center from 2005 through 2008. During his time at the Training Center, Jack attended Southern New York University through an online training program specifically designed for law enforcement employees or persons considering a job in the law enforcement field. Upon completion Jack earned 60 upper graduate units and is now close to receiving his Bachelor’s Degree in Administrative Justice. Jack was promoted to the position of Lieutenant in 2008 and now serves as the Executive Officer at the Information Service Division at the Sheriff’s headquarters in Tri County. The Information Service Division employs over 200 civilian employees. Jack is a true asset to our Sheriff’s Department.
The Tri County Sheriff’s Department was founded in 1910. Tri County is one of the largest Counties located in the lower 48 states and the Department provides law enforcement services to over 1 million citizens within the county. In addition, the Sheriff’s Department operates several jail systems and mans all Marshall services at the local courts. Tri county employed its first sheriff in 1910, whose main focus was to suppress the Indian and outlaw raids of their time (Johnson pg 19). The Department now currently employees over 2,000 employees and has a wide variety of departments ranging from search and rescue to the most intricate types of investigation.
The Department is clear in its objective and vision. The Department’s Vision statement requires that each deputy treat all people with respect, fairness and compassion, value each employee’s contribution to the Department, create a work environment that encourages innovation, input and participation and value each member’s diversity. The Department objective is to provide a society free from crime and disorder and to enforce the law in a fair and impartial manner, recognizing both the statutory and judicial limitations of the law (Sheriff’s Department Manual). The Department’s Organizational structure is as follows: The current Sheriff of Tri County is Sheriff Tricia Fullness. Serving below the Sheriff is the Undersheriff, who is the second in command of the department. Beneath the Undersheriff are two Assistant Sheriff's. One Assistant Sheriff is in charge of Operations and the other is in charge of Support. The Department is further organized into six bureaus, Administrative Bureau, Employee Resources, Detention and Corrections Bureau, Court Services Bureau, Patrol Services, and Specialty Operations. The Deputies must have character and be willing to adhere to the Department Motto, “Serving with Pride” (Sheriff’s Department Manual pg7).
Chapter 2: Leadership Practices
The Sheriff’s Department maintains a clear value statement. The Department “believes in high professional standards of integrity, ethics and behavior, guided by the letter and spirit of the law and the Law Enforcement Code of Ethics”. Jack Altman adheres and respects the Department’s Code of Ethics. Jack is proud of the Department and is always striving to improve the Department as well as his designated position at Headquarters. He is very good at strategic planning as his current title requires him to manage over 100 employees. He oversees four main departments within the Division, 2 dispatch centers, the records division and the technology center. There are 4 department managers directly below him that he has a solid working relationship with. He is so proud of the four managers because they are very knowledgeable and passionate about their departments. The four Department Managers held those same positions before Jack came in as Executive Officer so he was careful to listen to his managers before making any changes to their area of expertise.
Jack hopes that he is able to inspire his subordinates by his long history of effective leadership and his continued dedication to the Department. Jack has weekly meetings with his four managers to insure that they are on track and to see if he can be of any assistance with any situations that may arise. Jack is aware of the high qualifications and capabilities of his four managers and is careful to give support when needed but does not want to over manage his managers. Jack likes to address any tensions within the divisions right away to insure that any conflicts are resolved before they escalate to a higher level. Being an executive officer with so many subordinate employees, Jack finds himself involved in personnel issues. He is brought in by his four managers to be the final authority regarding any discord. Jack’s many years working with the public has made him a very patient and discerning listener. Jack is careful to let his employees speak and makes sure he is attentive to the needs of his managers as well as the employees within the four divisions. Jack is very assertive but calm in any given situation. His subordinates are impressed with his confident, calm, yet highly effective leadership style.
The Sheriff’s Department holds a chain of command type of delegation so each specific leader has one or more individuals that they learn from as well as seek advice from. This collaboration between ranks is what makes this huge Department of over 2,000 employees run so smoothly. In a rank and chain of command delegation system, rewards are usually given in the form of an increase or promotion of rank. Over the years, Jack has been asked to give his vital input on many promotion meetings. One drawback to the chain of command system and being a county employee with a set salary; bonuses and increases are not easily recommended by a commanding officer but rather must come down from the Board of Commissioners. Salaries may be contingent on the County budget and are not easily increased. According to Peter Northouse, “ethics” in regards to leadership has to do with what leaders do and who leaders are (Northhouse p.378). It is concerned with the nature of the leaders’ behavior”, being an employee of the Sheriff’s Department means that an employee is held accountable to the highest standards. The public’s safety and confidence in the County Sheriff’s Department is contingent upon proper behavioral standards and guidelines. Jack understands these high standards and strives daily to make his employees, his supervisors and the public proud of the job he is performing.
Chapter 3: Analysis of Leadership Practices I
Five Leadership Theories and Leadership Styles
There are five major leadership theories that we studied over the course of this class. The five theories include situational leadership, style leadership, leader-member exchange theory, transformational leadership and team leadership. In situational leadership Northouse believes that leadership is a combination of both a directive and supportive leadership style and that a situational leader must match each situation with the correct style. (Northouse p. 89). In addition, the situational approach to leadership demands that leaders change their style of leadership to fit subordinates development level (Northouse pg 92). There are four leadership styles within the situational leadership approach. S1 is a high directive and low supportive style, S2 is a high directive and high supportive style, S3 is a high supportive and low directive, S4 is low supportive and low directive.
The style approach to leadership focuses on the behavior of the leader (Northouse p. 69). The style approach suggests that leaders have two general types of behaviors: task behavior and relationship behaviors (Northouse p. 69) In the style approach to leadership a leader must be will to step back and examine whether or not his style is meeting the needs of his subordinates. The styles of leadership include authority-compliance, team, country-club management, impoverished management, middle of the road management, paternalism/maternalism, and opportunism (Northouse p. 74). Note: The newest edition of the textbook uses the term “behavioral approach” rather than the “style approach.”
The leader-member exchange theory also known as the vertical dyad linkage theory focuses on the dimensions of the relationship of the leaders and to what degree the followers are linked to that leader (Northouse p.147-148). In the leader-member exchange theory there are two types of relationships, the in group in which the leader seems to favor and have confidence in and the out group which performs their tasks but doesn’t have a close working relationship with their leader. The out group tends to get their job done but doesn’t have the zeal that the in group possesses (Northouse p. 150).
The fourth theory is transformational leadership. In transformational leadership, the leadership style is so powerful that it encourages followers to develop to their fullest potential (Northouse p.176). Many great leaders of the world were transformational leaders. Transformation leadership is based on five style factors, idealized influence, charisma, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, individualized consideration (Northhouse p. 177). The fifth and final theory is team leadership. Team leadership is based on the idea “that a leader’s job is to monitor the team and then take whatever action is necessary to ensure team effectiveness” (Northouse p. 243). An effective team leader must have polished communication skills, conflict resolution skills as well as the ability to train and influence team members.
Note: All leadership styles that are associated with each of the five leadership theories should be listed or described.
Jack’s Leadership Style
I had Jack take some of the leadership questionnaires at the end of the chapters and he excelled in the leader-member theory as well as having many more true answers than false answers on the team excellence questionnaire. The style questionnaire Jack scored a 32 in task behavior which gave him a moderately high rating but he scored in the high range when it came to relationship behavior. I think Jack’s leadership style has changed over his career in the Department. The Department Manual states that “decisions in law enforcement operations frequently must be made in an instant and the lives of deputies and others depend upon the quality of those decisions. A deputy must base his actions upon the facts of the situation and rely upon experience, training and judgment to guide him toward lawful decisions and actions” (Sheriff’s Department Manual p. 11). This objective is clear; decisions must be made quickly and rationally in an instant. Jack expressed that training and years of experiences are vital, but that there will always be cases that a plethora of experience and training will not be enough. My suggestion for Jack was to have the Department send even the most seasoned veterans to training sessions once a year, just to reiterate the basics and to give support for each other.
After speaking with Jack at great length about the different leadership styles, I had no choice but to select a few different theories. In his earlier days with the Department serving in the public arena, Jack’s type of leadership style was situational. “Situational theory proposes that leaders choose the best course of action based upon the variables given” (Cherry). Jack was not in the same setting on a day to day basis and moved to different Department about every 3 or four years, so he couldn’t take a stagnant approach to leadership. He may be interacting with his commanding officer, his partner, a victim of a crime or a perpetrator of that crime all within a matter of minutes. His training at the academy gave him an idea that his style of leadership must change according the severity or the nature of each situation. Jack believes that he was able to be very discerning in what type of leadership style he must put into action. As a police officer, Jack informed me that his role is to have “the correct reaction to an action” that has taken place. Many times a dangerous situation will escalate if an officer is taking the wrong type of approach. It takes many years of experience to implement the correct plan of action for the varying difficult situations the officers handle daily.
During his training years, Jack thinks that transformational leadership is the theory he tried to achieve. Many of his trainees were very young and required a great deal of encouragement. It was imperative that Jack improve the performance of his followers. He had to make sure these young Sheriff’s candidates could reach the high standards required of them. It was Jack’s job to influence, provide intellectual stimulation in the way of training and to have consideration for the differences of the individuals. His job was to transform men and women into deputies that would provide protection for the community.
Compatibility/incompatibility between Jack’s Leadership Style and Organizational Goals
Now that Jack has been part of the Department for many years and is an executive officer he possesses a great degree of team leadership qualities and I believe that the team leadership theory closely matches his type of leadership style today. He believes that at this point in his law enforcement career it is great team leadership that makes the entire Department run as smoothly as it does. He strives to meet these characteristics of team leadership, clear goals, results driven structure, competent team members, unified commitment, collaborative efforts, standards of excellence and external support and recognition (Northouse p. 252). Jack is an effective team leader, with 4 divisions and 100 employees to supervise. With that large of a Division, Jack needs to delegate effectively. His division is responsible for maintaining confidential court records, maintaining records on thousands of prisoners, staffing two professional dispatch centers and making sure the Technology Division is running smoothly and effectively without interruption. Team leadership is compatible with the Sheriff’s Department organization goals. The deputies consider themselves members of a team and family, “ready to serve the people of Tri County by performing the law enforcement function in a professional manner” (Sheriff’s Department Manual p. 9). Note: This section should be revised so that organizational goals are compared with the leader’s leadership style more specifically. Also, incompatibilities need to be identified.
Recommendations
With over 24 years of experience, it is hard for an outsider to make recommendations that can improve Jack’s leadership style, so I asked him if had any thoughts on the subject and he suggested that he would take a more active role in encouraging his subordinates by meeting with them regularly and taking an active role in their annual evaluations to insure that they reach their personal goals of promoting within the Department. Jack has true team leadership qualities.
Chapter 4: Analysis of Leadership Practices II
Conditions for Effective Delegation
Note: This section needs to state clearly that delegation is most effective if the development level of a follower is at D4 with high competence and high commitment.
Development Levels of the Followers
A few (three to five) followers’ development levels need to be described here.
Jack’s Delegation Practice
The Information Services Division supports four separate Departments. The Departments consist of two dispatch centers located about 60 miles apart, a records division and a Technology Division. Jack is the Executive Officer over the entire Information Services Division. He is in charge of making sure each of the four departments are properly staffed and that each division meets their goals. Each division has a manager that directly interacts with the employees and the managers each answer to Jack. It is a little different in that most of the employees are County employees but are not hired or paid through the Sheriff’s Department so this Division doesn’t necessarily follow a chain of command mentality. Jack has great confidence in his four managers. On more than one occasion during our interview, Jack mentioned how impressed he was with the manager’s qualifications. He delegates to the four managers, who in turn delegate to whom they believe to be the most qualified for the task. Note: This section needs to be revised so that the questions of “to whom does the leader delegate or not delegate, when does the leader delegate, and to what extent does the leader delegate?” need to be addressed.
Compatibility/incompatibility between Jack’s Delegation Practice and Followers’ Development Levels
The only incompatibility I found with Jack’s type of delegation is that he puts his entire trust into his four managers and therefore loses a little bit of direct control of how the task are being divided up. Note: More incompatibilities need to be identified and discussed.
Recommendations
It is imperative that Jack delegate tasks as the work load for over 200 employees is enormous. Jack’s delegation practice is compatible with his followers; he has a low directive, low supportive approach because his managers are so qualified and passionate about their individual departments. He relies on his managers to delegate effectively but oversees the operations to insure everything is running smoothly. Because he is the executive officer in charge, his managers also delegate responsibilities to him as well. The managers recognize his aptitude for human relations and he is often the center of personnel meetings. Jack claims to be an effective delegator, but says there is always room for improvement.
He recently noticed that he was taking on a few large projects that he really did not have time for because of staffing shortages. The most recent project was given to him to delegate directly from his Captain, so he felt responsible for its outcome. To be an effective team leader of such a large department, Jack meets with his four managers individually every week and each one of the Departments hold monthly meetings that Jack doesn’t normally attend unless one of his managers requests that he be present. Because the Dispatch Centers work 24 hours, Jack rarely gets to interact with all of their employers but is available by phone if an emergency arises. Jack is an effective delegator, but perhaps Jack could make sure to attend those monthly meeting to create a unified front with the Department Managers. With such a high volume of employees, attending those monthly meetings and sharing his satisfaction of a job well done, may validate the employee’s hard work and show them that their diligent efforts are not going unnoticed. Note: These recommendations need to be revised to address the incompatibilities identified in the previous section.
Chapter 5: Conclusion
Note: A brief summary of the paper should be presented here first.
During his years growing up, Jack was taught that you are able to accomplish anything you are willing to work hard at. His hard work ethic continues to show in his many promotions and continued zeal for his job. After 25 years, Jack still remains passionate about his Department and the duties that he is expected to accomplish. During our interview, I knew that Jack was a team leader. He only had the utmost respect for his managers and employees and was quick to give them the credit they deserve. Jack spoke many times about altering his leadership style to accommodate the needs of the Department or the different positions he held within the Department but feels that team leadership is the style that fits his current job assignment and personality at this time in his career.
I learned from Jack that we can still have a calm, passive attitude towards leadership but still be completely effective. In addition, his mild but confident manner surprised me after so many years of being on a job that may cause others to become bitter and hard. Jack hopes to retire in about 5 years and aspires to make the rank of Captain before leaving the Department. I learned from Jack that although we may have the leadership styles that matches one approach more than the other, we may all have a few qualities in us that can been seen in several styles. In addition, Jack continued appreciation for his job after so many years is great to see. I have total confidence in the type of employees the Sheriff’s Department strives to employee. I only hope that I am as passionate about my career after 25 years of employment. I have no doubt that Jack has and will continue to inspire and influence many people over his long career. Note: Could discuss applications of personal lessons learned to some aspects of the author’s life and also about own preferred future leadership style.
Works Cited
Cherry, Kendra. “Leadership Theories.” About. Com. 21 April 2010 <http://psychology.about.com/od/leadership/p/leadtheories.htm>
Johnson, M. David. Images of America: Tri County Sheriff’s Department. New York: Window
View Publishing, 2006.
Northouse, Peter G. Leadership: Theory and Practice. 5th ed. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 2010.
Tri County Sheriff’s Department Manual – Policies. Volume 1. Sections 1.102-110
1 January 2010.
"Tri County Sheriff's Department/Coroner". MAY 1, 2010 <www.co.Tri County. ca.us/sheriff/>.
Note: Needs at least one more external reference.
Michelle_Michy
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