Monthly Archives: April 2019

Be Intentional About Culture

Leadership, Squad Culture, , , , , , ,

The mission at Thin Blue Line of Leadership is to share positive leadership tactics and training ideas with the field of law enforcement. Positive leadership and creating a positive squad culture are on-going commitments that must be nurtured and developed over time by anyone in a law enforcement leadership position. Development of a positive culture must be intentional; otherwise, who knows what will develop in its place.

For demonstrative purposes, I am going to discuss culture as it relates to the position of a sergeant with his/her squad, but these concepts are applicable at any level within an organization. When speaking of culture, I am specifically defining it as the prevailing actions and attitudes that a group demonstrates on a consistent basis. Actions and attitudes are the building blocks of culture and both must be guided in a desired direction.

Here are 4 ways to develop an intentional culture . . .

  1. Cultural development begins the minute you assume a leadership position. The minute you walk into your first briefing, you are already beginning to develop the culture of the squad. Were you early, late, or right on time? Officers are watching every step you take and are trying to decipher what you like, what you don’t like, what you expect of them, and what they can get away with. You must already know what direction you want to go or a power vacuum will form. The squad is seeking direction and leadership, either you give it to them or someone else will. There is not a minute to waste.
  2. Your style will teach your officers the culture. To be intentional about your squad’s culture, you must feed them examples of how you picture the culture. This cannot be done from the office. It requires being out on the road with them and demonstrating your style in action so they aren’t having to guess. Contact, communication, and connection between you and your officers is key. While in briefings, encourage your officers to ask “why” so they can better understand your decision-making process. The more they understand, the more the culture will begin to reflect the style you desire.
  3. What you reward will be repeated. You must reward desired actions and attitudes consistently. When you know within yourself the direction you want your squad to go, you will be able to easily recognize behaviors that deserve rewarding. This needs to be done even more blatantly if the desired behavior is a significant change from how things were prior to your arrival. Positive reinforcement is a very powerful tool for a leader, but you must be careful in what you reward because that behavior will be repeated. When giving compliments, specifically define what was good. Instead of just saying something like, “Nice job;” specifically define the action or attitude that you observed. For example, “Nice job, I like the way you kept your cool back there when that guy was yelling at us. You didn’t lose your temper and maintained officer safety without lowering yourself to that level.”
  4. What you ignore, you condone. When taking over a leadership role, such as a sergeant starting with a new squad, there are always going to be things you see that you don’t necessarily agree with and differ from your desired culture. It is incumbent of you to not ignore them. Ultimately, what you don’t address will be assumed to be acceptable. On the flip-side, you must also be careful not to just bark orders about how you want things done or you’ll very quickly take on the persona of a micromanager. To make your redirections acceptable, you must define why it is important to you and why it should be important to that officer.

Before your can have any effect on the culture of a squad, you have to know what the culture is that you would like to have. If you cannot picture in your head what the perfect squad culture would look like, then how can you lead other people in that direction? Take the time to write out your thoughts and think about what has or has not worked in your previous assignments. What qualities made up the best squad/unit you have been a part of? This is your squad’s culture, be intentional about it!

What do you do at your department to be intentional about culture?

Share your thoughts or comments with us below or on our Facebook page. Continue saving the world one call at a time and as always, LEAD ON!

A Law Enforcement Recognition Idea

Leadership, Squad Culture, , , , , , , ,

The mission at Thin Blue Line of Leadership is to share positive leadership tactics and training ideas with the field of law enforcement. Positive leadership and creating a positive squad culture are ongoing commitments that must be nurtured and developed over time. One way to do this is by recognizing and rewarding great police work on a routine basis. Here is an idea that came to me a while back.

I found myself watching a college football game and was noticing the band, the cheerleaders, the crazy student section, the mascot, and of course the players. A thought struck me at that time regarding the strength of culture at these collegiate institutions. Then I began to pay particular attention to the helmets of the Florida State Seminoles and noticed that there were little tomahawk stickers on the player’s helmets. This was not something new as I have seen them on many other college team helmets, but this day I guess it just struck me at the right time.

helmetA Wikipedia search of “helmet stickers” revealed that recognition or pride stickers have been awarded to players since the mid-1950’s for making excellent plays, selfless plays, and even for hard work at practices. The idea stemmed from fighter pilots that marked their planes to signify the number of kills or successful missions they had flown. Then I started to make a connection to police work.

Most police departments have awards that are given out on an annual basis, but if you really want to positively reinforce behavior then it needs to be done on a much more consistent basis. So, I created some law enforcement recognition stickers using the Thin Blue Line of Leadership logo and had them printed at evermine.com.

sticker

For a very small cost ($15+shipping), I received over 100 custom recognition stickers (1″ diameter) to give out in briefings to reward the great things that officers do on a daily basis. I am not selling anything or being paid by evermine.com to tell you any of this; I am simply sharing an idea and Evermine happened to be the website that popped up first.

TYPES OF STICKERS: Walking into briefing with a couple of recognition stickers immediately makes everyone wonder who is being recognized and for what. It provides the perfect opportunity to reinforce more of the “smaller” things that do not rise to the level of an official ribbon or annual award. If you catch an officer changing a flat tire, give them a sticker. Have an officer that routinely volunteers to hold over a couple of extra hours to accommodate staffing needs, give them a sticker. If an officer does an amazing investigation or writes a great report, give them a sticker after they talk about it with the squad so everyone has a chance to learn from that officers great moment. Any action that supports what the squad is all about, the desired culture, should be recognized. This sticker is only given out when I, the sergeant, want to personally thank them or recognize them for some good work they did or a sacrifice they made for the betterment of the squad. What gets recognized and rewarded gets repeated.

After the success of the above recognition sticker,  I created a second sticker for our squad. These stickers could only be received by officers that are being recognized by a person outside of the squad or another officer on the squad.

r1lion

It is a squad logo created of a lion (think LE Memorial) and stars to represent the people on our squad. These stickers were used for two purposes. First, when someone from outside the squad wants to recognize a member of the squad for something. These commendations could come from citizens, other supervisors, upper staff, etc. Secondly, the most interesting use for these stickers was for officers to internally thank each other when someone sacrificed to help them out personally. For example, when an officer finds a good arrest with a ton of items to impound and their squadmates stay late to help them get it done quicker. The next shift, they would come ask me for however many stickers they needed and in briefing would thank the officers that helped them out. The coolest part of the stickers is that they ended up perpetuating officers going above and beyond for their fellow officers to a whole new level than I had ever seen in our department.

The officers decide where to accumulate their stickers, but consensus seemed to be their ticket clipboards. Some put them on their locker or some other place they see on a daily basis. This serves as a consistent reminder of their many accomplishments and makes a statement about having a positive squad culture.

clipboard

Do you have a similar way of rewarding officers in your department?

UPDATE: Here is the funny thing . . . I have since spoken to others around the department that knew of these stickers. When asked what the external perspective was of this idea, they all tell me that at first they thought I was crazy. Giving stickers to grown adults had a little too much of an elementary school ring to it. BUT, when they looked into it further, came into briefing to see it in action, and talked directly to the officers what they found out was that this wasn’t elementary or condescending at all. They all found themselves wishing they had done something to be recognized for. Here is the KEY TAKEAWAY, people long for attention, acceptance, and appreciation.  If a leader can find a way, even a way as simple as stickers, that addresses their officers’ needs of attention, acceptant, and appreciation; then they will have found a catalyst for positive culture, change, reinforcement, and team building. It doesn’t take much, but a little effort.

Share your thoughts or comments with us below or on our Facebook page. Continue saving the world one call at a time and as always, LEAD ON!

5 Simple Leadership Lessons

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The mission at Thin Blue Line of Leadership is to share positive leadership tactics with the field of law enforcement. Positive leadership and creating a positive squad culture are on-going commitments that must be nurtured and developed over time. The minute an officer decides to promote to a supervisor position within a law enforcement organization, they have chosen to take on the great responsibility of being a leader, coach, caretaker, psychologist, mentor, teacher, and many more.

Here are 5 simple leadership lessons for new law enforcement supervisors.

  1. Know the mission! As a leader in a law enforcement organization, it is your responsibility to know your department’s mission statement and goals. When guiding officers through calls, handling complaints, or evaluating a situation; the department’s mission is the guide. It should be more than just a few sentences in a general orders book or a framed picture on the wall; make it real by speaking of it regularly in briefing. Give examples of what it looks like on the road.
  2. Set clear expectations! This lesson is not referring to setting quotas or other quantitative measures. It is about clearly defining a path to success for your officers’ careers. It means defining how to treat people, use force appropriately, conduct thorough investigations, think critically under stress, and remembering that this is a career of service. The culture, your squad’s actions and attitudes, will be a reflection of the expectations you establish. (More on expectations.)
  3. Set goals! As a leader, you should obviously have your own goals, but this is specifically referring to assisting your officers in developing their own short and long term goals. Your own personal success will be derived from helping your officers reach their goals. Goals should be forward thinking and in agreement with department/district goals. In the short term, have your officers establishing goals they would like to accomplish in the next year that correspond to beat issues, crime trends, or other defined problems within their areas of responsibility. They should also consider trainings they would like to attend or other personnel development toward future assignments they would like to obtain. For the long term, discuss where they see their career in 5 years or 10 years; what specialty assignments they are interesting in, are they interesting in promoting, etc. Then you must assist them by providing training opportunities, helping them develop their strengths, and make connections with people that work in the officer’s area of interest. Use their goals as a springboard for having consistent, on-going evaluation conversations.
  4. Set the example! As a supervisor, it is vital that you are out with your officers on the road as much as possible. Not only does this show your willingness to be involved and “get your hands dirty,” but it also gives them the perfect opportunity to observe you in action setting the example of how they should be – representing your own expectations. Your officers will be watching closely to see how you treat people and make decisions; especially in the tough situation where they may not be sure how to act or react. When you come across a situation where your officers are unsure of a solution to their call, it provides the perfect opportunity to teach them your decision-making process. Ask a standard set of questions to walk them through problems: What do you know? What do you think? Have you considered this? Then let them make the ultimate decision . . . example set!
  5. Recognize, reward, promote! As a supervisor, it is easy to see all of the things going wrong because typically you have just finished studying every nook and cranny of department policy to pass your supervisor test. The challenge is in stepping back and recognizing the good. Purposely train yourself to identify not only things that need fixing or reeducating, but those things that are being done above and beyond what you would expect normally from an officer. Once you begin recognizing the good, it is imperative that you find ways to reward those behaviors. (An idea on rewarding officers.) It does not have to be anything fancy or of monetary value, but simply telling an officer that they did a good job and specifically defining what they did good can go a long way. After recognizing and rewarding, it is just as important that you promote them. In terms of promote, that means to mention them to upper staff, bring it up in briefing, etc. Bringing these positive behaviors to light, will not only help the officer’s career, but will give other officers something to strive for.

Columnist Ann Landers once wrote, “Opportunities are usually disguised as hard work, so most people don’t recognize them.” These 5 simple leadership lessons are nothing fancy or complicated. Years of research and development have not been done to come up with them. But, to successfully implement these leadership lessons in your daily routine as a supervisor it will take effort, time, dedication, and desire. As a supervisor, it is your job to recognize the opportunity.

Share your thoughts or comments with us below or on our Facebook page. Continue saving the world one call at a time and as always, LEAD ON!

The 3 Accountability Relationships in Law Enforcement

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Accountability is defined as the obligation of an individual or organization to account for its activities, accept responsibility for them, and disclose the results in a transparent manner. There are 3 primary accountability relationships within law enforcement:

  • Department <–> Community
  • Department <–> Officers
  • Supervisors <–> Officers.

Each accountability relationship is a two-way street that must be equally travelled on both sides in order for there to be shared successes.

Department <–> Community

The relationship between a community and a police department is vital to both the safety of the community and the success of the department in providing that safety. Police departments are funded by tax dollars from the community they are entrusted to protect. The community is accountable to the department by giving them the funding to hire the proper number of officers, compensate them appropriately, and obtain the necessary resources to meet the needs and expectations of the community. In turn, the department is expected to serve their community by treating them with dignity and respect at all times. Communities accept that police departments must at times use force, but expect it to be done with the utmost responsibility. Support from the community ultimately gives police departments the authority they need to get the job done. There cannot be an “Us versus Them” mentality in order for both side of this relationship to succeed.

Department <–> Officers

The relationship between a police department and their officers must be one of mutual respect and understanding. Officers must be accountable to the department that has hired them to hit the streets each day and keep the community they serve safe. The department must provide the necessary equipment, training, recognition, and pay to give their officers the most advantageous position possible for dealing with the law-breakers of the community. In other words, departments must take care of their officers and find ways to set them up for success. In order to demonstrate their success, officers must show through their community interactions and production that they are working for the wage they are being paid by meeting the mission and standards set forth by the department. Officers must have respect for the power bestowed upon them and be diligent in upholding the Law Enforcement Code of Ethics. Without officers there is no police department and without a police department there are no officers.

Supervisors <–> Officers

The relationship between supervisors and officers is the most direct accountability relationship of the three. There is direct influence on both sides based on the amount of contact, level of communication, and strength of connection developed while serving the community as a team. The supervisor must walk the tightrope of being the translator between the needs of the department and those of the officers. By taking the time to establish a positive squad culture with their officers and developing trust, the supervisor can take any department initiative, present it to their officers, and get buy-in. In turn, officers must be able to trust their direct supervisor and truly believe that the supervisor has their best interests in mind. As discussed in the blog “7 Macro and 7 Micro Ways of Creating a Positive Squad Culture” it is up to the supervisor to give their squad the “gift of going second” in establishing a trust-based relationship. Each side of this accountability relationship must give a little to gain a lot.

As written in multiple other Thin Blue Line of Leadership blogs, people are policing. Without strong relationships in these 3 areas of accountability; morale, trust, production, compensation and many other areas suffer. It would not be a stretch to say that on some level the events last month in Ferguson, Missouri are attributable to issues in at least one, if not all, of these accountability relationships. This is why these 3 relationships are so vital to policing.

Do you feel there is a more important accountability relationship we missed?

The mission at Thin Blue Line of Leadership is to share positive leadership tactics with the field of law enforcement. Positive leadership cannot be achieved without recognizing the various levels of accountability that exist in law enforcement and learning to work those relationships.

Share your thoughts or comments with us below or on our Facebook page. Continue saving the world one call at a time and as always, LEAD ON!