The NJ Police Chief Magazine Volume 24, Number 9 | Page 18

The New Jersey Police Chief Magazine | December 2018
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The leadership journey
The focus on ‘leadership’ in the UK police has become far more prevalent in the last decade or so. Previously, it
was received wisdom that police forces were structured with a rank hierarchy, that those more senior in rank
knew best, and deference should be shown.
This essentially manifested itself in an approach which was paternalistic, and focused on command and control.
Gradually, the concepts developed, and we were introduced to ‘leadership’, and John Adair’s three circles and the
associated thoughts he developed from his days at Sandhurst, was advisable reading for those approaching a
promotion board.
Over the intervening period, leadership thinking developed. Steven Covey talked about the seven habits for
managers (a derivative of his seven habits of highly effective people (Covey, 1999), and it was embraced by UK
police forces.
In the 1980s and 1990s, the Bramshill Staff College held Junior, Intermediate and Senior Command Courses.
These courses became known as the Foundation for Senior Leaders (FSL), the Senior Leaders Programme (SLP),
and the Strategic Command Course. They are modular in nature, covering such areas as Business Skills, Valuing
Difference and Inclusion, and Command Skills.
They also entail careful scrutiny of oneself, using a 360-degree assessment tool, whereby those supervised by the
candidate, peers of the candidate, and supervisors of the candidate are asked anonymously to provide an
assessment of the candidate’s skills and areas for development. Alongside this is a self-assessment, and a
Myers-Briggs personality assessment.
These then form the basis of more formal ‘leadership’ training in the UK police service, and reflect current
thinking. They also act as a powerful incentive for people to think ‘leadership’, to act ‘leadership’, to evidence
‘leadership’: only in this way will they then ascend the slippery pole of promotion, where they can become ‘senior
leaders’.
The promotion processes tend to embrace and reward this style and approach. But if we refer back to the
differences in ‘leadership’ and ‘management’, we do not want everyone to be leaders all of the time.
Seductive
The people-focused nature of ‘leadership’, as distinct from the technical or systems-focused disposition of
‘management’ is extremely seductive, particularly for police organisations which are inherently people focused.
The majority of costs of police organisations are in people, and police organisations exist to provide a service for
people. In addition to this, police organisations are seen as leadership organisations per se. They ‘lead’ at scenes
of road accidents, at scenes of crimes. They are the lead coordinating agency for a multitude of critical and major
incidents, and it is usual for a senior police officer to be chairing strategic Gold meetings for terrorist events,
flooding, major fires and other disaster, even though they may not be the primary agency for tackling the incident
in question.
This frequently translates into other areas of business, and it is not unusual to see police officers chairing key
partnership meetings, or attempting to lead things which may well be beyond their remit.
Ratcliffe (2013) again quotes Kotter:
"If the world is not changing and you are on top, then management is essential but more leadership really is not,
[and] leadership is always about change: it's not about mobilising people to do what they've always done well to
continue to do it well.”
Need for change?
It is no coincidence then that leadership inertia has built within the police as a response, at least in part, to the
level of unprecedented change the service is currently experiencing. The College of Policing is overt on this point
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