The NJ Police Chief Magazine Volume 25, Number 2 | Page 24

The New Jersey Police Chief Magazine | February 2019
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We can emulate the successful leaders of the past, and learn from their mistakes as well. The study of the great leaders and
decision makers of the past provides the raw material for wise decisions today and tomorrow, since all of us are prone to the
same kinds of mistakes our predecessors made. Certainly no great leader is a copyist. Those who have slavishly copied
earlier leaders nearly always fail. However, a leader might be isolated in time from others, but can achieve a unity with them
by the responsibility they have shared. Most great leaders have, throughout history, studied the experience of those that
came before, profiting by their mistakes, and capitalizing on their success. 15
It is a fair question to ask if even the study of great leaders can be effective in teaching leadership. This is, perhaps, the
wrong question. According to two of the most prominent thinkers and writers on the topic, 16 a more relevant question is: Can
leadership be learned? The answer is a resounding “Yes.” One of the tools at our disposal in setting out on the life-long effort
that is learning to lead is studying the “art of leadership” from history’s great leaders. 17
Rudy Giuliani wrote: “Leadership is mostly a skill that people learn. They learn from their parents, from their friends and
colleagues, from their teachers, and from their clergy. But leaders also learn from leaders they’ve never met – by reading
about them.”
You supply the parents, friends, colleagues, teachers and clergy. We’ll supply the leaders you’ve never met – via the
NJSACOP Staff Rides for Law Enforcement and our other presentations on history’s great leaders.
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1 “Executive Development Best Practices Guide”, US Office of Personnel Management, Nov. 2012.
2 Business Continuity Institute
3 Zenger/Folkman, Orem, UT
4 US Army, retired, founding Director of the Ann and John Doerr Institute for New Leaders at Rice University
5 Matthews, Michael D. “In Extremis Leadership: Leading others when the chips are down.” Psychology Today.com, July 2014.
6 Baker, Al. “A Trip Abroad to Study Policing Without Guns.” New York Times, 12 December 2015: A1
7 Most – but not all – of the delegates were from New Jersey. Captain Laura O’Sullivan of the New Castle County (DE) Police Department, and NJSACOP Command
& Leadership [New Castle Section] Lead Instructor Senior Lieutenant Bill Harden (ret.) of the same agency were a part of our delegation as well.
8 William Robertson, The Staff Ride [U.S. Army Center of Military History, Washington, DC 1987], p. 3
9 Id.
10 The NJSACOP Staff Rides for Law Enforcement Leaders includes sessions exploring the Battle of Gettysburg (Gettysburg, PA), the Battle of Antietam
(Sharpsburg, MD), The Battle of Bull Run & Arlington National Cemetery (Manassas & Arlington, VA), and the Battles of Chancellorsville and Fredericksburg
(Fredericksburg, VA). The NJSACOP Experiential Learning Leadership series includes explorations of D-Day and the Battle of the Bulge.
11 The NJSACOP and NJSACOP Command & Leadership Alumni Association 1-Day Staff Rides include explorations of the Battles of Trenton & Princeton
(Mercer County, NJ), The Battle of Monmouth Court House (Monmouth County, NJ), The Battle of Brandywine (Chester County, PA), The Battle of Paoli & Valley
Forge (Chester County, PA), Battle of West Point & US Military Academy at West Point (Orange County, NY), Battle of Baltimore & Ft. McHenry (Baltimore, MD).
12 Ossad, Steven L., Wharton Leadership Digest, Volume 10, Number 4, January 2006.
13 Edgar Puryear, American Generalship: Character Is Everything [Ballantine Books, New York 2000], p. 340.
14 Id. at p. 74.
15 John Laffin, Secrets of Leadership: Thirty Centuries of Command [Sutton Publishing, Gloucestershire, UK 2004], p. 2.
16 Robert Taylor and William Rosenbach, eds., Military Leadership: In Pursuit of Excellence [Westview Press, Boulder, CO 2000], p. 3.
17 Id., at 4, quoting Gen. Matthew Ridgeway: “[L]eadership is probably a combination of art and sciences.
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