Law Enforcement Promotion Secrets: The Definitive Guide to Promotion and Discovering the Leadership Keys to Earning the Respect, Trust, and Confidence of Your Team

By Dan Pratt

Do you know what it takes to be the top promotional candidate?

Getting a promotion involves so much more than being great at your current job. The skills that make a person great at their present rank, are not necessarily the same skills that will mak

• Language: English
• Publisher: Author Academy Elite
• Release date: Dec 10, 2022
• ISBN: 9798885831499

Book preview

LAW ENFORCEMENT PROMOTION SECRETS

The Definitive Guide to Promotion and Discovering the Leadership Keys to Earning the Respect, Trust, and Confidence of Your Team

Dan Pratt

Law Enforcement Promotion Secrets © 2022 by Dan Pratt.

All rights reserved.

Published by Author Academy Elite

PO Box 43, Powell, OH 43065

www.AuthorAcademyElite.com

All rights reserved. This book contains material protected under international and federal copyright laws and treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without express written permission from the author.

Identifiers:

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022918578

ISBN: 979-8-88583-147-5 (paperback)

ISBN: 979-8-88583-148-2 (hardback)

ISBN: 979-8-88583-149-9 (ebook)

Available in paperback, hardback, e-book, and audiobook

Scripture quotations taken from the Holy Bible,

New International Version®, NIV®.

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CONTENTS

Preface

Introduction

Part One: What Is the Job of a First-Line Leader, and Why Do You Want to Do It?

Chapter 1—What Are You Asking For?

Chapter 2—Understanding the Basics

Chapter 3—Know Your Why to Overcome the Seven Challenges of Leadership

Chapter 4—Reputation

Part Two: The Eight Pillars of Promotional Success

Chapter 5—Pillar 1: Attitude Is Everything

Chapter 6—Pillar 2: Developing Your Character

Chapter 7—Pillar 3: Personal Accountability

Chapter 8—Pillar 4: Display Leadership

Chapter 9—Pillar 5: Become Competent

Chapter 10—Pillar 6: Show Up

Chapter 11—Pillar 7: Find a Mentor

Part Three: How to Dominate the Testing Process and Attain the Promotion You Desire

Chapter 12—Pillar 8: Tools to Succeed

Chapter 13—The Ten Interview Commandments

Chapter 14—The Bulletproof Interview Method

Chapter 15—After the Testing Process

Endnotes

PREFACE

I am a former police chief, and I have a confession to make. But first, please take a short tour inside my brain to see things through my eyes and explore what I consider as a police chief when making a promotional decision. While I can’t speak for every chief (sheriff, director, chief executive, or other title used in your agency), I do speak from my human perspective and recognize we all want pretty much the same thing—meaning and fulfillment in our lives and to pursue a worthy goal with people we trust and respect. That, of course, means we need to surround ourselves with people who will contribute to and support each other in pursuing that worthy goal.

Now, this is where I take you into my head. Be warned, though; it can be a bit like a circus in there (not unlike in your own). Sometimes it is a funhouse, sometimes a madhouse, and sometimes a bit of a freak show. But we will try to hurry past those rooms and go straight through the door behind which lies a chief’s thought process when making promotional decisions. If you can keep this perspective at the forefront when considering your choice of actions and decision-making throughout your career, you will be well-served when it comes time for promotion. So, here it is.

At some level, most of us desire ease and comfort. Without conscious effort, coasting to comfort will be our default. While some people, including some chiefs, may be further along the path of mastering the habits of committed effort to achieve continuous growth, we still need—and want—to surround ourselves with people who will make it easier to lead a high-performance agency. Yes, I said it, and I will say it again (here is that confession): as a chief, I needed and wanted to surround myself with people who made my life easier.

Many may not admit it or think in those terms, and on the surface that may sound selfish, but hear me out. If you want to get promoted, be a problem solver, make those above you look good, and make their jobs easier. In short, make the team they lead (the one you are a member of) good. In effect, you make them look good by helping to make the team better. Now, don’t get me wrong. You are not doing this for the benefit of your boss; you are doing it to benefit your team and the community you serve. By being a great team member and setting the example for those around you to emulate, you are doing it for yourself. Fortunately, I had many people around me who made me look good. Maintaining that perspective will serve everyone on the team, and you will earn the respect, trust, and confidence of everyone in your agency—peers and bosses alike—and it will make your job so much more enjoyable. As Zig Zigler said, The more you help others get what they want, the more others will help you get what you want.¹ In these pages, I will show you what a chief wants.

In addition to making life easier, it’s important for you to understand the promotional decision is a direct reflection of the chief’s judgment. Let me explain what I mean with two examples of personnel decisions made by a chief based on the chief’s judgment—hiring and promotion.

When a chief hires or promotes someone, it’s with the desire to surround herself with good people who will improve the agency. When hiring someone, the chief uses her best judgment about someone she doesn’t know based on an interview, background, psychological evaluation, and maybe some other tests, such as a polygraph; however, the new hire is an unknown. The person will be or has been evaluated during the academy, during initial training with a field training officer (FTO), and during a probationary period. Everyone will see how good of a decision that hire was during the training process. It’s expected that some people aren’t cut out for police work or don’t fit the agency culture, and this initial process will weed them out.

With a promotion, the chief (and senior leadership) has had an opportunity to observe the candidate for many years; they have monitored work performance, attitude, decision-making ability, leadership potential, and ability to represent the department in accordance with agency values. In effect, the chief is tacitly endorsing the past of the selected candidate and vouching for her belief in the candidate’s ability as a leader going forward. To put it bluntly, the chief needs to believe you will be able to prove that she made a good decision and had good judgment in selecting you; if you turn out to be a poor choice, that reflects directly on the chief’s judgment. If you don’t perform well, that makes the chief look bad, and worse still, the department (the team) will suffer the consequences. Therefore, when I mention what the chief wants, please understand what I’m really saying is what your team needs because they’re synonymous.

So, in advance of selection, you must prove to the chief that if selected, you can be counted on to live up to her belief in your ability to lead. There are frequently many competent candidates for promotion. If you want the chief to choose you, she needs to believe you will perform in a manner that represents the chief’s goals and vision of a leader in your agency and that you will help to foster an environment consistent with her vision.

A chief needs leaders around them who make the job easier. A poor leader (poor promotional decision) will make the agency worse off and make everyone’s job more difficult, and the agency will suffer. Every selection of a person into a leadership position has an exponential effect on the department. Will the leader inspire and help create and develop (multiply) other leaders in the department to create a positive culture of leadership, service, and growth? Or will this leader be a negative drag on the department? Your past actions directly influence the chief’s decision. I wholeheartedly agree with Lou Holtz, the football coach, who said, I’ve coached good players, and I’ve coached bad players. I’m a better coach with good players.² Good players are identified by their past behavior, performance, character, and the results of their efforts.

That is what the following pages are all about—showing you what it takes to prove to the chief you will be an excellent choice. That proof begins today, right now, with the manner in which you conduct yourself every day.

INTRODUCTION

I am truly honored you have chosen this book to help prepare you for your journey of leadership development, that you have the desire to take on the responsibility of a leader and make the necessary effort to learn the skills required to be a truly effective supervisor. I intend to show you in this book what it takes to earn that advancement so you can get the promotion and be a great leader once you are selected. The most important thing for you to realize is that getting promoted begins long before you ever take a promotional test. It starts with how you conduct yourself now, and that’s where this book begins—showing you exactly what you should be doing right now.

In the following pages, you will learn how to embody the Eight Pillars of Promotional Success and specific tactics to excel on a promotional test and as a leader once you get that promotion. We will introduce you to the Ten Interview Commandments and The Bulletproof Interview Method to help you prepare for and dominate any testing process.

While the book focuses primarily on attaining your first promotion, it will benefit people at every rank (sworn and non-sworn), from new officers still on probation to police chief. The newer officers and staff members will benefit by learning and developing—from the start of their careers—the skills, habits, and behaviors necessary to be great team members and partners, which will serve them well throughout their careers. It will provide a roadmap and specific tools to those seeking to rise through the ranks, and it will give senior personnel a reference for their own mentoring and development of those they lead.

Let me provide a quick note regarding the terminology used throughout the book. I will most frequently refer to the first-line leader position as sergeant throughout these pages. Your agency may have a different title other than sergeant for the first-line leader, but realize I’m talking about the person who directly supervises those in the field doing the work (and making direct daily contact with those we serve). I will refer to those people as officers, recognizing that your agency may use different terminology, such as deputy. I will also refer to chief most frequently when referring to the head of the agency, even though your department may have a different title for the person who possesses the ultimate responsibility for the agency.

The reason the book focuses on the first-line leader, the position of sergeant, is twofold.

First, in my opinion, the first-line leader is the most vital, most critical position in any law enforcement agency. It’s the actions and decisions made by that supervisor (in many of our organizations) that have an immediate, noticeable, and lasting impact on the department and those we serve. A good sergeant who truly understands the role is the lynchpin who holds the entire organization together. If done right, it can be the best, most fulfilling job you will ever have. If not done right, you can foster an environment of mediocrity and stagnation and become a detriment or liability to those you supervise, your department, community, and the profession as a whole. Having served at every rank up to police chief, I can tell you with 100% certainty that having high-quality sergeants is critical to the success of the agency—and quite frankly, the level of stress felt by the chief.

Look, it’s no secret that the chief can make sure there is a solid policy in place, identify the core values of the agency, hire and promote great people, implement an excellent training plan, and set a clear vision and desired culture of the organization; however, it’s really up to others to carry all of that out. On a day-to-day basis, the chief may be invisible to the officer and the citizens, but who is standing right in the spotlight making the decisions that really impact lives? It’s the officer and the first-line supervisor; most often, it’s not the lieutenant, the captain, the commander, or the chief. The sergeant holds everything together; it’s the sergeant’s daily decisions that have a huge impact on the service we provide.

Sergeants are the crucial link between the chief’s words and the officer’s actions that so critically impact the service provided to our community, thus shaping public perception of the department. Officer’s actions must match the chief’s words, and sergeants are crucial players in that regard. It’s my belief that every officer should aspire to become a sergeant, not necessarily because they desire to be promoted any time soon, but because of what it will make of you in the process—a better team member. Regardless of whether one ever wants to attain a promotion or not, every officer should understand the role of the sergeant and be prepared to either step into that role when called upon or at least model the behavior expected of a leader for the benefit of the team, of our peers.

The second reason the book focuses on the sergeant is that as the first level of positional authority (higher rank), it’s important to develop the habits necessary in a great leader beginning early in your career. As I regularly say, every officer is a leader simply by virtue of the immense authority granted to you by the state—in wearing the uniform and badge/shield, you have accepted the heavy responsibility and duty of service above self. Therefore, that’s where we begin with this book: reviewing the behaviors, skills, and mental aspects necessary to be a tremendous teammate and leader among your peers now so you can carry those habits throughout your career to help you make your team better at whatever rank you hold. Your chief will want to know you have prepared yourself to take on the next level of responsibility and promotion, and you may never get that opportunity if you haven’t proven yourself worthy at your present position.

Some of you may be thinking, Uh oh, I have had a few missteps in my career and done some things that weren’t well-thought-out; where does that leave me? We will talk in greater depth about how to rehabilitate those concerns. Please recognize that whatever is in your past, with very few exceptions (and I’m sure you’re not one of those exceptions if you are still employed and reading this book on promotion), is unlikely to be fatal to your promotional chances. Believe me, we all have had our issues, and if you choose to work on yourself, you will be able to overcome any past adversity. Your bosses recognize (I hope) that learning and growing don’t happen without mistakes, without some failures, and as long as you are doing the things we will talk about, you will be fine. You can’t control past events; you can only control the present, what you do now, and start from where you are. We are going to talk in great deal about this in the pages that follow.

This book takes a two-prong approach to attaining promotion: it provides tips, tactics, and an action plan to help you to shine during the actual testing process, but more importantly, it gives you specific guidance on how to be the best candidate before the test is even announced, not simply seem to be an ideal candidate to an interview panel. Of course, this book will show you how to be successful during the testing process, but what I want is for you to be successful at your next position because you already possess the skills necessary and have earned the respect and trust of your teammates. But you must commit to doing the work—starting now—to prove your ability, and then make the effort to prepare specifically for the test. Leadership is hard work, and you must begin by leading yourself so you will be ready to lead others when the time comes and be prepared to dominate the promotional testing process.

In Part Three of this book, I provide you with a simple method of preparing for and standing out during the testing process using specific preparatory processes, the Ten Interview Commandments, and The Bulletproof Interview Method. This method of preparing for the promotional testing process was borne of my desire to make you "antifragile," to borrow a term coined by Nassim Taleb³. The best way to become antifragile, what I call bulletproof, during the process, is to have options available that allow you the flexibility to choose an appropriate response to any question based on the tools available to you—which we will develop together throughout this book. Using The Bulletproof Interview Method, you will be prepared to navigate successfully the uncertainty associated with the testing process, regardless of what it entails.

I hope this book will be a lasting reference for you to return to time and again, not merely a book that you read one time and set aside. It is intended as a guide for you to return to, both for your benefit and for those who will rely on your advice and experience as you grow and develop others by providing mentoring and guidance from your leadership position (once you get that promotion).

PART ONE

WHAT IS THE JOB OF A FIRST-LINE LEADER, AND WHY DO YOU WANT TO DO IT?

So, you want to be a leader. Do you really know what you’re asking for?

In Part One, we examine the prerequisite questions we must ask ourselves before we ever consider seeking a promotion.

Do I know what the job entails?

Why do I want to do the job?

I’m sure you know someone in a position of leadership, past or present, where you wonder how and why this person ever got promoted because they are a terrible leader, and you wouldn’t willingly follow them through the exit door of a burning building. These leaders are missing key elements necessary to inspire trust and confidence in their ability to lead and are doing a huge disservice to the team, the community, and the profession.

In the next four chapters, we will explore what the role of the first-line supervisor entails and look at the requisite knowledge, skills, and abilities that must be developed to be an effective leader. We will examine the only valid reasons for a person to seek a leadership position, and then I will ask you to answer some very pointed questions designed to help you identify whether promotion is right for you. The goal of Part One is for you to gain clarity as to what the role entails, understand specifically why you want to accept the role, and the steps you should be taking now to prepare yourself to be a great sergeant and to excel during the promotional testing process.

1

WHAT ARE YOU ASKING FOR?

Leadership is influence, plain and simple.

—John Maxwell

When you take on your official leadership role, the rest of your career changes. Your primary responsibility is no longer doing the task (doing the police work); your job shifts to leading, guiding, directing, and managing others in performing the task. Your primary role is ensuring those you lead have everything necessary to accomplish the mission of the team/department efficiently and effectively because they are the people who will be performing. Their success is largely dependent on what you provide them in terms of training, equipment, knowledge, support, leadership, direction, and clear goals. You are now responsible for, and your performance will be judged on other people’s performance, those you lead.

WHAT IS THE ROLE OF A SERGEANT?

The primary job of a sergeant is leadership, plain and simple. Promotion equals leadership, and leadership is influence. Therefore, the role of a sergeant is