Leadership: Turning Silver into Gold

By Matthew Jamison

First and foremost, this book is about leadership. The world is in need of great leaders to ensure the success of all organizations, businesses, and government entities. Perhaps as much as any company or business, police departments require effective leadership. It is critical to distinguish leadership from other related terms like management, supervision, and oversight. Leadership means much more than any of these words. Leaders are personally invested in the well-being of their organization and in their personal success. This includes the idea that true leaders are willing to work tirelessly and fully commit themselves to their organization and its mission. The most effective leaders do so by the example they set each day. Leaders must also be accountable by taking responsibility for the success of the organization through measurable results. In doing so, they will be required to improve upon existing procedures and take calculated risks via the implementation of new programs. Leadership: Turning Silver into Gold details the ascent of a police department, due in large measure to effective leadership. While this text is based largely upon the dynamics of police leadership, the overall themes may be applied within virtually any type of business. In moving any entity forward, changes will occur, both by the choosing of those running the organization and by necessity when outside influences so dictate. The best leaders are receptive to change and embrace this growing process in order to realize success. In leading a police organization, those in positions of power must realize that the most minute details can be critical, and thus the little things must never be overlooked. All persons, whether inside or outside the agency, must be treated with dignity and respect. True leadership includes developing the next generation of leaderships via the mentoring process. Developing new talent is an ongoing process which ensures the future success of any organization. This book is dedicated to those who commit themselves to the cause of leading others. Effective leadership can be likened to, and as rewarding as, the idea of turning silver into gold.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Oct 27, 2020
• ISBN: 9781098046569

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Leadership

Turning Silver Into Gold

Matthew J. Jamison

Copyright © 2020 by Matthew J. Jamison

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Climbing the Police Ladder

Hard Work—The Foundation of All Good Things

Embracing Change

Success Has to Be Measured

New Ideas Change the Policing World

No Need to Reinvent the Wheel

Before Success Comes Failure

Growing the Agency

Little Things Make a Huge Difference

Dignity and Respect

Turning Silver into Gold

Leadership by Example

Taking Chances While Managing Risk

Promoting Excellence

Drafting the Right Players

Developing a Network of Trust

There Will Be Difficult Times

Public Safety Allies

Unified Leadership

Always Continue to Learn

Smelling the Roses

Should I Stay or Should I Go?

Introduction and Background

Having worked for over three decades in a progressive policing agency and bearing witness to many changes in leadership, I consider it my professional responsibility to impart what I have learned to future legions of police commanders. The vast majority of our population values the commitment and dedication of our police officers to this wonderful nation, which is widely recognized as the greatest society on the face of this planet. That being said, the fact that visionary leaders are responsible for the oversight of committed policing professionals is seldom considered, but rather is all but taken for granted.

There are several very basic truths that we need to remember about police work and about police leadership in particular. To begin with, police work does not result in a tangible product, but rather, it is always a matter of service. Police officers and their leaders are all in place to serve and to protect the public in many ways in the course of this service. This sacred responsibility includes serving both our law-abiding citizens as well as those persons in society who engage in criminal behavior much of the time. The law must be applied fairly and equally. While there is always room for professional discretion in law enforcement, there is always the possibility the individual officer, his supervision, the chief of police, and the entire law enforcement community will later be criticized and second-guessed for any matter in which there is even the mere appearance of unfair or biased treatment. This is one of the challenges of contemporary law enforcement. In addition to this responsibility for ensuring professionalism and fairness in all matters, there is an absolute mandate for police to treat all persons with dignity and respect.

It has often been stated in a variety of ways that with heightened power and rank, there is likewise increased responsibility and workload. This assertion is particularly the case in police departments. From the rank of sergeant (or corporal in those cases wherein that is a supervisory rank) all the way up to chief of police, leaders are charged with a vitally important role in their oversight of police officers. There is the accompanying stress given this added responsibility, which creates real challenges for those who assume these positions.

For those police officers who ascend to the rank of police chief, it is worth stating that this is a position that comes with a limited time frame. Clearly, there is an unwritten shelf life for police chiefs. I have known police chiefs who remained in office for many years, including those who led smaller agencies and remained in command for over twenty years. These examples are rare exceptions to the general rule. A police chief, particularly one commanding a medium to larger agency, will typically be in office from three to five years. The pressures of the position are continuous and all-encompassing, and it is not realistic to assume that any one person can manage the working pace and overall responsibilities of a police chief for more than a few years.

During my thirty-two-plus-year career as a police officer, I served under the leadership of ten different police chiefs at my agency. There was one long-term acting chief of police who I am including in this total, and his tenure was approximately a year and a half. I believe the longest tenure of any police chief for whom I worked was approximately seven years. Conversely, there were police chiefs that served only a year in office. This is a perfect example of the statement that three to five years in office is a good estimate of a typical police chief’s tenure.

During the last three years of my policing career, while serving as a police major and subsequently as lieutenant colonel (deputy chief of police), I had many occasions to serve as the acting chief of police. I recognized the extremely serious nature of these assignments, but I also had the comfort of knowing that they were temporary in nature. I developed an even greater respect for my chief having to walk in his footsteps for even a few weeks at a time. The fact is, unless one has served as an actual police chief, there is no way that he or she can imagine the depth of this enormously important title. Everything that must be done within the agency is the ultimate responsibility of the police chief, and the related concerns are unending. At the same time, everything that goes wrong within the department is ultimately the problem of the chief and, again, is the responsibility of the person who holds that rank. The challenges of police leadership do not come along one at a time, and at times they can be overwhelming. This is the nature of running a modern-day police department.

Effective police leadership is vital to the health of the organization, both in terms of professional growth and ongoing progress toward combatting crime. Mentoring new leaders is absolutely critical as these future leaders will need to be properly groomed and encouraged to help ensure the stability of the department moving forward. Without well-thought-out succession planning in the supervisory ranks, policing agencies will lose sight of their goals and operate in an autopilot mode. This is an unsustainable condition for modern police departments, which continually face new challenges.

In this text, I will reveal a number of strategies and techniques that have proven to be effective in terms of carrying police departments forward and helping them weather the difficult times they are bound to face. I had the honor, near the end of my policing career, to help turn around a police agency. That is, to take a silver-standard agency and make it a gold-standard agency.

As leaders in the policing industry, we can succeed only by working very diligently while embracing inevitable changes and industry innovations. We must do so while carefully charting our progress toward goal attainment and continually employing new and innovative strategies. We must also recognize that we will occasionally fail—this fact cannot be disputed as not everything will go according to plan. Our leadership must be a product of the example we set for those in our charge, from the very top of the organization down to the recruit officers in the police academy.

Leaders, in police work or in any business, need to take well-thought-out chances. These ventures can involve new ideas, the implementation of cutting edge policies, or people we place (via hire, transfer, or promotion) at various places within the agency. It is worth noting that these chances should not be reckless. Rather, they must be based on all the knowledge and data one can readily ascertain, and in consideration of the risk that outcomes may prove to be negative. Apart from taking some chances as leaders, agencies will become stagnant.

In any successful police organization, excellence should be the identified benchmark toward which we direct all our efforts. By aiming for excellence, we can reasonably hope to actually be well above average or very good in terms of our results. Conversely, by aiming to be above average or very good, we will more than likely arrive at results that are only mediocre or satisfactory. In all that we do then, excellence must be the standard that is vigorously sought.

Within this text, I have embedded examples of these basic principles that will assist police leaders in making their good organizations into great police departments. While this book is geared to police leaders, the points stressed herein can be applied across most other industries to include many other professions.

God help us all as we set the standard for those who follow our lead in policing as they are the future of law enforcement, and it is their development that will ultimately determine the ongoing health of law enforcement as a profession.

Climbing the Police Ladder

In order to implement meaningful change in a police department on an ongoing basis, one must generally ascend the career ladder in the organization. In this chapter, I will share those items that I found beneficial in attaining the upper ranks of my police department.

After joining my police department, I was promoted a total of six times, including five supervisory ranks. Promotions in any police organization are few and far between. For anyone who aspires to be a supervisor, I will share some basic personal traits and advancement strategies that I believe are most valuable in terms of both grooming a candidate for promotion and helping to actually make a candidate upwardly mobile in the police department.

My initial promotion was brought about as a result of tenure on the job. I was promoted to officer first class after eight years of service. While I was not a supervisor, I did feel as though I was no longer brand-new due to the single stripe I was now qualified to wear on my uniform sleeve. I received a 5 percent pay increase as well, and every dollar counts when you are a young officer. As a patrol officer, I had occasion to work every geographic area in my county. I learned a great deal about people, and honestly, I saw many of our citizens at their absolute worst. It was truly an educational experience for me. Despite the stress and having to work rotating shifts, I loved this new career I had entered. I resolved to earn a few medals for my uniform so that I did not appear to be young and inexperienced. Toward this end, I was recognized by the Mothers’ Against Drunk Driving on five occasions, and I was awarded a Distinguished Unit Citation in the area of police budget work.

I believe I had about five or six years on the job when I attended a ceremony in which a number of officers were promoted. One was a corporal who was promoted to sergeant at this event. As I watched, I pledged to myself that I would work hard and one day obtain a set of sergeant stripes. I knew this would be an exhaustive process, but I had no idea it would take so long or require so much hard work.

I began my preparation to be a sergeant as soon as I was eligible, which was when I reached the point of having five years on the job. During my first two attempts, I was not at all successful. I can only attribute this failure on my part to being inadequately prepared.

First of all, you have to believe in yourself to convince others to believe in you and your abilities. I did not commit to reading the rules and regulations of the agency, at least not to the extent that a serious candidate for promotion should do so. I did not anticipate questions that might be posed to me in the formal interview process, nor did I prepare a statement for the conclusion of the interview. I did not look my best when I appeared for my interview. Preparing in each of these elements would have assisted me in scoring higher in the process. If an officer goes into the process praying for a miracle, I am here to tell you that a miracle simply will not happen. There is too much serious competition, particularly for entry-level supervisory positions, for one to have any hope of promotion without taking the crucial steps in preparedness. In fact, it is fair to state that the rank of sergeant (or whatever rank is recognized as first level leadership) is perhaps the most difficult promotion to achieve. This is due to the sheer number of applicants for such positions and the resulting competition. I finished in the fifth (or lowest) band in my first attempt, and in the fourth band on my second attempt. I should have also known the disciplinary process within the agency to be able to describe what I would do as a sergeant to investigate a complaint against an officer, or any like problem which might be assigned to a first level supervisor.

To improve my standing in the agency, and to make myself a better candidate for promotion, I sought a transfer out of patrol and into a specialized unit (specifically, the finance unit). By doing so, I was seen virtually every day by the leaders within my agency. There is a saying that people like what they know or are familiar with. With this human tendency in mind, it stands to reason that a person who is exposed to leadership every day will tend to be more accepted than someone who rarely is exposed to the departmental leadership. This human tendency to be more accepting of things we know is further borne out by the fact that politicians have been elected on the basis of name recognition. That is, the uninformed voter will look for a name on the ballot that he or she knows, even if they know nothing about them. This explains why political candidates wallpaper the roadsides and intersections with their campaign signs every election season. Exposure is everything, and they want their name to be seen as often as possible.

I should also mention that financial matters were an expertise that I developed during my college career as my bachelor’s degree was in business administration. Any young officer who aspires to be promoted should take advantage of his or her skill set in order to enhance their marketability for promotion.