Courageous Leadership

All police know what courage is on the street — but what is courage in the front office?

I have some ideas:

COURAGEOUS LEADERSHIP IS:

1. Taking the issue of deadly force to the officers AND the community for discussion and decision. Be prepared to raise the Graham v. Connor standard.

2. Strongly stating the central value of your department is protection of life — the lives of both officers and community members.

3. Requiring your officers to be both community workers and protectors of the Constitution.

4. Expecting your trainers will develop less-than-deadly tactics to teach officers to respond and contain persons (often emotionally disturbed or mentally ill) who are armed with edged or blunt weapons.

5. Requiring every officer to be well-trained and able to respond to members of the community with mental illnesses.

6. Training and leading your officers to be primarily guardians — with a warrior backup.

7. Assuring your officers it is permissible to slow down dangerous encounters. Stress that time is most always on their side and that they do not have to always “stand their ground.” (Stress again that police are in the business of saving and protecting lives.)

8. Demanding your officers treat EVERYONE with respect and fairness and expecting that goes for how you and other leaders treat officers and employees of the department. (Procedural Justice all around).

9. Raising entry standards and salaries to attract and hire college graduates and men and women of color. Set unwavering goals to do that (a goal of at least 20% female officers and that officers of color reflect their percentage in the community at large.)

10. Requiring your training officers to teach in a respectful atmosphere within the academy and in an adult-oriented manner (an internal demonstration again of Procedural Justice).

11. Approaching public protest as a 1st Amendment right and begin always with negotiation and a “soft” approach.

12. Reminding both officers and community members that you wear “two hats.” Yes, the chief is the “top cop, but also the community’s police chief. Understand that sometime those two roles clash and when that happens community interests must always prevail.

13. Requiring “peer intervention” to be a needed and necessary rule within the department and that its practice is expected.

14. Always being honest, open, and accountable — especially in times of crisis.

15. Gathering necessary operational data: the force used and treatment of persons who have been arrested and others who have had police contact. Evaluate those contacts and report progress as measures of public expectations, organizational effectiveness, and the building of trust in the community.

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Moving these issues and challenges forward will take a particular type of police leader: one who is mature, well-educated, and tactically proficient; a leader who can cast a positive vision for the future of policing in America; that is —

A leader who is courageous!

from Improving Police http://ift.tt/2Df1DWi