The last few years have been immensely challenging for public safety leadership. A global pandemic, recruiting and retention issues, inflation, budgetary woes—it seems the list is endless. And agency leaders are often expected to do it all with less.
Leadership can be a thankless, 24/7 job; however, your agency depends on you to stay the course and provide guidance and wisdom to your employees. We often take leadership for granted. And it’s easy to question leadership effectiveness during high-profile events or challenging times. Sometimes, the questions center on whether a leader has the right type of leadership style for the specific situation or job.
So that brings us to the question, what type of leader are you?
There’s no right or wrong answer, but leadership styles can negatively and positively impact how the job gets done. I taught leadership fundamentals for the better part of 20 years and used to always open the course by asking, are good leaders born or made? That question led to interesting and often very lively conversations. The truth is anyone can be a leader, given the right circumstances, personal desire and training.
Now don’t misunderstand me. We all know there are some people who have no business serving in a leadership role. Alternatively, some folks are not leaders but should be. Leadership guru and author John Maxwell once said, “A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.” Most leadership attributes come from within us. You don’t need a college degree or extensive training to know what exemplary leadership looks like. And you don’t need formal recognition to be a leader. We see examples of informal leadership every day in public safety work.
When I was teaching leadership, I would illustrate what I called “the evolution of leadership” on the board. I’d start with the 1950s—a period where there was more of a “my way or the highway” approach to leadership. The typical workplace featured a male-dominated workforce with many veterans from both WWII and Korea. There wasn’t much focus on knowing the employee on a personal level. It was strictly business, very hands-on and autocratic. Fast-forward four decades to the 1990s. With the rise of the dotcom era, leadership transitioned to more of a “yo, it’s all good” approach. Flexibility and creativity were recipes for success, and leaders took more of a hands-off approach.
Today’s workforce demands a much different type of leader—a chameleon. We need leaders who not only know their people but can transition from one style of leadership to another. This is difficult for even the savviest of leaders. If you’ve ever taken a personality inventory, you know how your personality can impact the way you interact with others. It can also provide a glimpse into your preferred leadership style.
Being a chameleon often means going against your own hard wiring, taking a step back to understand problems from the employee’s perspective and then coming up with solutions to help tackle the problem. Sounds easy. It’s not! But you can start by understanding different leadership styles and where your natural propensity lies. There are myriad opinions on leadership styles, but I always like to focus the discussion on Kurt Lewin’s big three:[1]
Autocratic leaders generally make all the decisions, often in a vacuum. Even when someone else makes a decision, the autocrat often makes adjustments or countermands the decision.
There’s a time and a place for this approach; however, it’s often corrosive and lends itself to micromanagement. Today’s employees are well educated and resilient. They generally don’t need someone looking over their shoulder or providing too much guidance on required tasks. This is especially true in public safety leadership. Give your employees direction and then let them do their jobs. Remain available in case they need assistance but resist the temptation to over-supervise.
One thing I’ve seen over the years is the tendency of certain leaders to impose their personal preference over an employee’s preference. The quickest way to show an employee that you don’t have faith in their ability is to constantly provide input or make changes that really don’t matter. Remember, there’s more than one way to get from point A to point B. Focus on the end goal and give your employees the latitude to develop their own solutions for getting there.
Democratic leaders often take an active role in the decision-making process, but they also involve others. This is the nature of teamwork and shows employees that you aren’t afraid to get your hands dirty and contribute. Democratic leaders are good at soliciting input from others; however, there are times where too many opinions hamper progress toward goals. Sometimes the leader needs to decide. Too much input or reliance on personal preferences from your team can lead to paralysis by analysis.
Public safety members are used to working in teams, so this leadership style is very effective with problem solving. When your employees realize you’re open to their input, they’ll come to you with innovative ideas and solutions to challenging problems.
Laissez-faire leadership is essentially hands off. These leaders have very little involvement in decision-making, leaving most everything up to subordinates. This only works when you have a team of highly skilled and self-motivated employees who know what needs to get done each day.
This approach can work in specialized public safety units; however, there should still be a leadership presence for situations demanding a firm decision or when employees need additional guidance with new or unfamiliar tasks. I’ve seen situations where weak supervisors essentially abandon their leadership responsibilities and leave employees to formulate all their own strategies. Just like the other leadership styles, too much can be as ineffective as not enough.
Any one of Lewin’s leadership approaches by itself is likely ineffective, especially if it is the default manner by which an individual leader conducts business. If we explore the ideal leader, we see someone who can turn these unique styles off and on when confronted with different situations involving different subordinates. Being a chameleon means more than adaptation. It also means stepping outside of your own comfort zone to broaden your perspective through others. This requires an open mind and patience.
Entrepreneur Amine Rahal identifies eight integral leadership qualities necessary for today’s workplace.[2]
When it comes to being a good leader, there are myriad considerations. I always tell new leaders that it’s almost impossible to know your people until you know yourself. This takes assessing your own strengths and weaknesses and then letting go of your ego so you can have an open mind.
People aren’t clones; you must connect with them on a personal level, and that means adjusting your leadership style for the person and the situation. When we are in unfamiliar territory, we gravitate toward our individual comfort zone. That means if your tendency is to be more of an autocrat, you’ll micromanage people and processes when confronted with new or unfamiliar situations. As we’ve discussed, there’s a time and place for that, but it can’t be the norm in all cases. Same thing for those of you who don’t have problems working in teams. Democracy is a great way to ensure all voices are heard; however, there’s a time when your decision should be final.
Be the chameleon your people expect and have faith in their ability to support you, even when faced with challenging situations. Former General Electric CEO Jack Welch said it best: “Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.”
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