Three Powerful Words

Three words for police leaders to enable personal and organizational transformation and continuous improvement

1. Passion

To be deeply committed and have a strong belief in what you are attempting to accomplish. Seek out allies.

2. Persistence

To continue forward through strong, entrenched resistance by teaching, modeling, selling and persuading others of your vision for the future. Enlist allies.

3. Patience

To remember that transformations, lasting change, takes time. Give others the grace to come to believe what you are doing and where you are going. Collaborate with allies.

These three visionary concepts come from my personal experience as a police leader for 25 years which I shared in my book. It is the first of the Seven Improvement Steps — Envision — “Police leaders must cast a bold and breathtaking vision to assure a distinguished future for policing.”

When these three leadership actions converge, there begins the creation of an effective transformational leader.

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“For a vision to work, it must be shared with others whom it affects. It is one thing to cast a vision, another to be able to convince others that your vision is also their vision. For leaders to have their visions become owned by others takes time and commitment. They must also have passion and persistence, “Arrested Development (2021).

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When I recently led a day’s discussion about my book with a group of officers that formed a new police department, these three words captured the day’s discussion and, as they say, “stuck to the wall of knowledge!”

What is a “Transformational Leader?”

• CHANGE AGENT. Their professional and personal image is to make a difference and transform the organization that they have assumed responsibility for. 

• COURAGEOUS. Courage is not stupidity. These are prudent risk takers; individuals who take a stand. 

• BELIEF IN PEOPLE. They are not dictators. They are powerful yet sensitive toward other people. Ultimately, they work toward the empowerment of others. 

• VALUE-DRIVEN. Able to articulate a set of core values and exhibit behavior that is congruent with their value positions. 

• LIFE-LONG LEARNER. Able to talk about mistakes they have made. As a group, they show an amazing appetite for continuous self-learning and development.

• COMPLEXITY, AMBIGUITY AND UNCERTAINTY. Able to cope with and frame problems in a complex, changing world. They are not only capable of dealing with the cultural and political side of the organization, but they are very capable in dealing with the technical side. They are entranced by the world of ideas. 

• VISIONARY. Able to dream and to translate those images so that other people can see, share, and bring them to fruition. [Noel Tichy and M. Devanna, The Transformational Leader, NY: John Wiley and Sons, 1986].