Effective Leadership In Law Enforcement

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Leadership is a process that effectively accomplishes organizational goals (Stojkovic, Kalinich, & Klofas, 2015, p.191). In law enforcement leadership is important and needs to be effective. The process of leadership can be developed through transformational changes, informal and formal training and with effective supervisors within law enforcement. In law enforcement, officers are faced with the challenge of becoming successful leaders. According to research, police managers are likely to use selling, telling, participating, or delegating as styles of leadership. They are a hierarchical structure with limited communication systems and have centralized decision-making authority which can lead to problems within law enforcement agencies.

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“Modern police leaders are expected to master a much broader set of capabilities than their predecessors” (Leadership Development, 2016). This includes interaction with political figures, new partnerships, and being visible to the media. Under the spotlight, supervisors are pressured to show their leadership within their organization but must be given support, training, and development. If there are effective leadership development programs (LDPs), law enforcement agencies can develop new ways of thinking and other skills to create successful leaders (Leadership Development, 2016). Interviews conducted by Accenture to supervisors concluded that action learning works best, learning on the job activities make successful leaders, and give employees tomorrow’s challenges(Leadership Development, 2016). Action learning such as role play is successful because it gives officers a chance to develop new skills working through real-life situations. In order to develop leaders from within conducting focus groups and surveys to determine how to create successful leaders and help the up and coming. If supervisors can get their personnel to think about the big picture, it will show growth of officers and how they encourage them to solve problems on their own forming them into leaders (Leadership Development, …show more content…

With a great demand for crime control, law enforcement needs “innovative and creative personnel” to take the lead (Leadership Development: A Focus on the Future). This process will require trained and prepared leaders who can also teach future leaders. Effective leadership will ensure a criminal justice organization success. Law enforcement agencies need to create “leadership development” programs which are like a leadership trial run to see if they can prepare for the role of an effective leader (Leadership Development: A Focus on the Future). Simply giving patrol officers more responsibilities could help to build their leadership skills. With all the changes happening the development of employees is very important and team building should be focused

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