Police leadership and supervision

Over the past decade, Gallup surveyed more than 10 million people worldwide on the topic of employee engagement being positive and productive at work, and only one-third “strongly agree” with the statement, “Of work, I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day.” This means that a lot of workers do not get to focus on what they do best—their strengths.

People who do have the opportunity to focus on their strengths are six times as likely to be engaged in their jobs and more than three times as likely to report having above average life satisfaction.

Here are some recent findings about supervisors who primarily focus on either employees’ strengths and weaknesses or ignore them. The chances of your being actively disengaged (negative and a poor performer) if your boss: (1) ignores you 40%; (2) focuses on your weaknesses 22%; and (3) focuses on your strengths 1%. Look at how much a supervisor who focuses on your strengths decreases the odds of your being miserable on the job.

This data convincingly shows us that the active disengagement we see in work places every day is a curable disease . . . if we will help our staff develop their strengths as well as our own.

Trust

Every police supervisor I’ve trained or worked with talks freely and frequently about the importance of trust as the paramount operational asset. No one seems to doubt how important trust is to professional or personal relationships, and everyone seems equally aware of the tremendous costs of distrust. Yet, despite enlightened rhetoric about trust, a few police employees (supervisors and managers too) regularly engage in conduct that undermines trust and damages credibility, demonstrating a lack of character and/or competence as a leader.

Trust is the genesis of all human relationships.