Most cops don’t wake up one morning and decide they’re done putting in the work. It usually happens slower than that. They start out wanting to do the job well, solve problems, be useful, and maybe even believe that if they work hard enough somebody will notice. Then the department starts teaching them different lessons….
One of the easiest ways to lower a standard is to do nothing. I don’t have to change a policy or announce a new rule. I can just see the same problem enough times and keep walking past it. Eventually, everybody figures out that whatever the written rule says, this is what we actually accept….
A chief can get a pretty clean version of a department without anybody lying. A sergeant gives the short version. Somebody trims it down again. A detail gets left out because it doesn’t seem important, or because it makes somebody look bad. By the time the story reaches the chief’s office, the part that might’ve…
Yes, but I’d want to know why the department didn’t want me in the first place. There’s a difference between officers who don’t like the person appointed as chief and officers who have legitimate reasons to question whether that person should be leading them. The Mayor can appoint me, give me the authority to run…
If somebody has been doing the job for twenty years, I expect them to know things a new officer simply hasn’t had time to learn yet. They’ve seen calls go sideways, watched people react under pressure, learned which details matter, and probably made enough mistakes of their own to recognize a few before they happen…
I’ve sat on both sides of the interview table enough times that I don’t really think of one person as the interviewer anymore. If I’m hiring, I’m trying to decide whether somebody can do the job and handle the responsibility I’m about to give them. If I’m applying, I’m trying to figure out what I’m…
Star Wars gives us two leadership extremes that are easy to recognize. The Sith rely on fear, control, ambition, and personal loyalty. The Jedi value discipline, restraint, duty, and service.At first glance, the lesson looks simple: don’t be a Sith. I think the more useful question is what both sides get wrong when otherwise useful…
It’s easy to look like a committed leader when something goes wrong. A complaint comes in, somebody misses a deadline, an employee makes a mistake, or a problem finally gets enough attention that it can’t be ignored. Now there are meetings, new expectations, closer supervision, and plenty of conversation about what needs to change. For…
There’s an old story about five monkeys placed in a cage as part of an experiment. In the middle of the cage, there was a ladder with bananas on the top rung. Every time a monkey tried to climb the ladder, they were all sprayed with icy water. Eventually, each time a monkey started to…