Leadership Challenges

For

Organizational Leadership

By

Susan C. Ralph
Law enforcement organizations have several challenges, and in today’s climate, one major

challenge facing leadership is morale and keeping officers engaged in their work. In leadership,

we face a constant battle with keeping morale high and keeping officers engaged in the agency’s

mission. The second issue for leadership is keeping the morale of officers that have been in law

enforcement engaged and feeling supported and valued. We face both these issues within my

organization. Law enforcement faces unprecedented times with the call to defund agencies,

constant calls that the men and women who chose to serve and protect communities are called

racist, and being attacked daily. Officers are witnessing the murder of fellow officers across this

country daily, and communities expect officers to go out in the right mindset to perform. How

do we keep our officers in the right state of mind when the media, politicians, and communities

buy into a false narrative being pushed daily?

When officers take their initial steps out of the police academy, their mental state and drive to

work hard for their communities are strong.

The morale among new officers is robust and positive. Unfortunately, they are being exposed to

the media, politicians, and the current negative narrative in today’s world. They are not coming

out in that high enthusiastic state. So, the question is how leaders create high morale in this

current climate. As leaders, we will need to use every tool possible to create and maintain

morale for our agencies. In “Creating a Purpose-Driven Organization,” we see the formula for

building and maintaining a purpose-driven organization. Applying the steps outlined for

corporate America to law enforcement organizations, we can see glimmers of purpose-driven

leaders within them. In the first step envisioning an inspired workforce, we can create an

environment where front-line officers consider the communities and sectors where they work,
their own. Discover purpose is the second step. People who enter a law enforcement career

commit to serving. However, those who lose that commitment or enter without feeling that we

as leaders can create the commitment must be authentic in our commitment and work toward

creating a single-minded purpose of the organization. Lastly, according to the article, “To build

an inspired, committed workforce, you will need middle managers who not only know the

organization’s purpose but also deeply connect with it and lead with moral power. That goes

way beyond what most companies ask of their midlevel people.” (THAKOR, 2018) Inspiring our

first-line supervisors, the people who already have buy-in to the idea, and even our informal

leaders to connect those officers who have not reached that drive to the organization’s purpose

can then be pulled towards that goal and commitment.

Let us look at Leadership Diamond 2.0 by Ray Patchett and apply the principles to

organizational leadership. We can see that it follows the same idea as “Creating a Purpose-

Driven Organization.” The six keys of Facts, Do the Right Thing, Envisioning the Possibilities,

Take Action, Managing Polarities, and Give Your Best all follow the same principles of forging

a vision and creating an ethical and purpose-driven organization.

As leaders in an organization, we must show our officers that we must lead by example no matter

what we face from activist groups, politicians, and the media. Leadership will have to show that

we stand with and by our officers to provide them the support they need daily. Suppose we can

remind them daily of our purpose within the organization. In that case, we will provide new

officers with the foundation to carry them throughout their careers and give them a fulfilling

career. When our people feel appreciated and respected, they become better employees who

drive to fulfill the mission of an organization.

Our second major moral issue in my department is due to two existing factions, the old way of

thinking where you are only as good if you make the “quota” of a minimum of ten tickets a

month and two arrests.

The “old” thinking is that we measure good police work by writing tickets and making arrests,

and we rate officers by the number of sick days they take. This thinking has been a repeated

bone of contention for officers who do a tremendous amount of community outreach which is

not measured on a monthly activity report. This mentality still has a foothold within the

department, causing morale to hit bottom.

Recently, we instituted a new evaluation form that no longer rates officers by a numerical value

and now rates all aspects of policing within our community. The new evaluation has officers

more enthusiastic that a number will no longer rate them, and all aspects of their work are being

considered. Making one minor change allows the officers who enjoy community engagement

and feel that their purpose within the organization is to give them a sense of value. We have

created a renewed sense of purpose within the organization. If we allow officers to remain

stagnant and value them with a point system and give them no purpose, we will likely have

malcontent employees showing up for the paycheck rather than the “why” of the work.

As leaders in law enforcement organizations, we should strive to constantly better ourselves and

find our purpose for the organization, our people, and ourselves. If we do not have the “why,

“how can we promote the “why” for others. When I speak to my officers, I tell them that when

we are Police Officers, we look for how to build our resume and what we can get for ourselves.
When becoming a supervisor, you should be far less concerned about yourself and look out for

your subordinates. We also need to ensure that our personnel knows why they do what they do

and how we can make our organization better.

We must continue to work at increasing our morale in our department. I have started a program

where the officers offer suggestions reviewed for implementation within the organization. I

might have to push for some of these suggestions, but I am willing to forge on to increase our

officers’ feelings of value.

References
Pachett, R. (n.d.). The Leadership Diamond 2.0.

THAKOR, R. E. (2018). Creating a Purpose Driven Organization, How to Get Employees to Bring Their
Smarts and Energy to Work. Harvard Business Review, 78-86.