Those in Command Can Learn a Lot from Those They Command

It is no secret to anyone who has ever held a leadership position that accountability is imperative. And, no matter what your leadership position is, there is always someone you have to be prepared to explain your actions—and those of your subordinates—to. Failing at such and displaying no accountability will make your stint as a leader fairly short-lived. However, what's often overlooked is that leaders have an equal responsibility to be accountable to those they lead, and perhaps that responsibility is even greater. While many look at a leadership position like it's the top of a pyramid, experienced and smart leaders realize that it's really a position at the crossed lines of a figure eight: there is as much above that position as there is below. The figure eight is often not balanced with much more above or below than the other, but the bottom line is this: leaders have to recognize the importance of accountability to their subordinates and how it is often more important than the level of accountability they have to their superiors. Here's a discussion about why using some simple examples.

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One evening I was on my way home from the range when I had a common experience: I came across an idiot driver. Heading south on a state highway, speed limit 55mph and my cruise control set at 64mph, a man driving a maroon Taurus slowed down to get next to me and showed me an identification wallet with an ID on either side that I couldn't see. Okay, so he's law enforcement of some type and he was apparently aggravated that I was exceeding the speed limit—and not slowing down after he showed me his ID. The next thing I knew, the Taurus sped up, pulled over in front of me less than two car lengths away, and jammed brakes. I jammed brakes to avoid hitting him and then watched as he continued over to the left-hand turn lane and put on his emergency flashers. In my mind's eye, I saw him having run my tags and showing up at my house. Better yet, how would it be if he called my police chief (if he had any way of figuring out who I worked for) to complain?

The idea of him calling my Chief didn’t bother me at all because I knew my Chief wouldn't be too worried. In fact, I was pretty sure that he'd laugh (to himself) at whoever called to complain about my driving. My Chief knew me well and knew I wasn’t an aggressive or unreasonable driver. I had that faith in him because he'd demonstrated his willingness to be reasonable and to act fairly. He earned that trust with his previous behavior and leadership skills.

When any governmental entity requires accountability from its police force, it's up to the agency leadership - the Police Chief or Sheriff - to make sure that the methods used don't put an undue burden on the working officers and deputies. While it's absolutely the Chief's/Sheriff's duty to make sure the elected representatives get the information they need, it's also the Chief's/Sheriff's duty to make sure that the information gathering process doesn't make the officers feel like "big brother is watching."

A few years back I became familiar with a Town where the council members felt that they should have more detailed information about what each officer did in a given shift. The Chief worked hard to make sure that the council members got sufficient information without making each officer feel like he was working under a microscope. He clearly understood that he had a responsibility to his officers to make sure they were properly equipped, properly trained, sufficiently paid, and properly shielded from the unnecessary oversight of the council members. It’s been my experience that the smaller the town, the more the council members want to be involved in every minor detail of, well, everything.

When leaders of uniformed professional agencies fail to recognize their accountability to those who work under them, they often find themselves becoming impotent as a leadership figure. Such circumstances often result in votes of no confidence, retention problems, "sick outs" and more. But I don't envy some leaders their positions. While they might have great subordinates working for them—or more accurately with them—at the other end they could have a completely unreasonable body of elected officials constantly making the leader's life difficult. That same leader could end up with a great body of elected representatives that they answer to only to have a collection of subordinates that constantly make life difficult. The true leader - someone who recognizes their responsibilities both up and down the ladder in the chain of command—will have bodies of elected officials seeking them out and subordinates eager to work for them.

Some such leaders already exist. Some of their officers might think of their leader as a "hard ass." The officers might think the leader has unreasonable or unrealistic expectations. What those officers will find out if they'd just take the time to think about it instead of making excuses about why they can't perform, is that the leader just wants his officers to do their job.

In the police world it's easy to be a decent cop: answer your calls for service; patrol diligently; back up your fellow officers; be proactive in the performance of your duties. Heck, most Chiefs I know don't have an expectation for minimum numbers of tickets, or field observation reports, or whatever else. Sure, they'd like to see their officers being aggressive where enforcement is concerned, but the wise leader knows that he has amongst his officers those who each have different strengths. Some of his officers enjoy running traffic and they write boat loads of tickets. Other are equipment repair freaks and they write repair orders like they're free. Others are drug hounds and are constantly looking for that next big drug bust. Some are simply motivated to patrol diligently, developing various intel sources in the community without aggressive enforcement efforts.

While some Chiefs may get upset that not every officer is out writing twenty traffic tickets each night, the wise Chief recognizes that not all officers are traffic hounds. The Chief who tries to force all officers into traffic enforcement loses the respect of many. Several officers I know worked for a Chief who believed that every officer should write a minimum of five tickets every shift. Now that's hardly unreasonable. Five tickets is pretty easy in an eight-hour shift, especially with two state highways running through the jurisdiction. The problem came when an officer made a great drug arrest early in his shift and spent most of the remainder of his shift doing paperwork related to the arrest. The Chief complimented him on the great drug bust, but also criticized the officer for not meeting the "five ticket" expectation. Part of the officer's charges against the suspect included some twenty-seven traffic violations included on the statement of charges, but since they weren't actually in the form of written citations, the Chief gave the officer grief.

That Chief had a great understanding of his responsibility to report to the Town Council about what each officer did. The Chief wrote a commendation to the officer for the drug bust. Then the Chief gave the officer low marks on his six-month evaluation for failing to meet expectations in traffic enforcement.

That Chief had a hard time getting officers to come work for him. The Town Council was apparently happy that the Chief reported to them every incident and his monthly report of police activities was five to six pages long—in a town of less than 2,600 residents. The officers who did go work for that Chief generally lasted less than a year and virtually all of them cited "the Chief" as the reason they left. That Chief just never learned that he had to take care of his officers. He had to show—through his actions, orders, policies, etc.—that he was genuinely concerned about their welfare on the street, and in their career development.

That Chief had never learned that "leadership accountability" works both up and downstream from the Chief's position. His agency faced constant recruiting and retention problems and the officers who did show up were issued hand-me-down equipment and the oldest of everything the agency had to offer. In the meantime, the Chief drove a new car every or every other year; got his uniforms replaced every year; and enjoyed all the neatest latest greatest whizbang toys in his office. Any officer with more than three years of experience would recognize that such behaviors do not demonstrate good leadership.

If you're a leader—sergeant, lieutenant, captain, on up—pay attention to the needs of those who serve downstream in your chain of command. Remember that they are real people with real needs and (mostly) reasonable expectations. Don’t be so busy impressing those up stream in your Chain of Command that you step all over those downstream.