Leadership Lessons from Sgt. Harold

I’ve had the great fortune to work for some truly great leaders.  I’ve also had the misfortune to work for some, well let’s just say…not so great supervisors.

Notice I’ve differentiated between leaders and supervisors.  That’s not a mistake and is intentional on my part.  “Leaders of men,” women as well of course, my Brothers & Sisters in Blue – brown, black or white, regardless of your uniform color.  These leaders inspired and motivated, they developed trust and loyalty from their troops towards them because they exhibited trust and loyalty to the officers.  Instead of destroying morale and standing by with a confused look of their face of “what happened, my guys don’t want to do anything for me, they have terrible attitudes.”  These leaders developed officers who wanted to perform, to make their leader proud, help them look good, and would not do anything to cause grief or stress to their boss.

These leaders understood that their primary mission was to take care of their troops.  If they did this and enabled their troops to win and succeed, the primary mission of solid professional policing would be achieved!  It is a win/win for the officer, agency and supervisor!

Enter Harold

At the time I started working for him Harold was a sergeant.  On the list to be promoted, he was quickly given his “butter bar” as a lieutenant.  It was the middle of the “crack wars” and a new unit was being formed to battle the dealers and gang members who were actively “slinging” rock/crack cocaine.  My patrol partner and I had been battling the dealers, users and crack houses which proliferated the busiest district in the city which we patrolled on the busiest shift.  Shaeff, my partner nee, Brother from another Mother, knew Harold and spoke positively about his style of leadership and supervision, so we both bid for the newly created unit.  Harold was an old time cop, his Father had been a supervisor in our agency and was retired.  Harold’s rep was as a “cop’s cop.”  Not a pedestrian policeman who stood on the sidewalk as the rest of the cops drove by lights and siren, Harold had earned his stripes – literally as well as figuratively.  Gravitas and respect is earned by “being there and doing that.”  While not every good officer turns into a good supervisor, those good sergeants, lieutenants, captains and chiefs who’ve been in the trenches and proven themselves on the streets earn respect that the perfumed princes never can.  Sitting back and protecting your own ass and solely focused on your own career may get you promoted but will not advance your reputation.  Street cops know…

Harold had the experience, the self-esteem and the self-confidence to form and lead a unit of hard charging dope cops.  He led from the front but both served the enforcement goals of the agency in terms of suppressing crime and “building bridges” with the community.  We were an extremely active unit which addressed street level dope dealing and the associated crimes which impacted residents in the area and decreased their quality of life.  This was a time when folks hid behind burglar bars and gated doors at night because of thieves, robbers, dealers, hookers and assorted criminals which preyed on anyone and anything in the areas of the city affected.  These citizens, like many fine folks living in bad areas want and need proactive policing to protect them and are supportive of these ventures.

But Harold knew viscerally and based on his experience that he had to do the following to succeed:

• Get the right people.  He wanted motivated “A” personality dope cops who had reputations for doing excellent police work.  A large part of leadership is recruiting the right people.
• The value of training.  Harold put me in charge of the unit’s training.  He knew that training was at the center of an officer’s and unit’s success.  A graduate of the FBI National Academy with advanced study on the 4^th Amendment and Search & Seizure, Harold would read new case law as it came out in roll-call training or talk about Terry Stops & Terry Searches and what constituted probable cause in narcotics enforcement.  The lieutenant would sometimes say to me, “KD, we need a training day.”  I would then be tasked with coming up with advanced range, confrontation simulations, firearms and training simulator time, on and on.  Sometimes this was to refocus a stressed and burned out unit which was operating at the tip of the spear of street narcotics enforcement.
• Task your officers and let them work.  Harold did not micromanage and did not have “control issues” of his officers.  By supporting his officers he enabled them to do their jobs and we, in turn, made him look good.  Why on Earth would you want to “control” or “micromanage” good officers?  What positive purpose is served by treating them like juveniles and acting like a manager at a fast-food joint hovering over them with a grease pencil, checking off whether they cleaned the deep fryer?
• Engage in quality communications.  He spoke to you directly.  If it was a “Dutch Uncle” conversation when you screwed up it was in private, spoken plainly and forgotten about.  If it was praise, he did it in public.  Communications were not done via an anonymous email form.  If a supervisor sits in his office and types out emails to communicate with his troops, especially ones negative in nature, his troops know he could very easily call his troops together and tell them face to face, and that he has chosen not to.  It’s too easy to simply hit “Send” versus meeting with your troops and communicating.  Harold knew this.
• Harold led from the front.  I remember one time when he and I confronted a crack cocaine buyer in the driveway of a dope house after a narcotics search warrant.  The male suspect ignored our commands to show his hands and instead was fumbling with his waistband.  Both Harold and I saw something shiny in the suspect’s left hand and at gunpoint were getting ready to shoot the male before he finally complied.  Turns out it was an aluminum “straight shooter” or crack pipe.  Both the lieutenant and I were a hair’s breadth away from pulling the trigger.  Harold could have been inside the location “managing” and “supervising” but he was a cop and he was outside with me, confronting a bad guy.
• Harold rewarded loyalty and good work.  If you produced for him, he took care of you.  Need time off for whatever reason?  If you had the time and the unit’s schedule allowed it, he would give you time with no notice.  There’s not a study around that shows that denying men and women time off, or restricting the process, leads to more productivity and a happier workforce.  If you don’t give them the time, they’ll just call off and then take the maximum amount of time off before they have to get a doctor’s note.
• Harold fought for his troops, instead of fighting against them.  He got them the best equipment he could, even going up against the higher-ups to do so.  He supported outside training requests to go to schools with the only prerequisite that if you learned anything of value, you came back and taught it to the other unit members.

The Others

In my 34 year plus law enforcement career, there have been the “others” as well.  The managers, control freaks, micromanagers, malicious marauding supervisors who enjoyed causing grief, strife, upheaval and discontent.  Some did it just out of a sadistic need to mess with the troops.  Unhappy, unfulfilled and lacking in any sense of self-esteem, they would rather attack and destroy.

And when I soon retire, I’ll forget them and instead focus on the great memories I had working for Harold, Mike, and all the others.  Leaders of men they were!  And they knew how to take care of their troops!