PODCAST: On The Blue Line Podcast | MORNING ROLL CALL | The Traits of Effective Law Enforcement Leaders | Episode 090
On The Blue Line Podcast | MORNING ROLL CALL | The Traits of Effective Law Enforcement Leaders | Episode 090
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Show Notes from This Episode
The On The Blue Line Podcast and Community has the mission of Empowering Cops in their personal lives and educating the public on the realities of law enforcement. This law enforcement podcast is focused on providing concepts, ideas, and actionable steps that can make a difference in your life. The morning roll call is a weekly monologue show with Wayne Mulder. The Interview Room podcast is an interview style format hosted by Wayne Mulder.
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In this episode:
One take away for the week:
A conversation about leadership.
o I discuss many of the issues we all see with people who have positional authority but are not leaders.
o I discuss an article in Police One that entertains the idea of a leader-less future in law enforcement. https://www.police1.com/chiefs-sheriffs/articles/could-law-enforcement-be-leader-less-in-the-future-a4gOYInRhNIM8Ggk/
o I go over the six essential skills for effective police leaders from Police One.
o Lastly, I provide something to think about, that “We need to be the leaders we wish we had.”
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TRANSCRIPTION OF EPISODE. Please note this is a new service we are offering and there will be spelling, grammar and accuracy issues. This transcription is offered as a convenience to our listeners, but at this time it is not guaranteed to be accurate.
00:00:04:23 - 00:00:07:10
Wayne Mulder
Welcome
00:00:09:28 - 00:00:28:06
Wayne Mulder
Welcome, my friend, to the On the Blue Line podcast with Wayne Mulder. And I'm your host Wayne Mulder. This is a law enforcement podcast where we discuss topics that will empower you on and off the job. Maybe you're tired, you're frustrated, feeling overworked, maybe you're struggling to balance work and home demands are simply you just need some encouragement.
00:00:28:15 - 00:00:49:02
Wayne Mulder
Then you've come to the right place. This is the 90th morning roll call on the 139th episode of the podcast, and be sure to listen all the way to the end of today's podcast, because I'm going to give you a three things. One of the top crises in America, if not in the world. Generation Z's idea of a chain of command in law enforcement.
00:00:49:02 - 00:01:14:24
Wayne Mulder
You're going to find that one interesting in the six essential skills of a good leader. If this is your first time listening, welcome. We have two weekly podcast. The one you're listening to right now is Morning Roll Call releases every Monday at 0500, and it's a weekly monologue show where just you and I get to sit down, we discuss news, we discuss recent events, law enforcement trends, other topics, and really just gives you something to start your week and gives you something to think about.
00:01:14:24 - 00:01:33:27
Wayne Mulder
Hopefully the other show is called The Interview Room. It's a weekly interview show that releases every Thursday at 0500. And then there I sit down with guests from all walks of life, not only cops and that's intentional because I want to offer something beneficial for our personal or professional lives that will hopefully give you something to think about.
00:01:34:09 - 00:01:59:13
Wayne Mulder
Last week we had Adam Haidary with effective fitness training on the podcast. If you have not listened to that one yet, I encourage you to go back and listen to it. I tell you, what he is doing is incredible. The business he has built and the fact that it kind of took root, which you'll learn his story in that podcast, the fact that took root in law enforcement is really to me, as someone who is starting a business, whose own businesses, I just find that such a phenomenal story.
00:01:59:13 - 00:02:24:03
Wayne Mulder
So I encourage you to go back and listen to that if that's something that will interest you. And this week is Nate Riggs. And again, the caliber the opportunity of the guest that we have had on here, I've certainly been enjoying it myself. And I hope you have been as well. Both of those shows are released. Almost all the shows are released on about every podcast platform you can find.
00:02:24:04 - 00:02:50:15
Wayne Mulder
And then of course, in video format on YouTube and Rumble. So I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend with you are watching this on the date that it released or the week that it released. I am not here. Well, okay. I am here, but I'm not anyway, it was prerecorded. So I am currently in the state of Colorado, Lord willing, and as they would say, the creek don't rise.
00:02:51:00 - 00:03:16:24
Wayne Mulder
And I will tell you more about that in the coming weeks when we get back. So I wanted to talk this week, though, so there's no news this week for that reason, because I like to try to keep it within the week before the date that I'm recording it. So there's no news this week and that's okay. A couple of weeks ago, I attended the FBI leader, which is a supervisory anyone in law enforcement is probably familiar with that course and it's a trilogy course.
00:03:16:24 - 00:03:33:18
Wayne Mulder
So there's actually three layers to it and you don't have to take it in order, as you know. But I am as of right now. So I went to the first of the three, so I went to the Supervisor Leadership Institute and I thought it was interesting and it got me thinking and I've talked about leadership before on here, right?
00:03:33:22 - 00:03:50:12
Wayne Mulder
Because it's something I come back to a lot because I think it is an important topic. And so if you go back to some of the early episodes I've talked about leadership before. However, in light of going through that class, I thought it was a good time for a reminder. And there was a couple points that I wanted to bring up.
00:03:51:14 - 00:04:17:03
Wayne Mulder
You know, the leadership crisis is definitely something that really concerns me. And it's not just in law enforcement. I mean, we we do have leadership crises everywhere. And I think that the numbers back that up, but we certainly see it in our homes, we see it in our churches, we see it in community and probably the biggest area that we all can agree, we see it is in government.
00:04:17:15 - 00:04:44:19
Wayne Mulder
Right. We're seeing the effects of poor leadership or this lack of leadership and this situation where people are put in places of positional authority, but they don't either A have a desire to lead, which is something we're talking about here in a minute or maybe they just don't simply have the ability to lead. We've seen horrible, horrible examples in government and from Washington to governors across the country to world leaders.
00:04:44:19 - 00:05:10:01
Wayne Mulder
I mean, for some reason, they tend to either be tyrants or squishes. And there's not a lot of in between. It's like one or the other. There's only a couple examples of good, solid leadership or what I would call good solid leadership skills. But from the outside looking in that, I can say there is somebody who who exemplifies who shows, you know, leadership as we would formally define it or as we would define it.
00:05:10:24 - 00:05:27:04
Wayne Mulder
You know, you even see it kind of like this whole crazy thing with Elon Musk. And whether you consider him a good leader or bad leader, I think you could make an argument a couple of different things here. But what you could say about him is he's certainly someone who's in there cleaning house and taking a different approach to what's in there.
00:05:27:04 - 00:05:52:24
Wayne Mulder
And he kind of has like a I don't know if I'd say a don't care attitude, but he's certainly got like a clean house type attitude. But even no matter where you are and whether it's good for Twitter or bad for Twitter, it's an interesting dynamic because even what he's doing, for instance, he did the Twitter poll the other day to allow the previous president back on to the platform should he choose to come back.
00:05:52:24 - 00:06:17:00
Wayne Mulder
I'm not so sure that he will. But at the same time, he said Alex Jones was a hard no. He's definitely not coming back. So it's interesting, kind of. And he put Trump out to a vote to the people. In fact, he even put the Latin out there. The voice of the people is the voice of God. But he didn't put the others out to a vote until actually when I'm recording this today.
00:06:17:12 - 00:06:33:12
Wayne Mulder
So then he put out, should I just let everybody back? So it's interesting. I was doing the whole voting thing, which has little to do with leadership. My point being, and we're going to talk about this, sometimes there's some generational issues. And I think some of what you're seeing in the Twitterverse, if you would, has to do with generational issues.
00:06:34:15 - 00:06:55:11
Wayne Mulder
So I want to start this by making a pact with you right now. Right. Because like I said, that leadership is something I've talked about a lot on this podcast. And I think we need to make a pact. We need to make an agreement that at least you and I, that we will continue to work to define what good leadership is and that we were going to strive to be that type of person.
00:06:55:28 - 00:07:10:11
Wayne Mulder
Because I think sometimes we hear this right, like, oh, we need to be a good leader. Well, what makes a good leader? Well, a good leader is X or good leadership exemplifies this or I've said before and others have said, you know, well, if you have people following you, then, you know, you're probably exemplifying good leadership traits, those kind of things.
00:07:10:24 - 00:07:40:22
Wayne Mulder
It's somebody who does the right thing for the right reasons. You know, we say all these cliche and good things, but at the end of the day, what we have to do right this is the application process is we have to look at it and say, okay, how do I apply this to my life? How do I become the kind of person who can be entrusted with authority that way when that time comes that we're either given position, authority or something happens, or just in our daily lives, we need to exhibit the leadership skills.
00:07:41:03 - 00:08:03:18
Wayne Mulder
Then we have those tools in the toolbox. That's a statement or a phrase that was used an awful lot at that FBI leader class I went through. It was this idea of have the be honing those skills now so that when the time comes, you're ready to do what you need to do. Right. So let's go through just real quickly, a few reasons people don't want to lead.
00:08:03:18 - 00:08:21:16
Wayne Mulder
Now, I found this interesting and this isn't necessarily an argument for or against, but I found an article. The links are in the show notes. Check this out if it interest you. It came from police one and it was written by a captain Sarah Richards and if you read the entire article, it's quite lengthy. I'm not going through all of it here.
00:08:21:16 - 00:08:49:17
Wayne Mulder
I just want to hit a few high points. But the title of the article, which was part of a research paper, is Could law enforcement be leader less in the Future? In other words, without leaders? And the general premise of this entire paper is that here we are, we've got Generation Z entering the workforce. And that would be those born from 1996 to the present.
00:08:50:01 - 00:09:16:13
Wayne Mulder
And as they are coming into the workforce, they have a different way of looking at leadership and a lot of it is moving away from what those of us have traditionally known is a command structure. Right. So I did find this interesting. The 2030 is the demographic turning point for the country, as all baby boomers will be over the age of 65, 20, 30, now not very far away.
00:09:16:13 - 00:09:43:18
Wayne Mulder
In fact, you're only going to be driving electric cars the same year. Some get their way, but that's a different conversation for a different day. So here's how the one of the writers of this or one of the papers that were referenced in this, wrote it and I'm quoting The youth are leaderless, preferring self-directed committees which work collaborate collaboratively to create magic rather than the antiquated system that celebrated the individual team.
00:09:43:18 - 00:10:09:00
Wayne Mulder
Leadership of the future is not leader less, but rather less leaders, less ego, less control, less bravado. So really, I do suggest if this is the kind of thing that interest you, maybe you are a leader, maybe you have some authoritative position. Whatever your situation is, you may find this fascinating because it really does speak to a generational difference and some of the things that are coming in, not everything in here is wrong, right?
00:10:09:00 - 00:10:34:23
Wayne Mulder
There are some we certainly don't want to throw the baby out with the the baby with the bathwater on this situation. So one of the questions they ask trying to make this argument from Generation Z is how many more officers could be hired by an agency with a flatter, hierarchical structure if we don't pay the singular lieutenant, the larger salary and benefits package, how much more could the starting salary be for rookie officers?
00:10:34:23 - 00:10:59:16
Wayne Mulder
Okay, it's interesting. Now they do clarify that shared leadership is not this is based on their opinion, their viewpoint, shared leadership is not multiple formal leaders, but rather team members exhibiting leadership behavior on a situational basis. Okay. Kind of interesting. They go on to make the argument that this is something that we all know was done. A lot of tech companies I mentioned Google, Zappos and others.
00:10:59:28 - 00:11:22:17
Wayne Mulder
The other thing is they try to apply that self-directed teams in law enforcement use the same process, which I would say is true to a point they can refer like active shooter situations and how there's not a formal hierarchical structure in those moments because the team is working, the collective is working to solve whatever the problem is. I have nothing.
00:11:22:27 - 00:11:46:07
Wayne Mulder
No issue with that statement. I think there is something to that. But here is a summary statement that Andrea Lovins, one of the papers here, it looks at why leaderless teams could never be successful, saying that ultimately someone has to be held accountable and that without strong leadership, bringing the team to the end goal, the direction of a team is lost and the members are set adrift feeling confused about the mission and the goal.
00:11:47:06 - 00:12:11:15
Wayne Mulder
So again, if this is something that interests you, I suggest that you go ahead and read it. I think you're going to find it fascinating. But the reason I bring it up is sometimes what we have is we have people who don't want to lead right now that is a little different than what that paper is saying. They are using more of a utopian vision of where everybody, the collective, just decides to work together.
00:12:11:15 - 00:12:31:22
Wayne Mulder
And I do agree with the summary statement that there is a potential issue in the end where no one, no single person is held accountable. You could argue you could hold the whole team accountable. And I'm certainly not one who says that there shouldn't be some changes and that we shouldn't have a forward thinking viewpoint of some things in law enforcement.
00:12:31:22 - 00:12:53:24
Wayne Mulder
You know, it shouldn't be 100 years of tradition uninterrupted by progress. So maybe there is a conversation to be had. But sometimes what arises from this and I know this we're having a son who's in that same age bracket and, you know, some of his friends and so forth. Sometimes they don't want to step into these leadership positions.
00:12:53:24 - 00:13:18:25
Wayne Mulder
They want the comfortability of that group. It's they there's almost like a fear and anxiety to being someone who has to make decisions, make hard decisions. Right. So I think that is something concerning and something that we can train towards, something we can work with people towards. Another common issue you hear it, which is kind of similar, would be a fear of failure right?
00:13:18:25 - 00:13:36:22
Wayne Mulder
Then. I don't want this leadership position and I don't want this accountability because I'm afraid that it's not going to go well. And then kind of the flip side of that is an uncertainty right there where they're just not sure or there's this lack of knowledge or training. Well, I don't have the tools that needed to step into that position.
00:13:37:24 - 00:14:15:16
Wayne Mulder
So those are potential concerns. And I think especially if you're like my age and so forth, you're going to be seeing as these as the Generation Z cam moves in to the leadership position or starts moving into, you know, your entry level leadership positions and starts moving up the ranks, you're going to start seeing some of this clash between generations and there's certainly a lot that we can learn from each other, but then there are certain traits and so forth that make good leaders that I would encourage that not only are we making sure we're exhibiting in our lives, but that we are training and that we are helping those coming behind us.
00:14:15:16 - 00:14:34:22
Wayne Mulder
And you don't have to be in a formal leadership or training role right now to be doing that, nor do you even have to be in law enforcement. You could be working for the grocery store. And these principles are universal principles. It doesn't matter where you work, it's going to just make you a better employee, a better leader, and, quite frankly, a better person.
00:14:35:10 - 00:15:00:24
Wayne Mulder
So the last thing I want to talk about and kind of bring this thing home is there was an article what really matters for effective police leadership, and I thought this was a pretty good article. The links are also below and there's some different excerpts and stuff in here, but he brings it down to some essential skills that he thought were key to good leaders.
00:15:00:24 - 00:15:28:00
Wayne Mulder
And what I found interesting was it's almost exactly the same list that we had worked on and came up with when I was in that FBI leader class. So the first one that he identifies is communication. I think that goes without saying. And I think we all can come up with times and stories and situations where communication has been key, both as us working for somebody else or working with somebody else, as well as when we have been in positions where we need to share something.
00:15:28:09 - 00:15:50:09
Wayne Mulder
We also what I find so interesting, I think probably one of the best lessons about leadership and I'm going to end on a statement similar to this, but we really learn the best leadership traits from the worst leaders that we've worked under. Right? I mean, well, and quite frankly, we could say the same going back to how I started this with some of these government leaders, too, right.
00:15:50:18 - 00:16:18:11
Wayne Mulder
I mean, we have some people that are just almost a disgrace everywhere. They are representing the United States. And I think that we can say, okay, those are not traits like every time you open your mouth, your line, okay, that is honesty, integrity. That's something that I want to exhibit. So that's an example. And I think we can also pull from examples because we've all worked for people that it's like, you know what, I am never going to treat my people that way or I'm never going to do that.
00:16:18:11 - 00:16:43:06
Wayne Mulder
I'm never going to do, you know, all sorts of things that we've seen. So sometimes that's the best training we can get. So communication is obviously key. Decision making in this case goes back to that previous point when we talk about this whole push towards collectivism and so forth, which sadly is going on in a lot of different arenas, not just the leadership arena, but when we have that kind of collective.
00:16:43:16 - 00:17:02:08
Wayne Mulder
Let me be clear. We we want to work together. There is the teamwork portion. There is hey, I want to get some feedback. There's some buy in. You know, all these things are very important to that dynamic. That's where communication comes in. But at the end of the day, somebody has to be willing to make a decision, right?
00:17:02:25 - 00:17:25:17
Wayne Mulder
That may be you. If you're in a leadership position, it better be you. But somebody is going to have to make a decision and it may even be a hard decision. And another part of the decision making paradigm is doing the right things for the right reasons. Right. So, yes, sometimes you have to make hard decisions and kind of the baseline for that, the litmus test is am I doing the right thing for the right reasons?
00:17:26:18 - 00:17:49:28
Wayne Mulder
Another point that is a key part of good leaders is accountability. And we kind of touched on that. Are you, first of all, someone who holds yourself accountable and are you someone who can be held accountable? The fourth one that they have on this list is caring and supportive. And I want to touch on that one a little bit longer because that's one that is, again, another word that I use a lot, which is the word empathy.
00:17:50:10 - 00:18:11:18
Wayne Mulder
You know, it's the old quote. People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. It is so true. In fact, one interesting thing that came out, this leadership class and some other classes I've been in is how when you can go around the table and you're talking to different people, this point usually and often times means more to them than some of the others.
00:18:11:23 - 00:18:41:05
Wayne Mulder
I mean, obviously they want someone who's honest, who communicates well and so forth, but that empathy, feeling like this person really cares for me as a person that can make a bigger difference than even knowledge or job skills. And so forth, because people want someone who they know care about them. And then two more. The fifth one was inspiring, and I thought this was kind of interesting too, because this is that idea which came up in this class and this is this idea of being contagious, right?
00:18:41:20 - 00:19:02:10
Wayne Mulder
So if you think of leadership as a contagion, if you think of it as you in fact, those around you, what are you infecting them with? How are you affecting them? Right. Are you infecting them with positivity or optimism? You know, do they feel better or are they like, yeah, you know, this we got a lot going on here, but we can do this.
00:19:02:10 - 00:19:26:22
Wayne Mulder
We can pull through like is that is that the attitude you're getting back? Is that what they're reflecting from you or are you getting anger and frustration, cynicism? Is it constant complaining and unhappiness? If so, then you probably need to walk over to a mirror and look in the mirror and be like, Hmm, that may be my problem right there and start there.
00:19:27:02 - 00:19:52:05
Wayne Mulder
Because when we talk about inspiring. Yes. You know, we all think of the Hollywood movie and the subject up there. You know, like on the back of the truck, given the go get them speech right before we go, you know, attack the aliens. But that isn't true in spirit. I mean, that can be inspiration. And certainly we want to work for people who inspire us, especially a good communicator, someone who can get up there and give the rah, rah, rah rah speech.
00:19:52:17 - 00:20:15:20
Wayne Mulder
Absolutely. That's great. But at the end of the day, inspiration often comes from just modeling that behavior, being the kind of person that infects or affects those around them with positivity, with this optimism that we can do this together, we're stronger together. And so as a leader, that should be your critical goal, is to inspire those around you.
00:20:16:06 - 00:20:42:10
Wayne Mulder
And then lastly is building trust. And I think this is very important. You know, all successful roads lead to trust is what the writer wrote on this one. And I think that that comes partially through the communication side, right? If we can communicate effectively and if we can work together and if they know that you're a person of integrity and you're the type of person who has empathy and all of that, then it's automatically going to build trust.
00:20:42:10 - 00:21:03:12
Wayne Mulder
And the other thing that builds trust is a track record. You know, the longer you work together, that is how a lot of that comes together and it doesn't have to be the work environment. I'm just using that term, you know, in the general sense I work together. But the longer that you're with this person, this result say they are consistent, they do the same right thing every time they make a decision.
00:21:03:13 - 00:21:25:21
Wayne Mulder
Maybe not always the best decision, but they make a decision based on good information that they had at that time and they do it consistently. That builds trust because this is somebody that I in working with them, working for them, working around them, I can trust them to make a decision, make a good decision and do the right thing grounded in integrity and communicated well.
00:21:25:21 - 00:21:47:18
Wayne Mulder
So the lesson that I want to give you for this week, for morning roll call is we need to be leaders and be the leaders that we wish we had. Like I said earlier, we all can talk about different leaders we've had that were absolutely horrible, but that's okay because they can be some of the best lessons for you and I to become the leaders that we need to be.
00:21:47:18 - 00:22:07:10
Wayne Mulder
So we need to be the leaders that we wish we had. That does it for this week's morning roll call, I hope. See you Thursday in the interview room. But in the meantime, I'll see you out there on the blue line.