the millennial "snowflake" generation
The focus of my final essay project around leadership specifically the application military style leadership and its dichotomy with the millennial "snowflake" generation. Being a Police Officer who just entered my tenth year as a sworn Police Officer. In the coming weeks I will be testing for Sergeant where leadership is paramount to my personal success and the safety and personal development of my future subordinates.
As a young Officer I was brought up in a very para-military style environment where the Police took a lot of their base leadership from the United States Military and various military models throughout time. Over the past years that leadership style has had to change for a multitude of reasons one of which being a new younger generation of Police Officers often what I believed to be mislabeled the "millennial generation". Other factors do come into play such as the recent rise of the "Black Lives Matter" movement, the implementation of technology (body worn cameras), and the ever-growing demand for transparency in policing.
I am not writing this final project to hamper progression because I truly do believe that there has been some positive progressive change. My intent is to show how the base para-military style of leadership and hierarchy can be used in conjunction with newer more progressive leadership principles which would unify generations of law enforcement officers and pave the way for future success with as it pertains to community/law enforcement relations.
An organized military dates to 3000 B.C where the Sumner and Akkad forces were the earliest documented structured military armies. An organized military hierarchy pre-dates organized law enforcement by over 4600 years which the earliest documented form of the modern US law enforcement structure was formed in Boston in roughly 1670 A.D. During that approximate 4600 years stretch history has allotted great military leaders to establish their own principles learning from the success and downfalls of their predecessors.
As an active sworn police officer of 10 years who cannot speak for all departments but can attest to some principles that were established by military leaders of the past which are still applied heavily to today's police force. Some of those basic principles found in Seven Leadership Lessons From Military History's Greatest Strategists are as follows: "Lead from the front" Alexander the Great. "Empower your employees" Nazi Colonel Heinz Guderian. "Consider all possible options", Napoleon Bonaparte. Although some of the allegiances of these military leaders may be considered controversial their leadership principles regardless of how they used them were sounds and timeless in the sense that they are still actively used today.
Traditionally police leadership had had a base of authoritative leadership and transactional leadership. Authoritative leadership is strictly rules based where the leader of the organization exerts full control over the organization and its subordinates are expected to follow and obey the orders of their superior. Transactional leadership is a reward based environment where subordinates are awarded for good work performance and punished for poor performance. Both leadership styles carry a military background but are often blamed for the "militarization of law enforcement" which public organizations look at law enforcement as almost another branch of the Unites States Military as they have similar traits.
Around four years ago some of the flaws of authoritative and transactional leadership began to show when the relationship between law enforcement and the black community came to a head. The killing of unarmed black men by law enforcement officers prompted the start of the "Black Lives Matter" movement. Per their organization's website biography, the Black Lives Matter movement "started out as a chapter-based, member-led organization whose mission was to build local power and to intervene when violence was inflicted on Black communities by the state and vigilantes."
The governmental response to the Black Live Matter and other similar organizations such as the ACLU has been the introduction of "21st Century Policing". In May of 2015 President Barack Obama created "The President's Task Force on 21st Century Policing", which is a 116-page document laying out a universal foundation for modern law enforcement. The base of 21st century policing hinges on 5 pillars.
The first pillar being "building trust & Legitimacy" which stated that people are more likely to obey the law when the people to which are enforcing it have legitimat4e authority to do so. The second pillar is "policy & oversight", this addresses the fact that oer the constitution citizens have the right to freedom of expression and the right to peacefully protest. The third pillar is "technology & social media", which instructs police departments to utilize technology to engage and educate the public by humanizing law enforcement officers, It also allows for greater transparency. The fourth pillar is "community policing & crime reduction"
The Black Lives Matter movement along with other factors such as improved technology i.e. Body Worn Cameras, the public access to personal recording devices (cell phone), and the publics greater ability to communicate and organize, has led to an abrupt change in law enforcement leadership. Law enforcement had gone towards a base of transformation leadership which is a people centered approach to aim and inspire and empower their employees to motivate the team from within.
In my opinion I believe that the pendulum has swung too far in the direction of transformational and has forgot about the foundation of modern policing that being authoritative. There are a lot of positive attributes transformational leadership bring to a department that focusing on employee mental health, physical health, and overall feeling of acceptance by the department. Some downfalls that I believe that are a byproduct of the leadership style change would be a blurring of lines between officers and their superiors. Technically this is the goal of transformational leadership but if it goes unchecked there can be a breakdown of not only underlying respect for your superiors but officer safety as in an officer fails to obey an order and the result is an injury or death. This can become systemic and with poor leadership can turn to officers failing to obey departmental orders.
In conclusion I believe that a mesh of the old and the new would be an ideal balance for law enforcement going forward. Establishing an early hierarchy of ranks and superior/subordinates during the typical police academy would be the foundation of the internal structure. Adding some transformational leadership to the mix, if utilized in a controlled manner, will breed better communication and transparency between supervisor and subordinate thus breeding further trust and better work productivity where newer officers are in support of the departments direction while still being capable of taking a direct order without feeling as if they are being attack. Knowing the reasoning behind direct orders breeds understanding and a connection which should lead to a mentally healthy employee who understands where their supervisor is coming from.
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