Matthew Rogers

Assignment Four

Law enforcement is a unique field of work, and an even more challenging field to

administer, manage, and lead. With a constantly changing landscape and demands from the

public’s expectations, leaders are left with a tall task. Since the profession is so diverse with

evolving needs begging for solutions, it only makes sense to have a range of different leadership

styles. Of the leadership styles the following four are the most common in today’s landscape:

Transformational leadership, Strategic leadership, Transactional leadership, and Situational

leadership.

Transformational leadership is one of the more popular leadership styles today as it

attempts to meld the desires of the employee and the goals of the organization into one (Bass,

2021). Truly transformational leaders are required to be highly charismatic because they can

enable followers to pull in the same direction as the organization due to their own belief system,

not because they feel they have to (University of San Diego, 2021). With the right leader, these

employees feel empowered and valued as important parts of the organization’s ecosystem as

more than just another cog in the machine (Scism, 2021). However, because of how dynamic

transformational leadership can be when done correctly, a main drawback is that it takes time

and will not typically show results overnight. In a law enforcement setting, transformational

leadership may be a supervisor encouraging his patrolmen to take extra classes or pursue a

college degree. It may mean a patrol team is engaging in community interaction on a personal

level. These officers may be investing in their community and truly interacting with those often

overlooked. These actions do not bear fruit overnight and they do not show up on a spreadsheet,

to the disdain of budget-makers. Also, charismatic leaders are sometimes difficult to find.

However, the upside for transformational leadership is impossible to ignore. A great situation in
law enforcement where transformational leadership would be most effective is in a field training

program (FTO). In these programs, it is important to have charismatic leaders who carefully

groom new officers into effective, long-serving assets for the organization. It is just as important

to teach new officers how to do their job competently as it is to teach them to buy into the spirit

of that organization and its mission statement (Blanchard, 2004). In my opinion, transformational

leadership is what turns a job into a career because its focuses on purpose and the spirit behind

the work. This takes a special leader to bring out in someone, but the reward is persistent.

Strategic leadership is a leadership style best suited for those in higher levels of decision

making (Juneja, 2021). Strategic leadership is essential for law enforcement because it requires

attention to a long-term approach in a pro-active fashion (University of San Diego, 2021).

Strategic leaders are able to listen to the public, see trends forming, and build policy to reflect

those public expectations ahead of time before it is too late. Most importantly, because of the

preparation made by strategic leaders, this type of leadership can be resilient to crisis and knee-

jerk reactions. A perfect example of this type of leadership is in my own organization, the

Mountain View Police Department. The department invested in community relationships and

social media as a way of communication almost a decade ago. In that time, trust and a

relationship was built long before it was required and considered standard practice. Policies were

also written well-ahead of time and not the product of damage control. Demands provided by the

“8 Can’t Wait Campaign” were already written into Mountain View Policy years before the

world knew George Floyd’s name (8CantWait.org, 2021). As a result, when the fallout of the

George Floyd death in Minnesota reached Mountain View, the department and city were able to

weather the storm. Administrators and city council were not caught off guard, nor did they have

to pass new policy in haste and without the typical review process. As a leader of the future, I
would consider strategic leadership a core tenant in forward thinking and planning for the future.

You don’t try to plan your vacation the day before your flight, and building an organization is no

different.

Transactional leadership is a more traditional sense of leadership in many ways.

Transactional leadership is the typical, “carrot and stick” style of leadership where leaders are

required to reward excellence and punish poor work (Bass, 2021). By the very nature of reward

system, it requires effective leaders to “hold the keys” for both the positive and negative

reinforcement (University of San Diego, 2021). Unfortunately in the land of law enforcement

and government in general, this is rarely the case, with keyholders for budget and opportunity

typically landing higher in administration than middle management where the sergeants live.

However, negative reinforcement is present at all levels. This leaves a gap where line-level staff

are going to only experience negative reinforcement, the stick, unless those in lower-to-middle

leadership provide the keys to Sergeants. The success of a transactional leadership style is

entirety reliant upon an organizational structure. Transactional leadership is also prone to falling

into the trap of evaluation via quantitative measures, which is not always appropriate for law

enforcement despite it being the traditional route. Obviously crime statistic are important, but not

everything falls into what can be captured on a spreadsheet. As a leader, I would not put much

weight into transactional leadership because good work will be evident in other ways, and not

strictly by counting arrests to show me who the best employees are. For example, if I were

leading a patrol team, I would not be judging my best performers based on who wrote the most

tickets or made the most arrests. We all know all arrests are not made equal, and this leaves out

the individuals who excel in other ways such as community involvement. This would be a better

leadership strategy for a sales environment, and not a qualitative environment as law
enforcement tends to be. In my opinion, transactional leadership tends to be short-sighted and is

only appropriate when immediate results are needed, such as a DUI enforcement campaign.

Situational leadership requires leaders to be very in-touch with their staff to know

capabilities and to be able to provide direction and mentorship (Northhouse, 2019). This style of

leadership can be excellent for supervisors with small teams and few outside distractions

(University of San Diego, 2021). For example, a small patrol team of officers can greatly benefit

from a supervisor who is active in the desires of the team and who can decipher the strengths and

weaknesses of each individual. However, due to the rarity of this situation in law enforcement, I

think this leadership style taken as a whole is a tough fit for the field. It is extremely important to

have expectations differ from one person to another as strengths vary, but many supervisors have

too much on their plates to be able to effectively lead this way. For example, a supervisor with a

12-man patrol team who also runs the CSI team, SWAT team, and gang team will not have time

to build a personalized learning plan for their members. This reality is common in most small

departments across the country, and therefore makes it impractical. The best parts of this strategy

could be absorbed by an effective transformative leader, who can recognize the pros and cons of

their personnel.

In conclusion, the four leadership styles each have their time and place depending on the

needs and capabilities of a given department or organization. Transactional leadership may be

better suited for short-term gains, while strategic leadership is often best suited for longer term

planning. On the other hand, transformational leadership strategy aims to grow employees

towards the mission statement and empower employees, very similar to how situational

leadership strives to understand the strengths and weaknesses of individuals to optimize growth.
Whichever strategy an organization chooses, factors such as budget, personnel, and quality of

leaders will all play a role in determining the effectiveness of what strategy is used and when.
Works Cited
8CantWait.org. (2021, March 11). 8 Can't Wait. Retrieved from https://8cantwait.org/
Bass, B. M. (2021). From Transactional to Transformational Leadership: Learning to Share the
Vision. Organizational Dynamics.
Blanchard, K. (2004). The Vision Thing: Without It You'll Never Be a World-Class Organization.
Leader to Leader.
Can-Indian Channel. (2017, November 13). MBA 101 Leadership, Situational Leadership
Contingency Model. Retrieved from Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=H1SiGs-SVdA&ab_channel=Can-IndianChannel
Juneja, P. (2021, June 4). Strategic Leadership. Retrieved from Management Study Guide
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strategic-management.htm
Northhouse, P. (2019). Leadership: Theory and Practice. Sage Publications, Inc.
Scism, R. (2021, February 19). Essential Elements of Supervision in Public Safety. Lexipol.
University of San Diego. (2021, June 3). LEPS 540 4.1 Lecture Transcript.
University of San Diego. (2021, June 03). LEPS 540 4.2 Lecture Transcript.
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v=ljqra3BcqWM&t=2s&ab_channel=TEDxTalks