lournnl of Criminal lusrice. Vol. 10. pp. 311-321 (1982) UU47-2352/82/U4U311-11$03.

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PergamonPress,Printedin U.S.A. Copyright 0 1982 Pergamon Press Ltd.

THE LEADERSHIP STYLES OF POLICE MANAGERS

JACK KUYKENDALLAND PETER C. UNSINGER

Department of Administration of Justice

San Jose State University
San Jose, California 95192

ABSTRACT

Leadership involves both the activity and behavior of managers. There are at least six leadership
theories, .one of which, the personal-situational, has resulted in the development of a number of
contingency models of managerial style. The one created by Hershey and Blanchard is used to assess
the styles of 155 police managers. Findings of this research indicate that police managers use two or
three styles, are as effective as nonpolice managers, and tend to avoid “risky” styles, particularly
delegating.

INTRODUCTION tors conducive to development of leaders

include periods of “stress, change, and
Leadership involves both the activity and adaptation” (1974:17-23); a particular
behavior of a manager. Together, activity problem to be solved; the cultural situation,
and behavior, and how these are conceptu- or the nature of the group. Therefore,
alized, described, and measured, constitute effective leadership is not a function of the
a manager’s style. Stodgill (1974: 17-23) individual but rather a “function of the
groups leadership theories into six catego- occasion” in which the individual becomes
ries: great man, environmental, exchange, the “instrumental factor” in problem solv-
humanistic, interaction-expectation, and ing or crisis reduction (1974:17-23).
personal-situational. Exchange theories describe the process of
Great mun theories posit that leadership leadership as an equitable exchange rela-
ability is a result of inheritance. Leaders are tionship in which the exchange results in
determined naturally and have extraordi- mutual rewards. Followers are rewarded by
nary qualities. Included within this theoreti- the leaders’ contributions to goal attainment
cal perspective is the trait approach, that is, while the leader receives status and esteem.
“great” leaders are studied to identify To maintain an effective leader-follower
leadership traits. This approach ranges in relationship an exchange of mutual benefit
scientific sophistication from experiential must be established and maintained.
and biographical-based generalizations to Humanistic theories stress the importance
empirically derived attributes. of integrating individual and organizational
Environmental theories maintain that interests. The leader becomes the mechan-
leadership is a function of “time, place, and ism by which followers, as open, adaptive
circumstance” (Stodgill, 1974:17-23). Fac- organisms, are made optimally productive
311
312 JACK KUYKENDALL and PETER C. UNSINGER

in the structured and controlled setting of and facilitating behaviors” (Hershey and
the organization. Blanchard, 1977: 168-169). Depending on
Interaction-expectation theories suggest the degree of emphasis given to task and
that effective leadership is determined by relationship behavior by a manager. four
the leader’s ability to interact with followers basic styles are possible: (1) telling, a high
in a manner designed to facilitate expecta- task, low relationship emphasis; (2) selling,
tion realization. Individuals subscribing to a high task and high relationship emphasis:
this theoretical perspective tend to emphas- (3) participating, a high relationship, low
ize the importance of two sets of variables: task emphasis; and (4) delegating,’ a low
tasks (activities and structure that are simi- relationship, low task emphasis.
lar to organizational interest and goals), and The telling style is characterized by one-
individual expectations and needs (that are way communication in which the manager
similar to individual interests and goals). “defines the roles of followers and tells
Personal-situational theories are some- them what, how, when and where to do
what like the humanistic and interaction- various tasks.” The selling style is character-
expectation perspectives. All three recog- ized by the use of “two-way
nize the importance of the individual and communication . . [and] socioemotional
the organization. This theory adds situa- support to get the follower[s] psychologi-
tional variables and argues that leadership is cally to buy into decisions that have to be
not a function of a “single set of forces” but made.” The participating style involves two-
is the interactive consequence of such fac- way communication and facilitating behav-
tors as individual traits, the nature of the ior to encourage shared decision making.
group and that group’s expectations, the The delegating style results in letting fol-
problem or task, the organizational context, lowers “run their own show” (Hershey and
and followers’ perceptions of the leader Blanchard, 1977: 161-172).
(Stodgill, 1974:17-23). Hershey and Blanchard do not believe
Within this latter theoretical perspective that any one of the styles is either more or
there have been several attempts (Tannen- less effective than another in the absence of
baum and Schmidt, 1958; Fiedler. 1967; situational factors. That is. managerial ef-
Reddin, 1970) to develop specific models. fectiveness is determined not by adoption of
One approach has been suggested by any one style but by the ability to use all
Hershey and Blanchard (1977). Building on four styles and, further, to “fit” the appro-
the work of McCelland (1951; 1953). Argy- priate style to a situation. For example, in a
ris (1957; 1962; 1964). Likert (1961; 1967), certain type of situation the selling style may
Blake and Mouton (1964; 1965; 1966; 1968), be perceived by followers as satisfying in
Kormann (1966), Fiedler (1967), and Red- setting goals. organizing the work, and
din (lY70), among others, Hershey and providing the necessary socioemotional sup-
Blanchard argue that effective leadership is port. In another type of situation, this same
the function of the emphasis given to task style may be seen as emphasizing too much
and relationship behavior as this relates to structure and may be thought to lack sincer-
different types of situations. ity in interpersonal relations. In the first
Task behavior is defined as “essentially situation, the selling style is effective; in the
the extent to which a leader engages in second, it is ineffective.
one-way communication by explaining According to Hershey and Blanchard
what each subordinate is to do as well as (1977) situations can be classified according
when, where and how tasks are to be to the maturity level of followers. As they
accomplished” (Hershey and Blanchard. define maturity. there are two major com-
1977). Relationship behavior is defined as ponents: willingness or motivation, and
the “extent to which a leader engages in ability or competency as it relates to the
two-way communication by providing socio- specific tasks to be performed. Followers
emotional support, ‘psychological strokes,’ can be neither willing nor able, able but not
 The Leadership
willing, willing but not able, or both willing
and able. Mature followers have the ability
and technical knowledge to do the work,
tend to establish high goals for themselves,
are more concerned with personal achieve-
ment than with the rewards associated with
the achievement, and prefer task relevant
feedback (that is, How well am I doing my
job?) rather than attitudinal feedback (that
is, How much do you like me?).
With followers of high maturity, the most
effective leadership style is delegating, while
participating is also effective, but less so, and
the other styles may actually be ineffective.
With followers of high to moderate maturity,
the most effective style is participating, with
delegating and selling ranked second, and
telling ranked last. With followers of low to
moderate maturity the most effective style is
selling, followed by either telling or partici-
pating, with delegating ranked last. For
followers of low maturity, the telling style is
considered most effective, followed by
selling, participating, and then delegating.
Hershey and Blanchard have attempted
to operationalize their situational or contin-
gency theory of leadership through the
development of an instrument that assesses
the styles of managers. The purpose of this
article is to describe and analyze the styles
of 155 police managers who completed this
instrument, called The Leader Effectiveness
and Adaptability Description. (LEAD).
METHODOLOGY
The LEAD instrument was given to 155
police managers in seven managerial train-
ing programs held in Arizona and California
in 1978, 1979, and 1980. The instrument
measures managerial styles, style range, and
style adaptability. The four styles have
already been described. Style range refers to
the number of styles used, while style
adaptability is essentially concerned with
the ability of the manager correctly to fit
style to situation.
The instrument describes 12 situations.
Three situations describe followers of high
maturity, 3 of high to moderate maturity, 3
Styles of Police Managers 313
of low to moderate maturity, and 3 of low
maturity. Each style is weighted +2 or +l,
or -1 or -2, depending upon the effective-
ness of the style in the situation. Therefore,
if managers selected the optimally effective
style (the one valued at +2 points) in all 12
situations, his or her effectiveness, or style
adaptability, score would be +24. Con-
versely, if the least effective style is selected
in each situation, the ineffectiveness score
would be -24.
The styles in the instrument are described
in terms of the degree of task and/or
relationship behavior the manager may
choose to use. For example, in the first
situation one of four alternative actions
available to the manager is to “emphasize
the use of uniform procedures and the
necessity for task accomplishment.” This
description is intended to indicate a telling,
or high task, low relationship, style. For the
situation described this style is considered to
be the most effective. The most ineffective
would be the low task, high relationship
style, or participating.
The police managers were given the in-
strument at the beginning of a training
program section on leadership. There was
no preceding lecture or discussion of leader-
ship theory. The managers were requested
to try to respond to the situations described,
using the available alternative actions, as
they would actually respond in a similar
situation in their organization.
Since the primary purpose of this article is
to report on the effectiveness of police
managers as measured by the Hershey and
Blanchard leadership model, data analysis is
limited to style orientations and effective-
ness scores and style inadequacies that
contribute to ineffectiveness.
RESULTS
The 155 police managers (that is, persons
considered to be managers in their organiza-
tion) were from two states, California and
Arizona, and represented 104 organizations
ranging from 3 to over 1,700 personnel.
Slightly less than one-half of the managers
314 JACK KUYKENDALL and PETER C. UNSINGER

TABLE 1 TABLE 2

STYLE FLEXIBILITY
DOMINANT STYLES OF POLICE MANAGERS
(N= 155)
(N= 155)

Number of Styles
Style N Percent
Used N Percent

Telling 1 0.6
4 0 -
Selling 79 51.0
3 83 54
Participating 5 3.0
2 68 43
Delegating 0 0.0
1 4 3
No Dominant Style 70 45.0

*If the test for style use is set at 1 rather than 2. then 46
managers used all 4 styles.
(73) were from organizations with 100 or
more personnel. While the years of police
TABLE 3
experience ranged from 3 to 24 years, all but
1 manager had at least 5 years and 109 had STYLE EFFECTIVENESS
10 or more years. The educational level (N= 155)
ranged from high school graduates to those
with master’s degrees; all but 12 had “some
college” and 72 indicated that they had 4 or DegreelRange
more years of higher education. The authors of Effectiveness N Percent
believe that these managers are representa-
tive of well over 1,000 trained in similar
Ineffective
programs between 1970 and 1980.
(-6 to 0) 4 3.0
Table 1 presents the dominant styles of
Marginally Effective
the police managers. A dominant style is
(+l to +6) 29 19.0
defined as one that is used at least 50
Somewhat Effective
percent of the time (that is, in at least 6 of
(+7 to +12) 82 53.0
the 12 situations) without using any other
Effective
style more than 25 percent of the time (that
(+.13 to + 18) 39 25.0
is, more than three times in the 12 situa-
Very Effective
tions). From this perspective managers
(+ 19 to +24) 1 0.6
tended to either have no dominant style (45
percent) or to use a selling (that is, high
task, high relationship) approach most fre-
quently (5 1 percent). Blanchard’s leadership model ranges from
Table 2 indicates the style flexibility of the -24 to +24. Table 3 groups scores in
managers. This is defined as the number of 6-point increments starting with -6. This
styles, of four possible, used at least twice. was done because none of the police man-
Styles selected only once were considered to agers received an ineffectiveness score
be insufficient indicators of reasonable use. lower than -6. In addition. the numerical
The results of this analysis show that none of categories are characterized by degree of
the managers used all four styles, while 97 effectiveness. From this perspective, about
percent used either two or three styles. X0 percent of the managers ranged from
Table 3 presents the effectiveness scores somewhat to very effective. The largest
of the police managers. The ineffectiveness- percentage. 53. was somewhat effective.
effectiveness dimension of Hershey and receiving a score between +7 and + 12.
 The LeadershipStyles of Police Managers 315

TABLE 4

INEFFECTIVERESPONSESBY MANAGERIALSITUATION
(N= 155)

Ineffective Responses Ineffective Responses

Situation N 70 Situation N 70

1 (HT)* 13 8 7 (LT) 107 69

2 (HR) 11 7 8 (LT) 88 57
3 (HR) 10 6 9 (HT) 1 6
4 (LT) 116 75 10 (HR) 24 15
5 (HT) 67 43 11 (LT) 51 33
6 (I-W 48 31 12 (LT) 30 19

*Thisrefers to the style variable,task (T) or relationship (R) behavior that was either high (H) or low (L) in
both styles that were considered to be effective responses to this situation.

Table 4 presents a breakdown of the By individual style use, Table 6 indicates

ineffective responses of managers by situa-
tion. An integral part of the Hershey and
Blanchard situational theory is the ability to
fit style to situation. This table records the
number of times managers responded with
one of the two styles considered to be
ineffective for that situation. The symbols
(for example, HT or High Task) indicate the
style variable that is part of both effective
responses in each situation. For example, in
Situation 1 a high task emphasis is con-
sidered to be important in both of the
effective styles (that is, the ones valued +2
and +l). This analysis shows the degree to
which managers tended to use ineffective
styles while also noting the key style vari-
able of the effective responses.
Table 5 continues this analysis by indicat-
ing the degree to which the police managers
responded with one of the two effective
styles when both of those styles had a high
task emphasis, a high relationship emphasis,
and so on. The results of this analysis
indicate that the managers tended to be
most effective in using styles with a high task
emphasis (telling and selling) and least
effective in the styles requiring a low task
orientation (participating and delegating).
that the style used least often was delegat-
ing, the style that deemphasizes both task
and relationship behavior. This is particu-
larly important because 102 of the police
managers did not use the delegating style
even once and 31 more used it in only one
situation.
Table 7 presents the degree to which the
police managers were able effectively to fit a
particular style to each situation. For ex-
ample, the selling style was considered most
effective in 3 of the 12 situations; therefore,
the managers had 465 (155 x 3) opportuni-
ties to select selling as the most effective
style. As noted in Table 7, the managers
were 46 percent effective in this regard,
while with delegating they were only 10
percent effective.
Table 8 presents the two-style profiles of
the police managers. According to Hershey
and Blanchard (1977) it is not uncommon to
find managers using two styles with great
frequency. As used here, two style profiles
are based on the two styles with the highest
scores with neither of the other two styles
having a higher score (for example, a 5-4-
3-0 sequence). In the substantial majority
of cases this was 3 or higher (for example, a
316 JACK KUYKENDALL and PETER C. UNSINGER

TABLE 5

EFFECTIVENESS
RESPONSES
BY STYLE VARIABLES
(N= 155)

Effective Style* Effective Responses

Variable Number of Situations$ N 70

High Task Emphasis 620 537 87

High Relationship
Emphasis 465 428 92
Low Task Emphasis 775 522 67
Low Relationship
Emphasis* 0 - -

*The style variable was part of both responses considered to be effective (i.e., weighted +2 or +l) for that
situation.
tDetermjned by multiplying the number of situations by number of managers (e.g.. the high task emphasis was
part of four situations, so 4 x 155 = 620.
*Since there were no situations for this variable emphasis, it is reasonable to assume that Hershey and Blanchard
do not believe that the delegating and telling styles are an effective combination.

6-3-2-l sequence). In 16 percent of the and Friend (1977) suggest that, while Cana-
cases there was no two-style pattern because dian police managers express an interest in
there was a tie score between the second both organizational performance and
and third styles (for example, a 5-3-3-l people (that is. a high relationship, high task
sequence). This analysis shows that 78 or selling style) they tend to be task oriented
percent of police managers tend to empha- in practice. using a telling style.
size participating-selling or telling-selling Glogow (1979) found that deputy sher-
combinations. iffs preferred a leadership style that em-
phasized both people and task characteris-
tics, or selling. They believed that the least
DISCUSSION effective style was one that had a poor
people. or relationship. orientation. This,
This section will focus upon related re- of course. is Hershey and Blanchard’s
search and three of the more important telling style.
findings reflected in the above data. These Kuykendall (1977; 1980) using Blake and
are: (1) the effectiveness of the police Mouton’s (1964) managerial grid, found
managers; (2) the implications of the two- that the style receiving the highest score
style profiles that police managers tend to was the 9/9 or selling approach. called a
use; and (3) the apparent inability of many “team” style by Blake and Mouton. How-
police managers to use effectively the dele- ever, this dominant style is based on aggre-
gating style. gate scores of styles used in four managerial
activities: planning, goal setting, implemen-
Related Research tation. and evaluation.’ When each of these
areas is examined separately. the primary
Four studies were located that attempt to styles of the police managers tend to
assess the leadership styles of police man- change. While the selling style is extensively
agers empirically. Reichman. Finkelman used as the primary approach in planning
 The Leadership Styles of Police Managers
TABLE 6
FREQUENCY OF STYLE USE
(N= 1,760)*
Style N Percent
Selling 889 51
Participating 495 28
Telling 307 17
Delegatingt 69 4
*This frequency was determined by multiplying the
number of managers (155) by the number of situations
(12).
t102 of the police managers did not use the delegating
style even once and 31 used it only 1 time. Said
another way, only 12 of the police managers used the
delegating style either 2, 3, or 4 times. And of these,
12, 9 were in either administrative or investigative
managerial positions.
and goal setting, the telling style is the most
frequently employed in the implementation
activity and telling and delegating are domi-
nant during evaluation.
The situations described in the LEAD
instrument of Hershey and Blanchard can-
not be grouped into the four managerial
activities described in the instrument asso-
ciated with grid style measurement; there-
fore, there is no basis for comparison. What
is apparent however is that police managers
do tend to use the selling style more
frequently than other styles, and they do
tend to use more than one style. However, it
is not clear whether or not this style flexibil-
ity is a function of managerial activity (for
example, planning or goal setting) or a type
of situational problem (for example, based
on the maturity level of the employee).
As noted, Hershey and Blanchard (1977)
argue that managerial effectiveness is a
function of style-to-situation fit; therefore,
if style changes tend to be activity rather
than situation oriented this may be one
factor that contributes to managerial inef-
fectiveness. Since situational problems can
include more than one managerial activity.
317
TABLE 7
STYLE EFFECTIVENESS BY SITUATIONAL FIT
Style Effectiveness Fit (%)
Selling 46
Telling 23
Participating 22
Delegating 10
*This score was determined by multiplying the number
of situations for which a style was considered most
effective by the 1.55police managers and then dividing
this result by the number of times police managers
selected that style as the most effective.
changing styles by activity does not neces-
sarily result in the most effective style.
Effectiveness
Hershey and Blanchard report that of
over 20,000 “middle managers from many
different kinds of organizations from four-
teen cultures,” about 83 percent fall be-
tween -6 to +6 in their effectiveness scores
(1977:231). This research indicates that 78
percent of the police managers received a
+6 or higher style score. In an analysis of
231 nonpolice managers’ style scores avail-
able to the authors but as yet unreported, 79
percent had a +7 or higher score. There-
fore, while it is apparent that the police
managers were more effective than the
managers Hershey and Blanchard reported
upon, their effectiveness scores are very
similar to the more recent comparison
group.
One important factor in effectiveness is
related to the style profiles of the police
managers. Table 8 indicates that 59 percent
of the managers have a participating-selling
profile while 19 percent tend toward a
telling-selling approach. Each of these pro-
files includes the selling style. a high task
and relationship orientation which Hershey
and Blanchard consider a “safe” approach
318 JACKKUYKENDALLandPETERC.UNSINGER

TABLE 8 “risky” styles, telling and delegating. Per-

haps this is because ineffective use can pro-
STYLE PROFILES* duce a crisis situation. If a manager overesti-
(N= 155) mates the maturity level of a low maturity
group, and delegates serious work, problems
can result. Conversely, if high maturity is
incorrectly inferred, a telling style can result
Style Profiles N Percent in resentment and hostility and influence
both motivation and productivity.
Telling-Selling. Hershey and Blanchard
Participating-Selling 92 59.0
describe these managers as those who are
Telling-Selling 29 19.0
“able to lower their socio-emotional support
Telling-Participating 6 4.0
or relationship behavior but often feel un-
Selling-Delegating 3 2.0
comfortable unless . . they are providing
Telling-Delegating 1 0.6
the structure and direction” (1977:250-
No Two-Style Pattern? 24 16.0
251). Such leaders often believe that no one
can do the job as well as they can and this
may become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
*Placinga style first in the combination does not
This profile tends to be effective with
necessarily mean it received the highest number of
style scores. groups of low to moderate maturity. “It is
tThis means that the manager had either three or four often an extremely effective style for people
styles with two or more responses.
engaged in . . crisis situations where time
is an extremely scarce resource (Hershey
to managing. This means that it is an and Blanchard. 1977). However, these man-
effective style in many situations even if not agers may have difficulty in developing
the most effective. This is reflected in the people because they do not use other styles
instrument in that 7 of the 12 situations have outside of crisis situations.
selling as one of the two effective styles.
And these situations tend to have the lowest The Delegating Style
percentage of ineffective responses. A more
specific analysis of each of these two-style The police managers described in this
profiles is presented below. article have a strong aversion to the delegat-
ing style. While it is admittedly a risky style,
Two-Style Profiles the police used it so infrequently (only 4
percent of the time) that there is. perhaps.
Participating-Selling. Hershey and Blan- something occupationally unique about the
chard (1977:249-250) have found that this police that results in this avoidance.
type of profile is the most frequently identi- There are several factors that contribute
fied in the United States. Many managers to a belief that inaction leads to ineffective-
with this profile tend to receive higher than ness in police work. There are occupational
average (+7 or higher) effectiveness scores intluences that result in an emphasis on
because neither of the two styles is ever that acting. whether emphasizing relationships
far wrong in terms of effectiveness. or task behavior, or both. Police managers
This approach to managing is effective feel compelled to act, to do something, and
when working with people of average matur- the delegating style is the antithesis of
ity but it may be inadequate for “discipline action.
problems” and “immature work groups.” In The factors that may contribute to the
addition, these managers have difficulty action orientation are: (1) self-perception
delegating to competent work groups. about the police role. (2) the reform model
This style profile also reflects a reluctance of police organization and management that
to use what Hershey and Blanchard call the has dominated police thinking for much of
 The Leadership Styles of Police Managers
the twentieth century, (3) a perception of
behavior that is desirable under stressful
conditions, and (4) the consequences of
“looking bad” in police work.
Role Perceptions. Occupational social-
ization may contribute to this action orienta-
tion. Skolnick (1966) describes some police
officers as seeing themselves as “asphalt
cowboys” and Wambaugh’s (1973) “proto-
type” police officers see themselves as
“alert, cautious, brave and aggressive .”
Some police officers also adjust to police
work by becoming more self-assertive,
dominant, and aggressive (Sterling, 1972).
The aggressive use of authority appears to
be an important dimension of police behav-
ior (Bennett and Corrigan, 1980). All of
these characteristics, if they become part of
a person’s occupational behavior, may con-
tribute to a rejection of inaction.
Police Administration. Fogelson (1977)
has described efforts to reform police organ-
izations in the twentieth century. Part of this
reform emphasis, that was not seriously
questioned until the 1960s concerned the
reorganization of police departments based
on the precepts of classical organizational
theory, that is, centralization, specializa-
tion, unity of command, limited spans of
control, and so on. Authorities such as Fuld
(1909), Fosdick (1915), Graper (1921), In-
ternational City Manager’s Association
(1977), Smith (1940), Wilson (1963), Wilson
and McLaren (1977), Leonard (1964), and
Leonard and More (1974) have recom-
mended this approach. Some of the police
reform leaders of the twentieth century,
who were role models for professionalism,
were practitioners of an autocratic manage-
rial style, often associated with organiza-
tions structured along classical lines. This
includes such persons as O.W. Wilson
(Bopp, 1977), J. Edgar Hoover (Murphy,
1977)) and William Parker (Richardson,
1974).
An important dimension of the autocratic
style of management is an emphasis on
accountability. From this perspective some
police managers may perceive that the most
effective style is associated with some type
of involvement with subordinates in work
319
activities. The authors argue that the one
managerial approach that creates the most
accountability anxiety is the delegating
style. The inaction of this style contradicts
the traditional notion that one dimension of
the managers’ role is to hold their subordi-
nates accountable because they know full
well they could be held accountable by their
superiors.
Stressful Situations. Police work, at
times, does include involvement in stressful
or crisis situations. Fiedler (1967) has found
that a task-oriented, or telling, style, is the
most effective in such situations. The telling
style is action oriented; it often involves
being both assertive and decisive. While this
style may be inappropriate for other types of
situations, the ability to be effective under
stress is often held in high regard by one’s
police peers. Consequently, the telling style
and its action component may become
intrinsically valued.
Consequences of “Looking Bad.” The
authors believe that a significant factor in
explaining the action-oriented styles of pol-
ice managers is their perception of what will
happen if a mistake is made by their
subordinates or themselves. The authors
have noted this attitude among the many
practitioners with whom they have inter-
acted. To a degree this is related to a
concern for accountability. However, there
are two additional perspectives that should
be discussed: (1) the historical process by
which professional behavior has been de-
fined and the resulting sensitivity, some
would say occupational paranoia (Fogelson,
1977), of police concerning critiques of their
performance; and (2) the very real conse-
quences of making mistakes (e.g., “looking
bad” to the news media and community
groups, loss of citizen freedom, injury,
death).
Historically, and even contemporarily,
discussions about professional police behav-
ior have often been couched within a nega-
tive context. That is, police behaviors
deemed nonprofessional were identified and
this led to the definition of professionalism
in terms of what police should not do rather
than what they should do to be effective. It
320 JACK KUYKENDALL and PETER C. UNSINGER

is analogous to a doctor being told what within a democratic social system. Police
drugs not to prescribe for a specific illness officers have enormous power in American
rather than which ones will cure the patient. society. Errors in judgment can have devas-
Admittedly, the variety of situations in tating consequences for citizens. This may
which police can become involved are, be one reason why it is difficult for some
perhaps, unlimited. And the range of possi- managers to “let go.” Many managers
ble responses considered effective may be a believe that if they are involved as much as
function of the specific problem and its possible in what is going on there will be
situational context. This, of course, means fewer errors by their subordinates, and the
that providing definitive guidelines for what possibility of adverse consequences will be
to do is often extremely difficult. However, reduced.
this often leaves the police in the position of
being told they were wrong after a decision
without previous guidance as to what was CONCLUSION
considered “right.” Lacking such guidance,
The purpose of this article has been to
some police officers tend to “play it safe”
present, describe, and discuss the leadership
while police managers come to believe that
styles of 155 police managers as assessed by
they must monitor the decisions made by
Hershey and Blanchard’s LEAD instru-
their subordinates.
ment. When compared with other man-
Hershey and Blanchard suggest that the
agers, the police tend to be at least as
participating-selling and telling-selling pro-
effective if not more so. The styles that
files are most’ effective in working with
dominate indicate that managers are most
groups of low to moderate maturity. To
likely to use the selling, telling, and partici-
reiterate, maturity is defined as having both
pating styles; therefore, they are more likely
the willingness and ability to perform the
to use those styles more effectively.
specific task. An important issue is how
The delegating style is infrequently used
ability, or the degree of ability, is to be
and four factors, unique to the police
assessed. Work groups cannot be highly
occupation. have been suggested that may
mature unless they are highly capable. and
explain why there is a tendency to avoid this
such a determination requires reasonably
style. These factors. in various combina-
specific measures of effectiveness. Given
tions, may coalesce to condition managers
the managerial tendency to define “good”
toward an action orientation rather than the
police work as the absence of “wrongs”
inaction associated with delegating.
rather than the presence of “rights” makes
determination of task-specific effectiveness
more difficult. NOTES

Even disregarding this professionalism ’ Delegating is often used to mean the granting of
trend, the measurement of police perfor- authority to make decisions but also holding the
mance has proven difficult (O’Neill, subordinate accountable for the exercise of author-
ity; however. as used in this article it refers to a
Needle, and Galvin, 1980). This may be an leadership style wtth a specific definition.
important factor as to why police managers
’ This instrument was developed by Hall. Harvey. and
avoid the delegating style; perhaps from Williams in 1973. It is called the “Styles Manage-
their perspective it is not possible for police ment Inventory.‘. published by Teleometrics fnter-
work groups to be highly mature. And, of nattonal of Conroe. Texas.

course, the tendency to avoid the delegating

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