Instructions:
- Post a new discussion related to the topics covered in this module. Your post needs to provide specific lessons learned with examples from this module helping you enhance your leadership capacity at work.
- After posting your discussion, review posts provided by other students in the class and reply to at least one of them.
We need to invest in leadership a lot sooner than we do. Our agency doesn't send anyone to any type of leadership courses until AFTER they've been promoted. More often we end up with the same type of supervisors rather than leaders.
...the "fail forward" idea really stuck with me.
One of the main things I took from this module is the importance of having a plan and sharing it. I have been guilty of this with my subordinates. I will make sure I am sharing my overall plan with them. I like how Therwanger stresses the importance of communication. I definitely like how he breaks down the three levels of communication. Within my department, communication issues happen all of the time. Normally, it is the communication between different divisions within the department.
Have a plan. Share the plan. Give your guys the tools to carry out the plan and include them in its success.
This module was truly valuable in addressing the challenge of coaching individuals to become leaders, which is a common struggle for many of us. It is crucial to bear in mind that the younger generation represents the future leaders, and thus we must invest in their development.
I found this module very insightful. Therwanger provided a lot of information to help us all be successful leaders. I especially enjoyed his segment on collaboration. While sitting in meetings all of the time is not something I find appealing, because I feel that sometimes in my organization, we are having meetings just to plan the next meeting, I do see the benefits of collaborating as a team. Another point Therwanger brought up was having a plan on paper because we are 75 % visual. This is something I need to get better at, for myself and my organization.
I agree with your viewpoint, and it's worth noting that leadership is an ongoing learning process, as previously mentioned. Personally, I share your sentiment about the significance of documenting goals. Although I had abandoned this practice some years ago, I realized that setting written goals and reviewing them regularly can lead to achieving them sooner than expected.
Therwanger stated, “being a leader is not always easy, but it is always worth it when you take the right steps.” We all fail in different ways as leaders, some more so than others. Listening to Therwanger point out and explain the different areas of cultivating the team has opened my eyes. I have always aspired to grow, and I must remember that my team members also desire that growth. I have learned through this lecture that I need to transfer more power and allow my team to grow as leaders—getting everyone on my team synchronized and working together for the betterment of the agency. Communicating, cultivating, and collaborating to build a better team to carry on the visionary legacy we are all working together to achieve.
I appreciated the focus on the difference between training and development. There is a true separation between the two that I did not acknowledge previously. I now understand the difference. It made me reflect on my role at my agency and how I perceive the roles of others. I also really liked the idea of presenting two solutions for every problem. I think that would change the way many problems are approached because it would force some level of thought into play from the onset. It would also force all of us to think like our bosses and try to determine how they would solve the problem prior to it being brought to their attention.
Lewis Blanchard
National Command & Staff College
Session # 17, Myrtle Beach, SC
Learning Area 2, Module 3
Discussion Board: Leadership Connections
The “Leadership Connection” module is excellent. This covers many areas to prepare the groundwork for building a solid agency foundation and doing the same for all employees. Some of the areas of importance to me included:
A leader without passion lacks credibility. Give people your passion and enthusiasm.
Have a plan, get everyone engaged, and help everyone to become leaders. Build leadership skills in everyone to become a visionary leader so that all can help with the plan.
A strong leader will do more with a weak plan than a weak one could ever do with a strong one.
Job Title is listed as one of the top 10 reasons leaders fail because they rely on their title – Matt Beeton
We need to take leadership seriously while not taking ourselves too seriously, take care of our people, solicit their input, have a plan, and put it into action based on our mission and vision.
I liked Therwanger’s idea of “slow down to speed up”. We have all heard the phrase “slow is smooth, smooth is fast” when it comes to learning and implementing tactics, but we seldom see this applied in the concept of leadership. Leaders in public safety are often placed in new roles and get stuck in the same routines as their predecessors. Taking the time to evaluate your team and their mission can have lasting positive effects and greatly increase the team’s chances of success.
You made a great point here and I have heard "slow is smooth, smooth is fast" many times. I know I should take this advice, I often catch myself getting caught up in my day to day duties and don't take the time to slow down, to see if there is a better way of completing each task, I just do it that way because that is the way it was done before me. This is not always the most efficient way.
One point that stands out to me in this module is the cultivation of newer leaders. We often just promote them and expect them to know what to do with no real leadership training. Most senior leaders have the same mentality as the older captains Abrashoff spoke of in his book. They act as though the younger enlisted aren’t worthy of their time or effort. This area needs to change in our profession. Building a foundation of sound leaders will help the department currently as well as in the future.
Randy, you are 100% correct. I have been in agencies where the only training from one rank to the next was tossing you some new keys. Agencies across the USA are setting leaders up to fail with this mentality. It is good to see many agencies providing this and other training for their men and women. We must help build a foundation of solid professional leaders who are honest, trustworthy, good communicators, and well-prepared.
Cultivation in new leaders is one of the biggest things to stand out to me. Planting seeds of leadership at all levels is a true must. Building a foundation for all and preparing them to be future leaders is what a lot of agencies need to improve today. We plan to succeed if we set the agency up for the future line of succession. “A leader with no plan plans to fail” is the words of Therwanger that genuinely resonates with me and has given me a different outlook on how to approach my leadership abilities with the men and women I lead.
Therwanger's advice by slowing down to speed up reminded me of a saying from when I was in the service. Slow is smooth and smooth is fast. Taking time to plan will smooth out many hiccups that could arise. I can also see the benefits of planning increasing buy in. Currently my department is working with a consulting firm to improve our community policing efforts. There have been a few classes which officers had to attend. There have been several meetings with our staff, community leaders, and employees of the firm. There have been classes developed by the firm and our SRO supervisor for high school students. I believe if our staff would communicate their plan and the efforts that have been made, they would see an increase in officer buy ins. After listening to this lecture today, I reached out to a staff member and made that recommendation. The point of this comment is, the lecture is relevant and can be immediately applied.
Richard, you are correct if your staff would share the plan and the goal of the outside firm your buy-in would increase tremendously. We just had a supervisor-only meeting recently at my PD. The staff did not tell us what the topic of the meeting was, just that it was short notice and that we had to be there. Rumors were running wild as to what it was about. Finally, at the meeting, they basically were asking us for ideas on boosting the morale and retention of officers. Imagine the feedback they could have gotten if they had just shared what they wanted to talk about. The meeting lasted three hours. Just a little heads-up could have gotten them so many more ideas. Share the vision and not only during the meeting.
Erik Therwanger provides numerous methods for improving leadership connections in a law enforcement agency. Empowering people within the organization to become effective leaders and exceed their own possibilities are two of the primary focuses of his approach. He advocates for involving all levels of personnel in decision-making processes, encouraging them to think outside the box and draw upon their individual experiences. This inclusivity at all levels promotes stronger relationships between leadership and employees while creating an environment where ideas can be freely shared and discussed. Additionally, through his methods, law enforcement agencies can develop a culture of trust, respect, and collaboration, leading to improved performance across the board. Erik Therwanger's Think Great Collection provides an effective way for agencies to create meaningful connections between leaders and employees, resulting in a more successful organization overall.
In presenting some of my ideas in the past, they were dead in the group discussion. Generating peer buy-in is a great way for someone else to champion the desired change.
I enjoyed learning about the 3 levels of communication in this module: poor, basic, and dynamic. Most communication is on the basic level. It is unreasonable to expect all of our communication to be on the dynamic level. But, if we can turn our number of poor communications into dynamic communications we would be much better leaders.
Mitch, I found this interesting as well and realize that this is definitely an area I can improve in. I thought Therwanger did a good job of keeping this simple, but he still demonstrated the significance of each level of communication.
The module shows the difference between a leader and a person in a position of authority. The leader truly has to consistently challenge themselves and their organization for success. They should expect great things and success but not by their own actions but by their efforts in leading those around them. Leaders have to focus on not just what is going on around them and their team but also what will happen in the future. In the lesson the concerns of stretching the vision by one of my favorite leadership learning lesson, failing forward. Learning by mistake is one of the more powerful actions an officer can do, and has the highest level of results.
This module discussed that great leaders should not just lead, but additionally, should train, coach and mentor others to become great leaders as well. This is only completed when we let go and empower others to achieve and lead as well. We have to train all as a team, insure effective communication and welcome both positive and negative feedback. By investing in them we are ensuring that we are training our replacement and guiding them into the best position as possible.
I really liked the analogy Eric Therwanger used comparing leadership cultivation to farming. The thought of feeding our team with opportunities to train others, speaking on issues and bringing solutions to the table, and building bonds with our team. Challenging our team with opportunities to develop their own leadership skills will also increase our own leadership skills. Taking our time to be more personal with our team and learning more about our team members will help develop them on a higher level. Training and developing our team to help them grow more.
Patrick,
That comment or statement also garnered my attention as an organization is a living entity that is similar to a farm or plants. We all have good years and bad years based upon external influences. In a farm it is weather and nature, for the departments it can be budget, national concerns, or legal changes. Tending to the needs of the department to help it to grow and nurture our future leaders helps us to stay resilient and weather the storms of change and become stronger.
An important takeaway for me was the impact of communication on the receivers. Therwanger, (2017) discusses that "every word you say has meaning, whether you intend it or not." Tone, inflection, and accompanying body language support or contradict your verbal intent. Having tact and following up with the person you are communicating with can ensure that the communication you intended is what was received.
Simply put, our conduct, attitude, and speech weigh heavily on how people look at us as leaders. As stated, the tone and inflections in our voices when we speak to others can say volumes about what type of communicator we are. This can affect the way people receive our message either positively or negatively.
I totally agree, I have on several occasions responded to something or received something that either someone misunderstood or I misunderstood the message sent or received. For these reasons, I to believe every word you say has a meaning. Like you mentioned the tone, inflection and body language all plays a part in how your message id received or transmitted.
The biggest takeaways from this module for me are the process of cultivating those around us and the power of empowering those in our organizations. As leaders, it is our responsibility to deliver results. By building our team/tribe to its greatest potential we will achieve the greatest results. To do this, we must cultivate and empower those in our tribes. Encouraging collaboration between us all while removing the stigma of fear associated with failure (fear of being demoted or removed, fear of ridicule, fear of retaliation, etc.) we will create an environment and culture that thrives in innovation and creativity which increases buy-in and acceptance to change. When members of your tribe genuinely feel cared for and SAFE, they will astound you with their results and drive.
I also agree that a culture of safety, trust, and empowerment builds superior results.
I agree Jarrett, empowerment is a major factor. Therwanger's point about training without empowerment was spot on. In the past my agency has sent officers to training courses that were never effectually utilized. The training was simply getting the mandatory APOST training hours. In recent years there has been an effort to share knowledge and encourage the use of specialized training. It makes a difference in the retention of the knowledge and the effectiveness of the department as a whole.
This was such a tremendous motivating module. I can relate to a lot of this with being a Marine myself. Right off the bat, Therwanger mentions one issue, two solutions. We see many employees complaining of problems and spreading toxicity around. I have been able to combat many of these by using this exact statement. When officers cannot design a plan to promote the agency, they don’t have much of an argument. This allows me to build officers and share knowledge with them. I can also empower them to want to change the minor issues they see themselves. By giving officers my time, I can cultivate a positive culture.
Therwanger made an excellent comparison between what a farmer does to produce his crops with the similarities an organization must also do to cultivate a productive organization. Leaders monitor the climate and environment of their organization just as a farmer does if they are to expect a healthy yield. He identified all of the bullet points and steps that are necessary to do so. Having an understanding of the significance of Empowerment, Collaboration, The Plan and The Vision have put things into perspective for me for what I need to do to build a secure future for my organization. Excellent lecture!!
Joseph Spadoni Jr.
Session #15
This lecture provided a lot of information on how important it is to empower your people. The side effects of empowerment are nothing but good things. We have to be better communicators. This lecture really made me reflect on the words we use and how we communicate them because Therwanger said everything we say as a leader sends a message.
One of the least-considered components of leadership is cultivating new leaders. It seems likely very few organizations place emphasis on having a plan to ensure new leaders are prepared to continue their organizations’ visions. Something I had not considered.
Very good point Cedric! How many times have upper staff members retired and failed to pass on an understanding of their duties? From bottom management to the top level of the staff division, the leaders of each rank should be training and developing the leaders below their rank on their duties to ensure the future of the agency.
I could not agree more. Law enforcement agencies are absolutely failing our young and eager leaders. In my experience this failure starts on day one and is never addressed. Newly promoted leaders are generally expected to learn how to lead and supervise through OJT or a cookie cutter, check the box, style “first line supervisor” course that does nothing to increase their leadership capacity. I digress…
Cedric, we often fall short as organizations to invest in future leadership. As others have posted we simply take a test and boom, leadership material. Leadership is so much more than just taking charge, it is about empowering people to exceed their own possibilities and strive for greatness. Erik Therwanger lays out a solid argument for a written development plan. An organization must have a strong plan in place to cultivate a new generation of leaders who can take up the torch and carry on the group's vision or take it in an entirely new direction.
Another point to consider, Cedric, is promoting without purpose or promoting tenure over ability. This is damaging to the concept of visionary leadership.
This was a good lesson in trying to get your employees to share the vision of the leader and the organization. It also showed some great ideas on how to teach and then develop your employees to have more "Buy in". I also learned that the leaders plan needs to be written down not just stated.
I agree. Having the employees share the vision of the leader and organization will have us reach success.
The first part of the module on communication I found interesting. Selecting the proper wording and consisting of a positive message help to inspire positive. I have seen the opposite when a shift is negative and influences a positive employee to become negative. I agree that consistent communication from a leader and the form of communication is essential. I have sent out emails or texts that were auto-corrected and often thought of how that makes me look. I liked the use of slow down to go forward. As leaders, we get busy and don't slow down to look at how things are going and often leave things undone.
I agree with the Chief of Staff on this one. The communication section was the most beneficial one to me. I have learned when things did not go the way I wanted them to, to go back and try to find error in my communication before placing blame.
Leadership is very important and Therwanger said it right when speaking of cultivation. Also having the continuity of leadership and how it related to the dynamics of training vs. development.
I also liked that Therwanger showed in detail the differences of training and developing his employees. I do plan on using this in my agency.
The perspectives on training versus development show why tendencies to focus on short-term results can lead to a lack of goal achievement and leaders having inadequate leadership skills.
The module discusses that leaders not only need to lead, but to teach others also to lead. Share the vision that will make the organization function the best it can. We must empower those who will be taking over after we are gone, and make sure they understand what is best for the organization as a whole.
This module discussed the fear of failure I believe a lot of leaders deal with this. Often times people are scared to make decisions based on the fear of failure. I believe to be an effective leader is to trust your gut and if it does not work out as planned use that as a learning experience for future decisions.
As leaders, we must empower others around us. When we push others to be great It makes us even greater. This makes for a strong team. This can be accomplished through effective communication. At times, my communication can be poor. I have to monitor my tone and facial expressions when interacting with my staff. This is a skill that I am constantly trying to improve. I will work on my communication timing, I need to be more proactive instead of responding once something has occurred.
I agree and have watched my communication with others more closely since becoming Deputy Chief. Someone told me early on that when I speak what I say now is coming from the Deputy Chief. This made me began to really think about what I say and how it impact others. This all re-enforces this for me and how important it is that leaders use of communication is. I have to work on speaking with calm and positive voice.
It was said in this module, "We empower people to enhance their efforts and enhance results." This is such a true statement. it is essential to remember that we can inspire others to want to reach the common goal when presented correctly. We have to learn to cultivate them and give them the tools needed to succeed as future leaders.
Jeremy Pitchford Session #015
I agree Lance. I also feel there was an important distinction between training and development. I would like to see us developing more officers instead of just training them.
All good leaders are able to communicate in a manner that inspires others. This Lecture revolves around communicating a vision and following up on its progress. I feel that many visions fail because leaders fail to cultivate them.
Therwanger said the number one thing leaders are responsible for is results. I think this is correct, and I also believe it causes leaders to feel it is often necessary to handle everything themselves. I, too, have been guilty of the old saying, “if you want it done right, do it yourself.” However, in recent years, I have grown to understand the necessity of having multiple people cross-trained in various positions and the empowering effect of trusting your team to get the job done. Sometimes, we have to delegate the authority not only for our teams to grow but for us also.
I agree that we must train all of our people to be leaders and cross trained in different areas. The cross trained person will keep the organization moving forward.
I enjoyed the opening TEDx Oxbridge video by Matt Beeton, specifically when he spoke about leaders creating a safe environment or a climate where people can say and do what they need to, fostering connection and creativity. He went on later to state that a leader without passion and enthusiasm lacks credibility. There is a lot of truth to that.
Then during the module, Erik Therwanger encouraged us to empower people, up and down the chain. So many times we are focused on our subordinates that we forget that our leaders need encouragement and feedback as well. I have found that when I do this, it creates a more welcoming environment and we all support one another. I like how Therwanger differentiates between groups and teams repeatedly throughout the presentation and focuses on the importance of building and developing the team. He struck a chord when he spoke of the team making being awkward at first, then mechanical, then natural. So many of us in law enforcement have a difficult time with change and he just encourages us to stick with it.
Finally, I was inspired when he spoke about becoming visionary leaders, that the vision is the course we take, allowing us to see what’s ahead and it is the leader who lights this way. Vision inspires and causes action.
Leadership connection: This was an interesting module for in the military and with law enforcement, promotions based on competency testing or superior technical job performances is the standard model. The person is promoted to be a leader of others based on IQ or for doing a good technical job. The person is then inserted into a position of leadership without any leadership development beforehand and very little if any, true leadership training or mentoring after the fact. We then have a technical leader who may not have much in the form of emotional intelligence. That’s the norm rather than the exception. Is there any wonder as to why work culture suffers at that point? I've seen this all too often leading to negative outcomes for the team members under the new "leadership".
I agree with you 100%, all too often persons are put into position from "obligations" and the lower half of an organization begins to suffer on many levels from retention rates, morale, or overall job performance.
I keep hearing about all these amazing things to make my organization better. Cultivate people, create goals, create a vision, communicate, empower them to become part of the solution. I think about most of my people and how I believe they will get on board. But then I think about one person I have who is grumpy, who is pessimistic, who will challenge all of this at every step of the way. How do I get the energy to continue knowing that one person is going to be a roadblock? I understand why it is hard to do this. It takes time and I am not sure what I am doing. Also, I am planning on this for my unit and do not know how much buy-in I will have. Does anyone have any suggestions for the person who is going to be difficult? Do I just ignore them and continue on with everyone else? Or should I try to get them to have the buy-in first?
I feel your pain, Andrew. I have had some of the same problem employees who constantly have a negative or pessimistic outlook and who drag others down. Sometimes it is possible to get them to buy in if we show the benefit to them. How will it make their lives or jobs better or easier? Unfortunately, there are some who will never come on board and that is when it is time to start progressive discipline and documenting in their file. In the past, we have had leaders move people like this around trying to mitigate damage and minimize exposure to other people, but this only spreads the poison or cancer. It’s tough to do, but maybe if he doesn’t want to get with the program, he might be encouraged to move along. Good luck!
This module had some great information. Communication is a vital component to leadership. Empowering helps employees in their development as leaders. If we empower our people, we cultivate a team atmosphere. Good communication in your team leadership seeks to build camaraderie within your team.
I spent a lot of time reflecting on the differences between group and team. Through your life and career, I believe it's easy to spend most of your life in groups and rarely on a true team. For me, the teams I have been on were the most memorable. Because we accomplished something.
Todd, I've been in groups and on teams throughout my work life as well and there is no comparison between the two for me either. In the military, I've spent time in groups and on teams. On those teams, we accomplished missions for our fellow teammates and our country. After separating, I longed for the comradery of being part of a team and joined law enforcement. In law enforcement, I've also spent time on specialized teams accomplishing something for fellow teammates and the community. Those accomplishments are what self-satisfaction and great memories are made of!
In the lecture on collaboration, Therwanger gives the results of a Gallop poll that suggests 72% of your employees are disengaged, with 18% undermining others in the workplace. I applied these numbers to my agency and they were frighteningly accurate. I appreciated the fact he believes that collaborating and empowering your people is a solution to this issue.
We see to many times people put in the position to lead without the knowledge or tools to be a good leader. Who is to blame? Them? or the person above them? I agree we need to know ourselves and learn to communicate better to become great leaders. We must not underestimate the power of empowerment.
Therwanger’s concepts were spot on with what I know we should be doing as a police department. I am not afraid of hard work but to implement his ideas and steer the ship in the direction we need to will require a great deal of effort. What I mean is that Therwanger’s concepts require a great deal of time and attention. Unfortunately, we have overloaded ourselves with so much work currently, there is little time to separate from our requirements to implement this type of leadership. To be clear, we must take the time to implement this type of leaderships. However, we must also find ways to eliminate some of the work requirements we have placed on our positions so our leaders can be freed up to lead in this way. We have a big ship, and it will take intentionality and strong effort to turn it in Therwanger’s direction. I am committed to changing and focusing on leadership, but we must do it as a team and get support from the very top. These changes will take a great deal of thought and commitment, but it is worth it.
In this module, Erik Therwanger talks about empowering people, what that looks like, and what are the results of empowering people. There is a lot of material that was covered in this module. However, the constant theme that stuck out to me was communication, and how effective it is in your organization, will have an overall and dramatic impact on empowering your people and exceeding your goals. I can say that I am trying to develop dynamic communication. I must admit that I find myself, at best, in the basic communication level, simply transferring information from one party to the next. The premise that empowerment is an action gives me a serious reason to pause and reflect on how I am communicating with those I am trying to build up. I once had a supervisor that told me my job was to train the next person under me to do my job. At first, I didn’t understand this message. Under the lens that Therwanger gives, it resonates that my main focus should be to empower and build up the next generation of leaders and then get out of their way.
The training vs. development distinction resonated with me. The idea that training meets an immediate need so we can accomplish our mission is where I get tunnel vision. It’s easy for me to get sucked in to meeting our immediate needs, which is too short sighted. I need to step back and be development minded, so I can better work to develop myself and other. Through development we can achieve our agency’s vision and pass that mindset on to the future agency leaders.
I found the area on communication very informative. When Therwanger spoke about every word we say as leaders sends a message and there is meaning behind it even if we didn’t intend it I had to self-reflect. I sometimes forget this and maybe speak more freely than I should to my shift. This was a great reminder that because we are leaders or in leadership positions what we say has meaning and what we say can have a negative impact even though that was not the intention.
I have struggled with this in my career. I have given instructions and have not taken the time to think about how that message would be received. I also can easily self-reflect on casual conversations that I have had with team members only to find out that they had a negative impact on those around me. I am more aware of what I say and how I say it.
This too is something I struggle with and have to constantly monitor myself. As innocuous as something may be to me, it's the recipient of my words that matter. I've had to more than once, apologize for sticking my foot in my mouth.
Communication is a skill we all can improve on. It will take a conscious effort to incorporate the tools we are acquiring in this training. I am guilty of just providing the info with no regard to how the person is processing it. I am working on my how I say it.
I agree with this and also had some self-reflection when it came to this
There was quite a bit covered during this module! I feel the teamwork concept is critical. Leading in a way to get a group of individuals to function as a team is challenging, but brings huge rewards. If you are able to inspire individuals to work as a cohesive unit and be more concerned with accomplishing common goals instead of seeking individual accolades the unit will make a far greater impact. To accomplish teamwork, I agree that communication is essential. Members of the team must feel as if they have a voice and need to be comfortable sharing with each other.
Recently, I suggested in a meeting with my lieutenants that we can "try things out" and told them, "if we get into this and say, this isn't working, what we're doing is stupid, we can stop." I told them that I want it to be acceptable for us to throw ideas against the wall and see what sticks. After that conversation, I appreciate Therwanger's concept of "failing forward." This gives me language for what we're trying to do i my section. If we can see failure as an option for many of our ideas, we will be less afraid of innovation. If we see trying things and throwing them away if they don't work as part of the process, we will learn as much from what we throw away as what we keep, and we'll be more willing to try ideas that we wouldn't have before because they weren't a sure thing.
I applaud your willingness to put yourself out there and put his idea forward with your team. This is something that I need to do as I work to remove my resistance to playing it safe, which limits growth. It will also help to create that safe trusting environment, where innovation can spawn as we eliminate those ideas that won’t yield the desired results.
Jeff,
Thank you for giving your team the freedom of failure. It seems we believe every idea must be a sure thing prior to implementation and if it is not, it is not worth the risk. There is nothing wrong with trying a new thing and if it doesn’t work, moving on to something else. This may be more of an issue of fear of failure but when we have a solid team environment, I believe that fear can be diminished. I am actually more excited to see instances of failure and how the leaders respond than successes. Success is easy but when a plan fails, leaders must celebrate that failure as a bold attempt at innovation and not as a failed employee. I am not suggesting we celebrate all failures but those which were a well thought out and bold attempt at innovation. If leaders celebrate those kinds of failures, employees will be more willing to take innovative risks.
Jeremy
The lesson for having a plan is something that I think we as a agency need to work on. I definitely lack in this area and see that it is a vital part of hitting our goals. If our people do not know what the goal is that we are shooting for then how do we expect them to do their part to help reach it. We all know that we have a plan, but if there is nothing in writing, or if it is not passed on to our people then we are setting them, and us, up for failure. Start with a plan, write it down, and give it to them. Then we will work on the implementation of the plan and what all it will take to get there.
I agree and after going through this module, I also feel this is one of the areas I need to improve. At times, I find myself getting caught up in checking of the day to day tasks. I can do a much better job of planning for the future and communicating that plan to the people I work with.
Rodney, I agree with your plan. We have to open the channels of communication up on the end goal of what we are trying to accomplish.
I gained a lot from the idea that a Group does not equal a Team. Groups act as individuals, and have their own personal objectives or agendas for their motivation. Whereas a Team acts as a cohesive unit with everyone working towards the same shared goal. There is a strong contrast between those in my office who operate as part of a team, and those who believe they are just part of a group. The folks in a group seem to do their best to shine brighter than everyone around them. Those on our team do their best to reflect their light onto others so we all shine bright.
I was interested in this concept of group vs. team as well, because it got me thinking about how to establish the sense of "team" in my assignment overseeing investigators now. Teamwork comes pretty naturally in some assignments. In under cover units, or our Violence Crime Team, officers are often working on the same assignment together so "team" becomes kind of automatic. At the very least, when a team is not cohesive, you're going to know it. But my detectives are all working on their own cases and involved in their own workflow. So what does it mean for them to be a "team" and how can I help to encourage this concept for them? I think maybe it means setting goals that aren't necessarily related to their individual workflow. This is definitely something worth working toward.
The groups versus teams section resonated with me also. I have never stopped to think about it, but the differences now seem so apparent. I can relate this to various assignments over my career, and the actual team environments produced the best times and memories along with the best results. This is something I will pay attention to in the future.
Being a leader should be a goal for everyone. This module explained that leadership does not have to be a lonely position. Good leadership foundations can come naturally, but they can also be thought and learned over time. When you have a solid foundation, others will learn from the very foundation they come from. Others will forever remember a good leader. Others will forever remember a lousy leader as well. Leadership can manifest itself in many ways, but the most effective way to show leadership is by focusing on positive solutions.
Development as opposed to training is an interesting concept. Lots of things can be trained but development lends itself to transformation. Leadership is a process of transformation and development is constant through out the process. I must figure out what developing the leadership in the ranks looks like for me. I liked the comparison of cultivation in leadership to a farmer’s crop. Absolutely without cultivation crops are unsuccessful and die. Once again, I have to figure out what this process looks like for me and start cultivating the leadership below me.
John, I liked the cultivation of crops comparison as well. There are things we can do as a leader to fertilize our troops and get them to grow to their potential. There are also things we need to do to "weed" out those who want to shine on their own, or choke out the roots of the strong foundation of our organization.
The journey of leadership was presented in a meaningful and achievable way. One of the most valuable lessons presented was that success does not always follow as we would like. The concept of "failing forward" may seem simple but is vital to overall success. It reminds us that there are acceptable levels of failure and the journey is never perfect. However, through perseverance trust is built and opportunities grow. As we have been reminded, adding significance is the key as through this process we encourage, find solutions and empower others. If done correctly, the mentoring becomes a circular process where more leaders are borne through investment of others.
Failing forward jumped out at me also. Failure may not be the outcome that one hoped for but can be a valuable part of the process. As we all know some of the greatest inventions were born out of multiple failures. Fear of failure cannot hold one back from trying to do great things.
Leadership is never easy. That's why it's called being a leader. This module was presented very well, as you stated. Being successful does not come overnight, and you will have some challenges along the way. But a leader overcomes those challenges by adapting and overcoming despite the obstacles they have to face. A leader finds solutions to things and is a great problem solver. I liked when it was explained that a leader should have two solutions to every problem. Great post!
I used Therwanger's presentation for self-reflection. While taking notes, I tried to relate what he was discussing about setting goals, communication, and inspiring others to think about my current and past efforts as a leader. This essay helped me realize that I need to write down a plan and make sure my followers are aware of that plan.
The thing information I absorbed most in this module is the difference between common words. Training is accomplishing a vision whereas development is achieving a vision. Group vs. team: groups focus on personal objectives. Teams focus on common objectives. I feel we need to promote team more in the agency. We have to work on common goals instead of just our person goals.
I too enjoyed the discussions and comparisons of a group vs. a team. I found it very eye opening and agree it's something my shift and agency needs to embrace. I have been working with my supervisors and trying to get them to gel as a team instead of individuals.
Mr. Therwanger highlights the failure point for many organizations, especially mine. We train leadership on a frequent basis, but it hasn't led to a huge shift in thought and action. We fail in developing leaders after they have attended training. We have the common misconception that after someone goes through a couple days of training they can perform as the leader we expect them to be but, as Therwanger pointed out, even professional athletes work on a daily basis with their coaches to develop their skills for optimum performance.
This module opened my eyes to the term empowerment. Empowerment is important to the team and individual development. The team needs the ability to make decisions on their own, but with the understanding that mistakes will be made. Therefore, learning from our mistakes. To be a more effective leader, we must self-reflect on our own abilities and discover where our weaknesses and strengths are. Once we self-reflect, we can develop through training. Training is an area that should be focused on throughout the organization. Training from the least experienced member to the most seasoned member should remain consistent in the organization. We should never stop challenging ourselves or each other to be better. One of the areas my department has fallen short on is supervisors training officers to take their place. We should be preparing them to take our position when we retire. One of my goals is to leave the organization better than I found it. There is always room for growth.
Therwanger does an excellent job.....again. He really makes you examine where you are as a leader and where you need to go, personally and with a plan for your organization. I found myself lacking in assessing my communication with my team and also in developing each member as a leader. He gave me things I need to work on.
This was another great module by Therwanger. Seek self-improvement. That has to be developed all the time for yourself and others.
I agree communication can be the weakest link in the process of empowering and mentoring our teams. It is important to slow down and make time to meet regularly and approach the communications with purpose. Even if difficult in hectic schedules, meaningful communication that seeks solutions will push the vision of the organization forward.
Leadership is never easy. That's why it's called being a leader. This module was presented very well, as you stated. Being successful does not come overnight, and you will have some challenges along the way. But a leader overcomes those challenges by adapting and overcoming despite the obstacles they have to face. A leader finds solutions to things and is a great problem solver. I liked when it was explained that a leader should have two solutions to every problem. Great post!
I realized I have been missing the target as a Leader in my department. I'm all about training and finding training the staff and department would learn from. While the department needs training, I need to focus on the development. I also talk about empowering the staff every day but if I'm not giving them the authority too, I'm not empowering them. In 2020 I developed a training event called "leadership summit" I brought high level training to my department for a week in 2021. I wanted to bring this type of training to my entire staff because the benefit of Leadership throughout the entire department is endless. Again, after this module I've realized I've been missing the target but this module has given me solutions to my issues.
Once again, Mr. Therwanger provided a powerful lecture on leadership. What I found very informative was the lesson on cultivating leaders. I feel developing junior leaders is key to a department's success. I really like how he explained the difference in developing leaders verse training leaders. I feel a lot of agencies send officers and supervisors to leadership classes/courses but don't develop what they learned once they are back on duty. As executive leaders we need to promote their growth and foster their skills to become successful leaders. Empowering them to be more within the agency. So one day, when they are senior leaders they will continue moving the agency in the right direction.
This presentation was very informative as to the various ways we can grow as leaders. One part really gained my attention as Therwanger spoke of the concept of cultivation. This term is something that agency’s have come to know as they train new hires that come into the agency and need that guidance to help them in achieving the goals. It is our job as leaders to ensure that they are empowered to learn by taking part in the actual learning process through including them into the training which will cultivate their growth as Law Enforcement officers.
I agree Jerrod. Cultivation is something that has to continue to occur through training and development. The leadership courses help to develop people to grow and take on leadership traits.
There was a lot of great information passed on in this module. I especially liked Therwanger’s thoughts on collaboration. Just the word gives an impression of being positive. Enhancing team member strengths, forward thinking and issue solution stands out as something team members will buy-in to and be motivated by. Being invested in your team and encouraging members input builds their knowledge and trust. When they trust, they will be more comfortable in bringing ideas forward leading to greater results.
A lot of great information in this module. The concept of "Failing forward" really hit home with me. As a patrol supervisor I want my team members to make their own decisions based on sound reasoning. By giving them the freedom and allowing room for mistakes, it builds trust and helps them grow professionally.
Donald,
I too enjoyed the concept of Failing Forward. As a patrol supervisor myself, I see that the team flourishes well when they have input and can make decisions on their own within reason. They learn from their mistakes while at the same time, they are building trust in me which allows them in learning from their experiences and use that to gain more confidence in what they do. They trust that I will not let them fail because as a group they are depending on one another to make the right choice. They empower each other by holding one other accountable.
I agree with this. We need to be able to give officers the chance to make decisions. If it turns out to not be the right choice, learn from it and move forward. It is a learning experience.
I learned a lot in this module " Leadership Connection". I got some insight into the differences between groups and teams and how it can benefit a leader to develop them. My favorite quote from the module is, " When you empower your people, you will allow them to unleash their full potential, positioning your organization to new levels of success."
I agree with you Glenn. I really got a lot out of his lecture about the differences between groups and teams. I never thought of it that way. I look at my department and I see several groups but only a few teams. That will be something that needs to addressed to move the department into the future verses just doing the job at hand.
The leadership tools mentioned in the module “Leadership Connection” was very beneficial. I now have a better understanding of the importance of having a plan. Preparing for the future allows leaders to consider the impact they can make with the organization. From experience, when a team works together to set goals, it allows everyone to focus on a purpose and have shared vision. Employees will become better at recognizing ways to achieve goals, as well as behaviors to avoid that may prevent organizations for reaching its objectives.
This was a pretty though provoking segment. I have known many strong leaders in my life. Be it my father, military leaders, or currently within my own command. If there is anything that I have learned from them all in regards to building the team it is everyone needs to be all in for the mission and vision. When you have a total buy in by the sum of the team you can accomplish anything. It is most definitely our job as leaders to instill this way of thinking into our teams and commands as a whole.
Andrew - I have always had this belief and Therwanger's message surely supports it. Having buy in from your people is one of the most important things. To have this they have to understand what the mission is, what the plan is and how it is to be implemented. What leaders tend to fail at is delivering this message and making sure that everyone understands, therefore they lack the buy that is necessary.
Another powerful segment from Erik. Something that really stuck with me was cultivation and relating / role playing it to farmers. While I am not a farmer, it made perfect sense. We must invest and take care of our people just like a farmer invests in crops he/she plants. If the crop isn't taken care of it will no longer be there. Same goes for our people! Powerful message with a simple example.
Jeff, I agree that great leader’s help employees grow. Leadership development increases employee engagement and reduces turnover. Great leaders attract, hire, and inspire others to be great.
You are spot on Jeff. I've work with some supervisors and peers who were self-serving and never invested in their people. The results in work performance and attitude were always sub-par. Thankfully, I have also worked in environments where the opposite was true. The teams that invested in its members were always more productive, had better morale and displayed a strong sense of unity.
I think this module was very insightful. It is always powerful to hear a message that encourages us as leaders to strengthen our staff members. I especially liked how Mr. Therwanger gave real examples of how to empower our employees. It reminded me of this great presentation I watched from a former Interim Police Chief. He discussed how he was hired to find the replacement Chief who would take his position. He had a great vision of building up your employees so they are 100% ready to take your place when you leave. All in all, a great reminder of the importance leaders have in any organization.
I agree Jared we must all be willing to share our strengths and knowledge to groom those who will take our positions. This speaks directly to your legacy as a leader and the shared legacy of the command.
This module was very insightful regarding building new leaders with shared vision. I especially liked the quote from the Sergeant Major regarding recruiting the next generation to carry on their legacy. Those words are very powerful if you think about them. In law enforcement, ever evolving that it is, we as leaders are obligated to cultivate, inspire and develop the next generation of leaders to carry on our our legacy and carry the torch so to speak. But not in our exact image, but a better version to adapt and overcome to the problems of the future.
David,
I like your comments here. I agree that it is important to build up new leaders and inspire them with the shared vision. I think you hit the main point of empowering the future leaders, which is that they need to be able to evolve with the times. As you stated there are going to be different problems in the future and they need to have strong leadership skills to address those.
This lesson, as with most continues to build on topics previously mentioned. (Seeing it seven times for comprehension, right?) Again, Culture, the importance of communication, how to assess it, and signs to look for when it is ineffective. One thing that caught my attention during the cultivation segment was when training traps were mentioned and how knowledge does not create action, however empowerment does. Another great take was the topics of identifying leadership potential. Seeing is believing, another well received lesson.
The training trap that we so often seem to fall into is just the checking boxes. As Therwanger was speaking on the fact that knowledge doesn't create action, but empowerment does, I see it as it not only creates action, but when you are empowered to undertake something, it requires action, it becomes a must.
Your right, Chris. This section opened my eyes to my failure to cultivate future leaders. We send them to training and expect big things from them, but we are let down. We believed it to be their fault but it is really ours, because we did not give them the keys to the car and let them drive enough.
This module touched on lots of information from prior modules. Part of this lesson helped me realize that we should delegate duties and not take all tasks ourselves. Deligation empowers people to be part of the team and be engaged. We must also supervise the responsibility we give out and challenge our employees.
Jose this is a hard one for me. I often catch myself trying to help them by taking on a task that I know I can do quicker. Part of this is to help pull the wagon as caseloads are high and we are understaffed. I realize now that without regulation I may be creating underdeveloped leaders.
Jose, I agree on the importance of delegation of responsibilities. Working for you I get to see the ways you do this everyday. I do believe the trust you give in me to complete task not only empowers me, but also gives my followers respect for my decisions.
This module relays a lot of information. Each lecture brought something new to the table and to your attention. What I thought was extremely interesting and something I never thought of before; was how leaders are developed and employees are taught. I thought this was extremely powerful and so true. However, those that are leaders or at least show the appearance they are, should be developed into stronger leaders throughout their career.
This module made the difference between a mission statement, now, and a vision statement, future, clear. Prior to this, I had not viewed these two things independently in this matter. In order to successfully move towards our vision statement, our leaders now must continue to prepare the leaders of the future. This module made it clear how effective communication is necessary in doing so.
This module had lots of good information. One thing that stuck out to me is when Erick was talking about having a plan. I did not realize that 75% of learning is through vision and the more visually it is the better it is remembered. Also leaders need to be able to create and implement the plan. Another thing that was discussed was the difference between group and team. I started thinking about my shift and realized we were more of group. I then began thinking of ways that can change that to make them a team.
This is very true. I know that I'm a hands-on type of person. If I'm showed how to do something, I can get it much faster than just being told how to do it. I think this is why social media sites like YouTube have become so popular. This is the same for developing leaders. We learn more from example than by just instruction.
The tendencies that I see within my own organization is the lacking of basic levels of communication. We can produce much more positive results within our organizations if we can make strides in the way we communicate. Our department does an average job at this at best. We have to learn that face to face meetings are our best source of information. The COVID-19 pandemic has certainly hampered our ability to communicate effectively, thus connecting with the leadership in the organization. In a command position, I understand that in order to be productive as a leader, I need to empower my team with cultivating solid communication. More importantly the community we serve and protect expects that from us every day.
There were so many things within this lesson that I will take away and utilize within my current position. If I had to pick one of the most striking, it would definitely be the difference between groups and teams. I never really put the thought into the significant difference between the two. Up until this lesson, I have used the terms interchangeably. A group is made up of individuals, who focus on personal objectives and perform in the moment. A team acts as a cohesive unit, that focuses on common objectives and perform for the future. Within that context, it is quite apparent we would all rather be a leader to a team versus a group. If I conduct a real in-depth look at my current shift, I would say we fall somewhere between a group and a team. The lesson provided me many ways and ideas of how I can best take my current group, and work towards making them a successful team. My organization has a strong vision statement, and they need successful teams within the organization to carry out the vision.
After reviewing this module, I agree that we should all began to transfer power. Some of the things that I could do as a leader is to ensure my Sergeant and Senior Agents have a seat at the table and their opinions, plans, and ideas are considered instead of me being the only one who comes up with the plan. I also liked when the instructor advised that when faced with a problem, he ensured his employees also came to him with two solutions. This ensures that the employee gets a say so and more than likely one of the two solutions solved the original problem.
Before this module I would never have considered the difference between training and developing. I can definitely see why this module follows Start with Why. They both stress communication, but more than that they explain what and how to communicate to inspire. After seeing this module it caused me to think about the opportunities I have missed as a leader to develop my team. I have always ensured my team gets the training they need to do their jobs. I haven’t spent enough time developing my team members. I am not sure where I will start my plan to rectify this but I do know I will have to write it down. This continues to be a great program that I will encourage as many of my peers and team members to attend as possible.
Therwanger. (2017). Leadership connection. Module 3, Weeks 3 & 4. National Command and Staff College.
Ronald,
I too took a lot from the chart explaining the differences between training and developing. This is something i had never seen laid out or explained this was. The developing side helps to clearly show the vision moving forward.
Agreed. This chart helped me see where I need to improve in my thinking and vision if I am to make a true and positive impact upon my team members.
As a training and academy instructor, I look at my job as training people. In truth, my true goal l is to develop them. Especially in the basic academy. I am developing officers and planting leadership seeds. We select cadets who we see leadership potential and put them in leadership positions in the class. We then give them authority over certain things and give them specific authority. As they prove themselves we expand their authority. It is nice to get affirmation on the process we use to develop leadership in our entry-level officers.
Having just recently completed the "Start with Why" lecture; a comment Erik made that stuck with me was "train on the how to, develop on the why to". When developing leaders focus on the org purpose, it's future; which is transformational. Often times, we have a tendency to focus on the processes and outputs (training) rather than ours and the department's vision.
The importance of Leading is that we should always be looking and prepping those that have the inspiration to become leaders. We need them to follow in our footsteps once we move on. If you have the ability to lead and inspire others to lead then your agency will always have a great team of leaders.
I agree, we should always be willing to train our replacement. For the longest we always heard the phrase "I'll won't teach you everything I know." That was the old way of thinking. It was solely due to the fact; that individuals were intimidated or feared someone would take their place / position. That was the "good ole boy" days. If we train our replacement and pass on the knowledge, it'll make our job easier.
Totally agree, Kevin. All too often people fear that if they teach other leaders what they know, they will be replaced, etc. We must find and develop the next generation to carry on our legacy just as the leadership in the USMC stated.
This module had a lot of great information. I learned a lot, and several of the topics covered in this lesson were my favorites. I think that having a plan and empowerment were my top two favorites. I think that as leaders we need to empower our people to be better, do better, and work as a team better. Communication is a key factor when you talk about developing a plan and also empowering your team. In my department I have some of my team members that always ask me what can they do, or how can they help as well as having some team members that never ask me what can they do to help. Going through this lesson has inspired me to communicate more with those that do not ask me for help, or ask how could they help and to develop a plan to inspire them to be better team members. I think by empowering my team we will work better together, become more efficient, and I can build better leaders. I have a plan, and with a great team I feel that any plan a great leader has will be successful.
One of the biggest takeaways form this lesson was having a plan. I have been a member of two different special operations teams at two different agencies and the common thing between them is having a plan. Absolutely nothing is done without a plan. From the training to the mission planning, to the execution of the mission. We always have a plan. With this in mind I can also think back to my time in construction and realize just as was stated, everything was built from a set of plans. I try to always be thinking about what is going on and where I am heading and have some sort of plan to accomplish what needs to be done.
I like the quote, "A strong leader can do more with a weak plan than a weak leader could ever do with a strong plan." It is always important to have a plan.. The biggest trouble we have with planning is that people don't provide input into the plan when asked and then complain when the plan is put into place. They didn't want to be responsible for coming up with the plan but don't like the plan that was created.
I had never really consider the difference between training and developing nor did I see the difference between group and team. Therwanger did a fine job of describing each. I also appreciated the concept of encouraging your people to bring two solutions with every problem to encourage forward thinking, anticipating empowerment.
Prior to hearing this lesson, I was always told that if you go talk to the Sheriff about an issue, you better also have a solution for the issue you are presenting. Now I see the reason behind it. This is going to be something I use moving forward with my team.
The big take away for me from this module was how Therwanger discussed empowerment of people. The concept of empowering people by believing in them, encourageing them, and challenging them is something I often do but didn't realize. Even back when I was a field training, I was constantly doing this with new hires. I would believe in them by telling them that they didn't have to prove they could do the job, I had to prove they couldn't. It takes pressure off them and worked well. The communication presented between developing people and training them was also impactful. A lot of police agencies send officers to training, but they never develop them.
This I can agree with. I liked the idea of empowering people by trusting and believing in them, by encouraging them. I spend a good deal of my time trying to teach my new guys that I don't expect them to do the job and be perfect but I do expect them to make a decision. I will be using the line you gave also, they don't have to prove they can do the job I have to prove they cant. This is a unique way of taking the stress from them and I think by taking stress from the younger ones we can empower them.
This is what most agencies to they send people to leadership classes but they never follow up with them. Some have the ability to lead where others don't.
Accountability as a unification tool is a very interesting concept. By allowing, empowering team members to act while collaborating, the accountability required of these groups is significant and does serve as a unifier (Therwanger, 2021). Such focuses on building the team as opposed to the group. Teams are cohesive, work towards a common objective and always perform for the future. Groups are more singularly focused and less developed for prolonged responsibilities.
Accordingly, connecting leaders requires empowering folks through communication, cultivation and collaboration. This process develops individuals to take the mantle of leadership. Further, to propel these folks even further, it is necessary to have a plan in place for success, provide visionary leadership to your troops and build your team via careful cultivation. Teams born of this process will be more unified and focused on visions and goals.
References
Therwanger, E. (2021). Leadership connection, week 4. National Command and Staff College.
Kenneth,
That is a great summation of the lecture. And it brings to mind the quote of fail forward. When Erik talked about allowing for failure increases responsibility and empowerment it was very insightful to me.
I see communication as a continual issue within my agency. I was just assigned a task that is to begin next week with an end time shortly thereafter. I certainly don’t mind being under the gun, but I would have much preferred a bit more time to coordinate schedules of 13 people, from 10 different areas, both internal and external. Had there been communication over the last three weeks about this known and expected timing, it would have been very helpful. As Therwanger said, a lack of communication creates confusion and lack of direction. I’m there right now.
And I’m certainly not guiltless in my lack of communication or desire to favor e-mails. I know I need to do a better job myself and make sure I am accomplishing much more face-to-face with intention.
This module really taught me the difference between training and developing. Therwanger does a great job of describing the difference between the two and how they differ between the two. The modules were overall very lengthy but the overall message was clear. It is important to understand that you are always developing leaders through training and education.
I agree completely. There are a lot of agencies that send officers to training, but never develop them. His presentation will help me as I advance to make sure I don't do the same and get stuck in the trap of "just send them to training" that I have seen.
It's quite simple, but I liked the distinction he made between training staff and developing leaders. I had never really considered the difference before. I also liked the way he differentiated between a group and a team. The best idea I believe is in presenting two solutions to every problem; it makes people not only critic, but innovate and take responsibility for solutions to the problem.
Agreed, I had never considered the difference between training and development either. Nor did I differentiate between group or team. And the way he broke it down was quite good.
I appreciated the fact that he stated Visionary Leaders create a path for success. I think true leaders want not only success in the mission statement, but success for their people as well. Leaders should be cultivating their followers and encouraging personal and professional growth to ensure the followers are equipped to eventually become leaders themselves.
Very well written Robert. I like how you mention success in a mission statement. I tend to wonder how many people go by or could tell you what their department's mission statement is or where it's even located. The over success and vision of the department should be laid out in that statement. Leaders should be leading by what is said in that statement to ensure those they lead are following that mission.
Robert- so true. I have always labored under the assumption that we, as leaders, are training folks to take our places. I always hope I am doing an acceptable job at developing folks to succeed myself and the rest of our command staff. What has emerged as a recent difficulty is finding folks that want to assume the responsibility of leadership. As we progress as a profession, it seems more and more that those who are capable are choosing other paths. I wonder what we can do to re-engage their interests...?
Best and stay safe-
Ken
I enjoyed the information on the importance of developing or "cultivating" your staff. Development is different from training, but is equally important in staff being proficient and working towards set goals. There is no magic training that will get people to think differently. Staff need to be developed over time to grow into more confident and efficient workers. The end goal is to develop staff into future leaders and share the vision being worked towards.
I enjoyed Therwanger's section on communication and how communicating in an empowered way can begin to eliminate mistakes, increases efficiency, improve effectiveness, and collapse timeframes. I think that the core of all great leaders and organizations starts with effective communication. I also think that it is crucial to communicate with a positive message, whenever possible, which can significantly impact the overall morale of the entire agency.
I have enjoyed every lecture so far by Erick Thewanger. I`m guilty of opening the first one and going oh no 3 hours????? They are filled with real problems and solutions that can be used in any facet of business. I enjoyed when he spoke about the implementation of 1 issue, bring back 2 solutions. Great way to spark your team to think.
I agree that seeing 3 hours of lecture is not thrilling. Sometimes his approach can be a bit monotonous, but overall the information he provides is very effective and poignant.
I agree! I really liked the idea of having staff think of 2 solutions before presenting a problem. All to often I get asked "what should I do?". It would be nice to see "This is what I think I should do, what do you think?".
I liked how it was stressed the difference between a group and a team. I think all to often in our profession we are acting as a group claiming that we are a team. This might seem beneficial in the short term, but it is a detriment to long term success. We need to work on transitioning over to being a team. We need to do this by thinking and doing everything we can to empower, motivate and grow everyone on our team. Egos and personal gain need to be set aside. If we do that the benefits of being part of a team will assist us in our personal goals.
Steve,
I agree this was an insightful comparison. I had to stop and think about teams and groups I've participated in before, and can't help but agree. Every group project at school I or my kids worked on certainly seemed to be far more individual than group and each person acted in that moment for their own grade, focusing on one problem: get through the group project! We don't have SWAT Groups, or Warrant Service Groups, or Perimeter Groups, or Traffic Groups - they are all teams seeking common solutions.
Steve, I agree. I was thinking the same thing. I always said that my shift was a team. After seeing this module, I began looking back and realized we called ourselves a team but we were definitely a group. Becoming a team will make all of us stronger in the end.
During this module, the instructor said to think of someone that you believe was a great leader. Reference was made to Churchill, Dr. King, and all the "usual" historical figures society considers to be great leaders. I would like to take this opportunity to mention someone that I believe was the greatest leader that ever lived, Jesus Christ! I find it saddening that I can not think of an instance where Jesus was referenced along with other great leaders.....
Paul,
A phenomenal leader indeed! Most of the leadership books I've studied are on Jesus' leadership styles and his relationships with those around him.
I appreciated Part 10 in the Leadership Connection on having a plan. All of us have a plan in our mind and many of us have one in written form. This presentation presented information which made me “think outside of the box” in making a plan. When we look at where we are going, we need to “stretch the vison.” It pains me that the “problems of the day” have caused me to distance myself from the many goals I originally penned long ago. I intend to rewrite “my” plan and make it “our” plan. It will be in written form and be made available for all staff members.
I like the recommendation of putting one's plan in writing. I know I'm guilty of formulating goals or a vision mentally and often times it's more of an abstract idea than it is a definitive objective or clear cut goal. I think writing it down would help me be more specific and stay on track.
I agree with you writing the plan down and who is assigned what task with the agreed upon timeline. Even posting it on a calendar with anticipated benchmarks or checkpoints to meet, to ensure everyone knows this is real and they can focus more on the task. I have already begun "course correcting" myself so I can do a better job of leading by example
I agree Thomas. At times we become so busy and we move so fast that we forget about our plan. We skip right over it and keep moving without looking back. After going through the module, I realized a lot how important having a plan really is.
I enjoyed the learning lesson, which discussed knowing yourself and seek self-improvement. It's a simple concept, and it's what we expect our employees to do through self-evaluations and constructive criticism from peers and supervisors. If this is how we expect our staff to continue growing and developing as leaders, we need to constantly do the same. I also enjoyed the piece, which discussed every time we communicate, we communicate both our strengths and weaknesses. It goes hand in hand with the idea of seeking self-improvement to utilize your strengths to convey a message but also work to improve your weaknesses.
Good leaders make great leaders! As leaders, we should constantly be building and molding our subordinates to be better that we are. I want those under my command to succeed and be great. Leaders push their team members to always strive for better. Making the leadership connection with employees can build that working relationship. Believe, Encourage and Challenge (BEC) lays a framework for the leader to make their team succeed. The agency i am employed is very young both in age and job experience. I feel I have a duty and responsibility to mold those young employees to be exceptional employees.
I particularly found the section of this lecture discussing the importance of training our younger employees to be the next leaders insightful. We currently are in a transitional period where the top handful of positions within our department are looking at retiring in the next 5-6 years. Luckily the discuss of who the next leaders will be has already begun and the development of the future leaders started. I believe this relates directly with the topics of the module and is further reinforced by it.
The topic of “Cultivation” presented by Therwanger was refreshing as an instructor and as a front line supervisor. Therwanger discussed how we train people to know more, but we cultivate them to grow more. As an instructor in various topics, we try to educate others to learn about the topic of instruction, but to really enhance the experience we need to connect with them in a way to develop the skills and allow others to develop. Too often we go through the motions just to “mark the check box” of training and fall into the “training trap.” To truly cultivate others, we need to find a way to prepare, develop, and improve methods to create teamwork and effectiveness. Sometimes this requires to think outside of the box and set high standards, improving communication and camaraderie.
Failing to plan has always been said to be a sure-fire way to fail. Mentioning the plan should be visible was a good point, writing the plan down in a book or journal is good for you, writing it down somewhere for all to see is making the plan real and assigning the responsibility to accomplish the goals. The visionary leader has a desire to improve the future of the people by inspiring them to become inspirational leaders for the business or entity they serve. Mr. Therwanger echoed the words I hear all the time when change is happening within the department when he listed the dialog of non-empowered people, it's not my fault, I do what I have to do, or we can't do that because. Creating people who want to help is as important to the department as the actual job is. In today's environment, police officers are going to have to look ahead and identify the challenges and changes coming just to do the job. Collaborating on future best practices by combining the things that work with the way society sees us is going to take vision and maybe a team member or two from outside the agency from the community.
To be visionary in law enforcement today means we are going to have to be emotionally intelligent, well informed, and understand what is going to be expected of us in the future. I hope it is not glow wands and teleprompters.
A big takeaway from the many components of the lesson is the importance of a plan. Leadership voices the desire to create change which on its face seemed like a plan, but there was nothing developed from the concepts or vague goals. Additionally, the wrong person is selected to manage the plan. The individual is often not most appropriate as they do not know to implement the plan to create the high payoff visual but must do not buy-in to the goals and plan. Individuals chosen based on a position may not have the appropriate amount of courage to step, become engaged, take risks amongst their peers in a competitive environment, and are poor time managers. Leaders learn best from failure
There were so many things in this module its difficult to discuss one thing specifically. However, this module we again heard about focusing on people. We heard again about empowering, developing, and encouraging people. Some common themes that serve a valuable purpose in creating success. We must create the culture where we develop everyone to be a leader. Find the why or in this module Therwanger references it as the "who". Some common thought processes and understanding the vision for building something that is set apart from the ordinary.
Throughout this whole segment I personally found that part 12 becoming a visionary leader was one of the most inspiring parts. Recently being promoted into supervising the frontline leadership and having meetings to where we are making slight adjustments to the long time standing operating procedures is just not even scratching the surface of what I would like to accomplish with our agencies leadership. By providing the frontline leaders with a visionary statement, that will include each of their own visions will help us shine the light on the dark times that our agency finds itself in right now.
I agree with you Tony. Part 12 was filled with awesome ideas on being a visionary leader. We should not only have a vision, but share our vison. We can take that vision and “stretch” it into the future. I hate to hear that your agency is going through a tough time period. But like Erik said we must foster a lifestyle of leadership for future thinking. In time you and your department will get past whatever you are facing and be in a much better position.
I'm a huge fan of the concept of developing leaders starting day one. It creates a culture where leadership is expected and passed on to the next generation. Once leadership is a culture, the agency will spend time and resources on leadership. It's the snowball effect.
Jed,
I totally agree with what you brought forward. Just to add that developing leaders from day one will help the newer staff with responsibility and ownership within the agency.
I agree. There are some leaders today that are scared to pass on information on what they do in fear of someone taking their job. But we have to train the people under us to take our jobs. They will be the leaders after we are gone/ retired. And if your doing your job right, the fear of someone taking it should not be there.
Communication, cultivation, collaboration, have a plan, build leaders, become a visionary leader. All topics that were discussed in this section. In order to have a truly great leader all of these components must be present.
I've enjoyed Therwanger's videos, although I don't recall him giving a Oorah during any of the videos. I didn't think that was possible for Marines. All jokes aside, The instruction hits home. The need and importance of communication at all levels, cultivating people and new leaders, the Team versus a group, making a plan, having a plan, and exceeding the plan were all insightful. I particularly liked the section on why every member is a leader and what steps you can take to help develop that. Comparing the "training" versus "development" concepts makes sense too. I also liked his comment about being a great guy can only take you so far.
Nathan, I agree with the training versus development as interesting and important. I am sure if we go through the training records of the people from our departments we will locate many certificates of completion of courses provided by the departments where there was no follow up or utilization of the content. How many train-the-trainer courses do people attend that are never utilized? From this lesson, we can see training is not necessarily development.
Ronald,
I agree and chuckled while reading your response. I think the solution is twofold, though. We need to select people for training roles that exceed the standard not meet them and will send a good message to our staff. Too often, we choose people out of convenience and they ultimately let us down because they don't push forward. When we develop people to be leaders/trainers in our agencies, we need to set expectations. I know my department has been guilty in the past of sending someone to training, thinking it will be valuable to our agency but never set an expectation of how to move forward after the training was complete. It falls in line with developing leaders to train, not just send someone to training without leadership skills.
Watching these videos makes me feel like I am back in Boot Camp will the plethora of Boot Camp references. Therwanger does an excellent job in explaining the importance of developing leaders. From day one, when someone comes into our agency, we need to be cultivating that person as a leader. By providing clear vison and attainable goals our personnel can be great. If we fall into the trap of negativity and exude minimal enthusiasm our people will fail. Therwanger is correct in saying organizations do not fail, leaders fail.
I found his way of relating the information was easy to understand as well. We always tell every officer and deputy they are a leader, so why not start developing them from day one.
So, Shawn, the Marines battle cry is Oorah, the Army's is Hooah, the Navy and Costies use Hooyah...any idea what the Air Force cries?
The part that focused on communication in this lesson really stuck out to me. Currently, there is an individual within our agency that often sends passive aggressive e-mails to several different people. Instead of those e-mails being effective, they usually just frustrate people and make them feel like they can’t do anything right. A lot of times, those e-mails will be send while this person is in the office. Instead of having that face to face communication with people, this person will send an e-mail instead. I would agree that face to face communication is the most effective. Most people react in a negative way to those e-mails and are no longer proactive. Those types of individuals are in most organizations, but they need to be made aware of how much negativity it brings to the organization when they do those types of things. If people are going to dread receiving those e-mails, it wears on them. I have heard many people make comments about looking for a new job because of it.
Everyone is a leader at different times, formal and informal. When people who don't hold a title of a leader and still rise up to lead, that is a cool thing to see. We need to cultivate people to grow and know more through training and development.
One of the things I took away from this module was the AEIOU of leadership and how when we create "teamwork" it becomes a tool for high-performing team members and people/teams to work more efficiently. Knowledge alone doesn't create action, therefore we have to be cognizant not to fall into the "check the box" of a training regiment. We have to learn and use the action to enhance our knowledge and empower those around us. Avoid the training trap it was said. I take that to mean we need to always learn, apply and find ways to hand over decision making and leadership to others. Gaining buy-in is much more apt to happen in this type of environment than by just "do as I say."
I have to disagree with everyone is a leader at different times. I have been with individuals who just can't step up when they need too. There are true followers. It is important to identify the followers and make them a part of a team.
I agree with you, Nicole. Some people have it and some don't - which is fine. The important thing is to identify those who are leaders and help develop them as much as possible to maximize the efficiency.
This module really brought the first six segments together with the final six. I also found myself thinking back to "Start with Why". I appreciated the empowerment techniques and the inspiration suggestions. This module was fascinating and enlightening
Brad,
I agree. I enjoyed this module as well. So far, I have enjoyed all of the lectures Therwanger has given. Even though it was another three hours, I was very interested and the time seemed to fly by.
Exhaustingly long module but well worth it. The leadership connection is really the foundation for building leaders and turning those who show potential in your agency to become the next visionary leaders. This transfer of power though just doesn't happen over night. As leaders we need to early on, "share the podium" with others to empower them and promote positive growth. Also with empowering we are creating "buy-in" from the employees which will lead to new opportunities and them wanting to work harder towards a common goal. I personally liked and will start to implement Therwanger's theory on the elements of dynamic communication (B.E.C.) Believe, Encourage and Challenge. After thinking about it this really boils down to the roots of empowering and something that is so very simple to do.
I like your statement about challenging people. That is the growth that will help breed strong and successful teams in the long run. If we're always there telling them what or how to do something, will they truly learn or do they just become robots at that point?
Share the podium, spot on.
Erik Therwanger does a great job of connecting everything in his modules. I felt his vision for developing leadership gave enough guidance to supervisors on how to implement important strategies for their department but also allowed space for supervisor's to critically think and adapt the philosophy to their department. I was intrigued by the section on How to "Build Leaders." Therwanger talks about leaders feeling like they are in this process of developing leaders sometimes by themselves, but it really should be a department wide philosophy. I also liked the idea of identifying potential leaders. We struggled for a long time at our department with choosing leaders simply by those who had been here the longest. While experience is important seniority is not the way to create a thriving leadership team. With the current promotional process in place our leadership has the ability to plant seeds in those we see as future leaders. Our department needs to do a better job of transferring leadership authority. I think for most of us as supervisors it comes with the fear of worrying something will not get done right. I think a lot of the time that fear is misplaced.
I agree that this module tied things together well. We must create a culture where everyone thinks like a leader. If an agency can create that within it would help ease the fears of supervisors to transfer authority down so to speak. Great points.
This was a great module, lots of stuff to process. I liked the breakdown of communication and how it reflects our strengths/weaknesses and how it impacts those that receive our "message". I may not be the best communicator but I have seen what really bad communication can do to people's morale. I found the area on groups vs. teams interesting. I have definitely been a part of both and it seems so simply to define each. Transitioning from a group to a team is tough and takes a lot of work. I love the idea of investing more time and effort into developing my people. The problem is always time.
Time, yep. Communication, yep.
It's hard, admittedly, to remember the small things when we go about our day as leaders. People like to feel plugged into what's happening around them. The unknown creates anxiety and people start filling in the gaps on their own, often to the detriment of the organization. If we operate under the rule of thumb, "don't forget where you came from," maybe we'll be more conscious of good communication. Share with the people what can be shared and never assume they wouldn't want/need to know. We may be surprised how far this will go.
I would certainly agree that bad communication will impact morale. In my organization, we currently have one individual that is notorious for poor communication and passive aggressive e-mails. A lot of people dread coming to work because of it, and the level of morale has decreased drastically over time. Sometimes this individual is in a better "mood" and it will be better for awhile, but it eventually goes back to being negative. In a leadership role, you have to be able to keep your bad moods in check and make sure that doesn't impact communication and the rest of the people that you lead.
We too have a similar situation within our department. One individual tends to hide behind his emails thus leading to mixed messages and poor communication of his thoughts and instructions to the stakeholders. This leads to some people shaking their heads and creates a lack of confidence.
This was a very interesting module. Leadership is definitely a self reflection of us in the leadership role. It makes you truly stop and do self reflection, self regulation, and self perception. We as leaders need to start taking time to do one on one meetings with our people and discuss their concerns and struggles so we can come to a solution. Just keep encouraging your people to improve.
I like the idea of having those one on one meetings. I've tried to implement, schedule times and follow through. I've even tried to have my staff keep me accountable. I just get so busy. Perhaps I'm not as productive as I hoped I was. It is a great idea and maybe I just need to create a plan to execute it.
We all get wrapped up in the day-to-day routine. I have tried to make appointments. I have returned to the office after hours to meet with those individuals I don't see on a regular basis. There isn't enough time in the day. What I do though is get out and try to make the most out of every moment I can. Even if it is 5 minutes. It is easy to get buried under the workload.
I would agree 100%. Conveying your message over an email or phone call can only go so far. At our department, we recently just had one-on-one meetings with upper management to discuss topics and to speak openly about topics. This was refreshing to be able to openly discuss concepts and problems, and to have feedback with management. As leaders, this builds trust and opens lines of communication from those that look to you for advice.
Empowering your people stuck out to me. Giving them authority, and decision making with things we delegate creates "buy in". Creating your "team" of of a group of individuals through this process.
Agreed will.
Plus, getting your people to make decisions and take ownership, will help prepare them to operate correctly and decisively in your absence.
A main takeaway for me from this lecture is the idea that everyone is a leader, and a primary responsibility of us as leaders is to develop the next generation of leaders. In the past, it seemed that developing leadership skills was something that was done after a person was promoted, and then it was something that was the responsibility of the new leader, not administration. I like the idea of instilling leadership skills in all employees from the start of their careers. Not only does this give them the skills necessary to promote if they choose that path, but it also makes them better independent thinkers with the ability to see big picture. The skills that make a good leader are the same skills that make for a better employee in general. I think this is a positive move in the right direction that focuses on legacy and what we as leaders are leaving behind for our agency to continue to be successful after we are gone.
Couldn't agree more. The promote and then train/develop to lead is setting that person and the organization up for failure. Developing leaders from day one creates ownership in the organization at the lowest level stimulating new ideas and positive growth.
2 concepts that I enjoyed the most were "know yourself and seek self improvement" and "every time we communicate we communicate both our strengths and weaknesses".
Brilliant, who among us should not be working on self improvement? As future leaders of our organizations I believe we owe it to ourselves and our organizations to continually improve. But improvement not just as leaders but as human beings. We need to listen more often, continue to find ways to motivate and empower our staff and always have high moral character. Communicating effectively is challenging and understanding our strengths and weaknesses is important if we are going to get it right.
This lesson pointed out multiple good leadership approaches in developing staff and self inventory on how you are currently leading. The understanding of a group vs team mentality makes complete sense and makes me want to strive more to get a team. As stated, we don't just train our team, we need to develop our team. Training is an empowering leadership tool.
This was a great unit. There was so much information to take it in that it could take months to break it all down. I like the thought of for every issue bring two solutions. It is so easy to complain about things but difficult to address how to do it better. Another eye opener was the suggestion of people only being productive 20 percent of the day. If we eliminated the busy work productivity would certainly improve.
I was having my guys have two solution prior to calling, but I think two is a much better idea.
I again enjoyed Therwanger's module and insight into what into takes to be a leader. I especially took to heart about creating a climate where people are empowered. We as leaders need to foster a climate where people say and do what they need to say and do. We need that open climate in order to help our organizations move forward. It's interesting how people will talk poorly about leadership in organizations and then, when given the opportunity in an open forum to speak their minds they fail to and say nothing. Then, go right back to speaking about how terrible leadership in their own circles. It's frustrating but it's not necessarily on them. We as leaders need to be open and ready for feedback to make ourselves and our organizations better.
I completely agree. I feel there will always be those people that complain, but the fact is that we as a culture have not made the environment healthy enough for those with feedback to express it. I do agree with the philosophy that when you find a problem with an employee many times that problem was started by a supervisor somewhere during their career.
This was a long module but Therwanger does a good job keeping it interesting. I enjoyed listening to him describe his opinion on the difference between training and developing, there is a huge difference. When he talked about training becoming a checkbox it made me chuckle. Things that we do so frequently unfortunately do become a checkbox far too often. We need to make sure to keep our people engaged. I know I have joined in on the grumbling of the same old training we are required to have every year. This was yet another great reminder of improvements I need to make to be a better leader.
To some extent, some of the training we do will always be done in order so satisfy requirements and "check the box." But, we need to create an environment where people are empowered to make even those mandatory trainings interesting. By empowering Officers to be leaders, they will start to look at even the mandatory trainings as ways to learn new things and build upon their leadership.
I completely agree that all too often training in law enforcement is just "checking the box" to get your credits for the course. I see people much more engaged when the mandatory training changes from year to year and actually challenges you and forces you to use critical thinking.
I enjoyed how this module stressed the importance of clear communication. From the very beginning he talks about how the team solves problems and how each individual word is used. Working with new officers I can relate to wanting to empower them, specifically when they have a challenge that they have a question about and having them develop 2 possible solutions. So many times, I’ve spoken with officers whom have approached me with a problem, they talk about the potential solutions that they have come up with and without me even adding anything they come to a logical conclusion on their own. I enjoy watching them develop, grow, and feel empowered. I feel that this module really applies to my current position and leading newer officers.
Once again, Therwanger packed his lesson with loads of good advice. My favorite was the discussion on “slowing down to speed up”. We get so caught up in keeping our head above the water that we forget to swim. Controlling time takes planning and the ability to pivot and redirect when challenges pop up. We should never be too busy to stop and reassess a situation that feels like it is snowballing out of control. Even when things are going as planned, I always take a moment to check in with my staff to see how things are from their perspective. I often find out information that can help us improve the final outcome. I also learned that giving instruction once is not enough. I was surprised to learn that it takes most people an average of 7 times to truly understand the message. This explains why I sometimes feel like I have to repeat myself. For the most part, everyone wants to do a good job, and no one wants to fail, which means I have to be more patient and understanding if things are not progressing as fast as I would like them to be. After all, I am responsible for the success of my team and I need to ensure my communications are clear and that my team has the tools and knowledge to get the job done.
In this module several concepts stuck out to me, Of most importance was the concept of crystal clear communication and when faced with having to have crystal clear communication the pausing beforehand to make sure we focus on three areas, believe, encourage and challenge. Have I discussed how much I believe in the person, have I encouraged them to think of new ways they could do something and have I challenged them to move beyond the obstacles they are facing.
Therwanger (2017) stated, “Organizations do not fail, leaders fail.” I resonated with this statement as we have focused a lot of discussions on how people want to be a part of something great. With that in mind, people want to be a part of a team they can have pride in, a team they trust, and a team that is doing great things. To have a team that is able to do all of these things, there needs to be a great leader to help provide the team’s vision and develop everyone as leaders. I do believe the more we continue to develop our individual team members, the greater the rewards will be as a whole. It will ultimately increase moral within the department, which will create a better working environment.
I too really identified with this message, and I think it ties in with everything else we’re been learning about up to this point. Organizations are made up of people and people need strong leadership to reach their full potential. We all need coaches and cheerleaders to get us through the tough times too. When we elevate others we can make a positive impact on our organizations and ourselves.
This was a great module. One of the things that stuck out for me in this module is leadership principle number 2: “Know yourself and seek self-improvement”. At face value, this seems like it would be easy enough. However, if you really seek self-improvement, you will have a culture in place that has open dialogue for honest feedback. By having this trust in place, tactful critiques can be given with the goal of self-improvement.
I could not agree more. I think there is a lot of value, as well as vulnerability when it comes time for employee evails to ask them to do one on us. This allows them the opportunity to feel heard, but may also allow us the opportunity to see ourselves in a way we did not realize others were perceiving us as.
Good point Chad, I like the “tactful critiques” point. As police officers we have to be open to constructive criticism, as leaders we have to almost embrace it I think. Leaders serve those who choose to follow them and we should focus on continuous improvement so we can better serve our officers. Sure, it can be difficult to receive this criticism at times but we have to be mature enough to understand that this criticism can make us better leaders.
This was another module packed with great information. I thought there were some great takeaways from part 9 on collaboration. I thought it was very interesting that team members that utilized collaboration had a 20% in crease in performance. It was also interesting that Teams that utilized collaboration had a 31% in crease in performance and 300% increase in creativity. Another great takeaway from part 10 on have a plan, was the statement that a plan is the visual empowerment tool. A written plan is a visual representation of our goals with a detailed accounting of the steps to accomplish the goals. That goes along with the importance of sharing the plan. The plan does no good if it is shared.
One of the biggest take aways from this lecture was Therwanger's reference to empowering people as a leadership connection. In my agency we lack this. Out of all the steps in leadership connection, I give empowering people priority to help their development as leaders. Although the other steps are equally important, if we as leaders empower our people, we cultivate a team atmosphere. This will help our teams learn better communication skills. In law enforcement proper communication or lack of thereof is a big problem. The information is not shared completely and sometimes is not timely. This hinders effective collaboration, therefore limiting innovation from our personnel.
I have learned that when people are empowered they have better ideas. As a result, better results are achieved because they feel part of something, therefore increasing responsibilities. When people are empowered they are involved. Especially outside of their regular daily duties and responsibilities. I will work on using this concept more often to provide people with more opportunities. I am positive my personnel will have a better engagement and will collaborate to improve the department. In conclusion, empowering people is the key to help them learn about their strengths and weaknesses. This will allow them to work on them and become better leaders.
I really enjoyed the lessons Therwinger has presented. One of the big takeaways from this module was creating a plan, and the benefits of doing so. I learned the value of writing things down from a probationer several years ago. the probationer would make a list of reports/things to do, although I didn't realize it at the time, just having the list, that they could see, relieved stress associated with the tasks, taking away the guess work about what needed to be done and making the tasks more attainable. I have since used this to assist in my own ability to accomplish tasks/goals. Having a plan and sticking with the plan, thinking about it like a "blueprint" as Therwinger stated, is a key component to staying on track and the success of a leader.
Good morning Kyle. Creating a plan has also helped me tremendously. When l first promoted to Sergeant, it came in handy to keep me on track with my daily duties, goals and accomplishments. That is a living document that changes constantly. I try to stick to the plan to exceed my possibilities. I have also shared this with my peers and some have found it very useful. This plan helps me to stay productive. This plan allows me to have a visual goal to my daily purpose for my goals. The plan also helps alleviate stress and reminds me to meet my timelines.
There were some big takeaways from this presentation. I think that sometimes empowerment is underestimated by leaders. I never looked at it as a possible way to eliminate mistakes and that it allows for improved communication. I thought Therwangers comment about how every time we communicate, we communicate our strengths and weaknesses, was a very powerful statement. Sometimes we get so wrapped up in how we are going to get a message out that we forget what the message is and either put in to much content or not enough information. More important, we do not put information out at all or its to late and the rumor mill has filled in the blanks. I agree with Therwanger that face to face communication is an art that most people avoid. The presence of COVID has only added to the problem as everyone tries to communicate in every other medium to avoid face to face contact. In this instance, the message is heard but is it really understood? I frequently go back and ask a shift about an email that may have been sent. 9 times out of 10 everyone will have a different take on the message based on their own perceptions and experience. It is key for leaders to assess the message afterwards to eliminate those questions, especially if you are the one who sent out the message. I really enjoyed the last 3 sections of the presentation: Have a plan, Build Leaders and Become a Visionary Leader ( leadership sight zero LSZ) These are things we think we do, but we are not doing or could do better. Therwanger's comment, "leaders who fail to plan, plan to fail" really hit home. My Chief has another saying.. Hope is not a plan. Building leaders is key to a leaders success. We forget about the difference between training and development and assume that just because we sent someone to training that we are developing them. Yes, that might be a good start but a aspiring leader needs coaching, mentoring and the opportunity to take the car out for a ride every now and then. last is vision development. Leaders are sometimes good about describing where they want to go but do a poor job of developing a plan to get there. My department has a vison statement. We talked about it when we developed the vision statement in 2016, but since then we rarely reference it in our communications. In failing to communicate and tie in our vision statement to the things we do and the messages we send, we hinder our own success.
Again, this module was packed with information and I observed a mathematical equation; EQ (self-reflection, self-regulation and self-perception) + feedback (honestly given in a safe environment) = visionary passion (strategic mental awareness). One of the primary principles we learned earlier was seeking continuous improvement, and we can only do that by relying on others. We need to create a safe environment through effective communication and cultivating and empowering others. We also need to allow for acceptable failure so others will trust in the enhanced perception that in failing, we learn. We cannot always succeed, but we must carry on and provide honest, tactful feedback so others can learn and we can learn from others’ feedback. When we do these two things, we can become visionary leaders. We can show others our plans for the future while developing those that willingly take responsibility for that vision.
There was a lot of great information to digest in this module. Empowering people can have such a profound effect on them, it's a wonder why organizations don't do this more. I was fortunate to have had some great leaders in my career that empowered me and provided me with opportunity. I've also seen at my current agency the positive effects empowerment has had. I try to instill teamwork on my crew by incorporating collaboration in some of the things that we do. In part 10 when Therwinger talked about having a plan, that was new information to me. It really instilled on me the importance of having one. When I started as a supervisor, I had a list of expectations and have made sure to keep my crew accountable to those expectations but now I need to look more into creating a plan. From this lesson I will begin to create a plan and use what I have learned in this module for the betterment of my department.
This was an inspirational and informative module as I advance in my career and further my development into a possible leadership position within our office. Therwanger discussed empowering others by allowing them to get involved with other areas outside their job duties. I was provided with the opportunity to be one of the firearms instructors and mobile field force team leaders within our office, which has provided me the opportunity to teach others. Getting involved in training opportunities has given me the chance to get to know myself and seek self-improvement in areas that I wasn’t involved in prior to taking on these positions. Therwanger described the mission statement as, “who we currently are and who we’re going to become in the future.” Due to my involvement, my leadership development has transpired my ambitions and has allowed me to take on new challenges in order to gain confidence towards my ultimate goal. That goal is not a job title or a person of entitlement, but as an individual to share vision and impact others with the same attainable goals. “The great leaders are bold enough to be the people who they are, not the people who they think they ought to be.”
A lot of good information in the module. The discussion of Group vs. Team early on was good to set the tone, which for me is again enforcing the "buy in" that I feel is so important to true leadership. I loved the quote of "One bad action can undermine 1,000 great words"- so, so true. Just enforces the importance and lasting effects of leading by example and the power of action following words. One of the bigger learning points for me was the section on 3 ways to build leaders; Identify leadership potential, Create leadership activities, and Transfer leadership authority. The concept of "Sharing the podium" is so important and one that needs to be practiced more. This just builds on the last module and its' discussion of succession planning, which for me is the biggest component of an organization's success. We have to lead by example and do so 24/7- again enforcing the concept of actions following words. Lastly, I appreciate the real-world discussion on "Failing Forward". So many times I have seen ideas or plans abandoned because of failure, when they should be seen as opportunities to grow, so it was nice to see that covered as an aspect of being a visionary leader.
James hits on some key points, the importance of sharing the podium and learning from mistakes. When I was promoted to lieutenant, I took over patrol operations. I knew that I wanted to delegate authority down to the shift supervisor level. I met with supervisors, discussed my plan and delegated different tasks. This was a complete culture shock for my agency. Prior to that, supervisors followed the instructions of the Lieutenant because they were afraid of the Lt's wrath if they made a mistake. As a result, the LT planned everything. I explained to supervisors that I expected mistakes and that there would be times we would have to look back and reflect on a decision or action. If I had to do this, I always started the conversation by asking the supervisor how they think something went? What could have gone better? What other resources could they have used?. This non accusatory approach always helped the supervisor learn from their mistakes. I take every opportunity to acknowledge the work that someone does. If someone developed a plan to address something, I make it a point to acknowledge them in some fashion. Another way to do this is let them explain their plan to others. Taking credit for someone else's success or hard work is a no go, and a sure way to kill morale.
Nice application of delegation. All to often supervisors do not delegate which doesn't help subordinates grow. It also detracts from officer discretion and gets in the way of the officers "doing the right thing" vs doing what he thinks leadership will want.
You've made some great points. I agree with you that agencies need to make more of a failing forward approach when things don't go as planned. Use them as learning opportunities, not failures.
Great points James. Failing forward is a valuable technique of a visionary leader. Allowing one to fail forward builds trust and gives people an opportunity to grow. There needs to be an acceptable level of failure and for law enforcement that can be a difficult concept to embrace.
“Failing forward” will always be a difficult task for a leader as many organizations promote a risk-averse culture. In trying times, too many emerging leaders will not take the proper steps towards becoming visionary as there is no safety net for failing.
As stated, leaders hope instead of course correct. Hope is a terrible thing for a leader as the group will never be inspired to create positive change and execute duties in an environment of trust. Failing is an excellent opportunity to learn and lead. Subordinates willing to step up, and take a chance, are the ones with the potential for more remarkable service.
Erik Therwanger did a great job in this module defining and talking about empowerment. One of the statements that he made was that "every time we speak we are on the stage so we have to choose our messages carefully. He went on to talk about communication and aske how are we getting the message across? I have really noticed in our organization that many of us communicate by e-mail or text messages. Often times, those e-mails can be taking out of context because of the words we choose to use. I have had a few individuals respond to me because they thought I was upset about something simply because of the words I chose to use when I wasn't actually upset. I think communicating in person as often as we can is the best option. This way our messages will not be mistaken for a tone we didn't intend.
I also like the analogy of sharing the podium with others. As the leader of an organization often times we feel that we have to be the focus of attention and when we do that we fail to empower people. Much like Therwanger referenced, it is our job to get the next person ready for our position so we need to empower them by sharing the podium, giving them room to grow and get better.
So often things get misinterpreted and taken out of context based on the email/text style of communication. If there is something important that I need to share with someone, I make sure I take the time to speak with them in person. I've found this alleviates that issue and also it allows for a more personal touch. I agree wholeheartedly in sharing the podium with others. I love when someone else gets recognized for the great work that they did. All the credit should not go to the supervisor and they should be willing to focus the attention elsewhere.
Very informative module. The "Group versus Team" concept is something that I have often seen. The "Group," which is characterized by individuals who all have personal objectives versus a "Team," a cohesive unit with common objectives. Through the years, I have been a part of both. Teams are rare.
I also appreciated the problem-solving concept "For every issue you bring me, bring two solutions. This concept is a great way to get people to become thinkers and problem-solvers of their own.
I to like the second point you made and I often try to use it. Your point of for every issue bring me to solutions. Often times staff in organization like to complain about a number of issues but when you ask them well how do we fix it, they fail to provide a solution. I have used this same philosophy several times, and when they have to come up with a solution it helps them grow and think the situation through. The other ideas similar to this that I have often used is asking them "if you were in my shoes/position what would you do"?
I agree with the problem-solving concept. This provides opportunity for others to get involved and to feel appreciated as being part of the team. I have observed that this mentality is utilized within our department, which provides others to make decisions and seek opportunity to be a leader. Therwanger discussed, "Failing forward." As long as there are acceptable levels of failure, it provides opportunity to grow and build trust in one another to develop, which encourages people to improve.
Leadership Connection
In the many years I have been in Corrections, I have established several supervisors that I was under the direction of were actually developing me to lead. Under our Sheriff, I have had the opportunity to attend training on many occasions.
When I returned to this agency, several of my peers informed me of a new program attached to our training and it is mandatory if you are interested in promotional opportunities. I recognize that my leadership has transformed due to this program. There is still work to be done. This next generation of leaders will be prepared to lead.
It is great to see other organizations taking a proactive approach to leadership training. Our agency doesn't just provide a single platform either, which has been great for everyone in the office. However, for the more "higher level" or involved training, I think our senior staff have been purposefully selective which takes into account Erik Therwanger's variable of "earning your spot" at the table. Leadership principles are great for everyone to learn, of course, but we have several in our agency that are not in leadership roles, yet are more effective leaders than some in formal leadership roles.
This module and the book, “The Leadership Connection“, has guided me in becoming the leader I am today and how I envision the rest of my career. One of the biggest goals I have set for myself is becoming a leader that builds everyone up into a leader. Everyone can be replaced at their jobs and everyone has the potential to retire from their profession. The difference is as a leader you must first create leaders and guide them into taking over your role. They all have potential, a leader must harness it.
Agreed, even as a supervisor, I still see myself talking with my subordinates to becoming leaders. How to lead and take pride.
I agree. I would often say, "My job is to train you to take my position one day." Sadly, some insecure leaders will intentionally deny subordinates opportunities for growth because they view the subordinate leader as a threat to their position. This practice is shameful and stands only to prevent the subordinate leader from reaching their full potential.
I very much agree with you on this. Even though I have many years left to go, I have a much clearer picture now of how important it is to guide the next generation to take over and improve on what I have done. As much as it probably pains us all to admit, our time will come when we have to "hang it up", but we should take comfort in knowing that if we do it right, when that day comes their goal will be to continue and improve on what we left them. Our job is not just the work we do, but also to inspire higher goals and greater results.
I have taken more leadership courses over the last couple of years. Most of them have had a similar tone that you touched on - everyone has potential, the leader needs to recognize it and help them make use of that potential. I like to think I still have many years left in my career but I am no longer the "youngster" in the group. I really liked how this module talked about becoming a visionary leader and building others.
This module was interesting as it talked about self-reflection. I liked the phrase "Ductux Exemplo Lead by Example." A lot of leaders are do what I say. not what I do. Think for a moment how much better off law enforcement would be today if our leaders really did lead by example.
Throughout these modules, Erik lays out astonishingly simple ideas on leadership then breaks them down to see just how complex it is to be a "leader." Many times, promoted persons think it is only about the chevrons or bars they now get to pin on their shoulders. When the time comes for them to lead, they have no original ideas to bring to the table. Often instead, falling back on what they were shown, the same mistakes get repeated. I love, LOVE, the idea that everyone is a leader at one time or another, and by empowering your people to think that way alters not only them but your agencies as well. Buy-in is important, so we must always be ready to be informative, inclusive, and persistent if we want to leave our future to the next leaders.
Good points Lt. I think as an organization, if we treat each member of the team like a leader and develop them, it will improve morale and assist with retaining and recruiting staff.
I was so impressed with the first module of Leadership Connection in area one that I ordered the book. The two areas that hit with me was having a vision and transferring authority. I think it is incredibly important for an agency to communicate it's vision to all members of the organization through it's mission statement or vision statement. These statements whether as one statement or two should be posted in every office and roll call room. These statements should also be part of the recruiting and on-boarding procedures.
I never realized how much I was holding onto power (authority) until our agency made a dramatic change. Basically they took the day to day operation of the patrol watches out of the control of the Lieutenants and gave it to the Sergeants. The Lieutenants no longer even approved leave or payroll. I am the longest tenured Lieutenant and had been running MY watch for a pretty long time. Needless to say, I felt like a fish out of water and I kind of resented it at first. Mainly because they made it crystal clear that the Lieutenants were still ultimately responsible for everything that occurred on our watch. The agencies stated goal was to develop our Sergeants as leaders and decision makers. My job was to empower my Sergeant and it was now his job to empower the watch. After taking this module and living it, it makes perfect sense to me now.
I agree with the premise that we should gauge our people and look for potential leaders. Far too often do we not want to give up our authority and empower younger officers who may have the potential to one day lead our organizations.
This module reassures me that it's very important for me to enhance leadership abilities, leadership skills, and it will make an impact on the department. Must communicate with the department about leadership, identify the traits that are important that are expected of every leader.
I found this training module to be very informative. I firmly believe in the concept of building leaders. One of the issues I feel I need to work on is "Transferring Leadership Authority". I have a tendency to "hold on" longer than I probably should when it comes to training our supervisors. Even when they have demonstrated the ability to handle problems on their own, I still feel like I should get involved. But not in a negative way, I'm just used to doing it so much that I sometimes forget that I need to let them do it on their own.
Mark, I know exactly what you mean and I can relate. Our agency forced a transfer of power on our Lieutenants by telling us that our Sergeants are the first line supervisors responsible for the direct supervision of the watch. The Lieutenants don't even approve leave or payroll. I supervise my Sergeant he supervises the watch. It was made clear that the Lieutenants are still ultimately responsible for what they do. The stated intention was to develop leadership and decision making in the Sergeants. But was it a culture change for me and at first I honestly resented it.
I agree, I too am guilty of wanting to hand off assignments that I in turn would micromanage over. It is not fair for us to ask someone to complete something, then make them do it as we would. Letting people come to the desired end result through their own means should be more important. This module does a very good job of laying that process out for leaders.
I understand your perspective completely. I typically reflect on my leadership challenges and find that so many of them mirror challenges I have had as a parent. When it comes to transferring leadership authority with my staff I have gotten much better over the years. I have come to appreciate their ability to complete a task at a high level of success more than if I had done it myself. Much like watching your children learn to ride a bike by themselves or complete a difficult task that you used to do for them. A different emotion takes over, pride. It feels great to be proud of your staff and watching those whom you helped mold succeed brings a huge level of satisfaction.
Finding people that want to be leaders in the correctional division is a continues problem. The majority of the new people in the division do not want to be there, they want to be in another division. So trying to get them to buy in as a leader for a division they do not want to be in is a problem. They just want to do their time and move on.
I have thoroughly enjoyed all of the lectures by Erik. This module was a great wrap up for the Leadership Connection. I have not thought of what it takes to be a visionary leader in the past. I like how Erik presnts the fundamental aspects of being a visionary leader and the benefits that provides to a team. Sometimes the day to day operations of my role impedes my ability to be a visionary leader. This was a great reminder for me to get out of the day to day and be a beacon of hope and direction for my team.
Therwanger discussed the importance of building leaders at every opportunity. Unfortunately, many individuals under my command that do not hold the title/ positions, do not consider themselves a leader. The biggest take a way for me to find ways to empower individuals to think differently. It is important that I identify leadership potential, create leadership activities, and transfer leadership authority to build leaders.
I like how Erik Therwanger discussed the importance of having a plan. He stated “your plan as a leader is more convincing when it can be seen. For example, my supervisor has shared his vision with me when we became a team: he wanted to empower our Commanders to successfully run their own departments on their own. He discussed his plan to give them more information, training, technology, and leadership to be able to develop them; in sharing this he was also training and developing me. He gives me the opportunities to take on new responsibilities, guides me and then transfers the responsibility to me.
I now know his purpose and can help guide and direct others on his behalf because I know what direction we are going in. I am able to help bring him, and others, solutions rather than problems.
This lecture by Therwanger definitely registers with the similarity between the leadership style needed to be a successful leader. The ability empower people you work with and create future leaders makes any organization better. The 90 day plan is one that can be used in any organization. The ability to plan and and implement the "aircraft" plan mentality to have your organization "take off" and become stronger is inspiring as well. There are many theorems in this lecture that are applicable to any agency leader.
Therwanger was fantastic in connection with this presentation with his presentation in weeks 1 and 2. The building blocks make total sense and are the step by step process now lead us to empowerment. We can preach of our vision all day long and seek support, but no follow-through causes that 95% of people who care to dwindle to the 13% who hang around to put in the work. If you ignore that 13%, a potentially great idea is lost. Communication leads to cultivation that leads to collaboration—what an excellent process. Leadership to carry this process to fruition by collaborating with those who have buy-in will allow an agency’s culture and shared goals to continue to move forward.
I enjoyed this module on "Leadership Connection." The biggest takeaway from this module for me is having a plan/vision written down. I always knew what I wanted to accomplish and where I wanted my division to go, but never shared my plan. I will now have a meeting with the people in my division and discuss my ideas. Having a collaborative session, I believe, will help empower my officers along with making a better plan of how to achieve the goals I set. The meeting will also promote a forward-thinking work approach and create a better work culture.
I hope that you are successful with sharing your plan. When I first met with my team to share the vision for our department that's when I realized how disengaged they were. My team was not as excited as I was and shared little input.
A big takeaway from this module for me was the Latin term Opus Una, to work together, in collaboration. We for years as a Law Enforcement agency were spread throughout the parish for my first nine years that I worked here. Just in investigations, we were in three separate buildings, spread throughout the parish. That changed in 2010 when our new headquarters was built, moving all of enforcement under one roof. This greatly improved investigations, patrol, and crime scenes working relationships. However, we still have some individuals in a couple of divisions who have not bought into collaboration. They still have them us against them mentality and are resistant to anything else.
I agree with your last statement, and that is what keeps us in the 20th century.
This lecture provided ample amounts of leadership building techniques and ways to inspire and develop new leaders. There are times as leaders we can become complacent in the ways we manage our teams and forget to listen to the members of our teams. This module provided insight into how to keep the team involved to ensure success and cultivate future leaders.
I agree with you that as leaders, we sometimes become complacent. I think that the techniques learned in this module will help leaders from falling into the category of being complacent.
I have to say that I enjoyed both presentations from the Leadership Connection. The book and presentation do give us a blueprint for success, but it has to done slowly and deliberately to deliver results instead of broken dreams. I still believe that the most important portion, after the inspiration, is communications. In the past, I had always heard of good and bad, not poor, basic and dynamic. Too many times, we are just trying to convey information and are in too much of a rush to take the time to talk to someone. As police officers, we rely on communication skills to keep us alive, as in the body language and speech of someone that we are dealing with. The question I would ask is; do we turn that off when dealing with one another or are we not as good at reading people, as we thought?
Most interesting I have found with this lesson was the difference in training versus developing. When we take the time to training someone, we learn more as the trainer. This makes all the sense then to develop other leaders. Seems like we should be great at self improvement if we consistently reach out and training others as leaders.
As a trainer, for many years, I always learned from the student, whether a cadet or senior officer. What they had to teach me was different, but it was useful. I also think that while training and development are two different things, we can use it to assist in development.
This lecture was knowledgable on how empowering your followers can have a positive effect on an organization now and in the future. It also gave useful insights and steps for me as a leader to get the most out of my followers and get them thinking as leaders.
This lesson gave us loads of useful information that not only can be used at our varying levels of supervision, but can also be passed down to even the lowest members of our teams. I especially like the concept of empowering even the members of your team with no one to lead. We even as supervisors can still learn from those that we lead if we truly communicate, coordinate, and collaborate with them. As mentioned in this module as leaders we need to plant that leadership seed constantly with everyone we do communicate with, without leaders creating leaders we can not reach our visions or future.
I agree, the concept of empowering everyone to lead, even those with no one to lead is a powerful concept. In our agency, many of the people I started out with our leaders today, who are training and developing others. Everything you communicate has an impact on those around you and each person makes a difference.
While going through these videos, I felt there were things I will definitely implement with my circle of influence. In order to leave that lasting legacy which Therwanger spoke of it’ll behoove me to start small, slow down, look at the issues we currently face and make a plan to succeed. This plan will not only focus on the current situations, but have goals for the future. I will need to get buy-in from everyone which will help me develop the future leaders of my organization. I have always worked on the premise if I do not train the future supervisors, how will I ever move up. I would change that to say how will we ever be truly successful and stop worrying about just me.
This module has really inspired me to start the cultivation process with all leaders in our department and start leading and empowering younger officers. This will allow them to gain the knowledge and leadership abilities for promotional testing. I feel this will help us greatly with retention.
I liked how this module talked about empowering people. It's easy to get stuck with just telling the people under you to go take care of something and never build them up as leaders. The problem with that is, what do they do when the leaders are gone? They have never been built up as leaders. Also as leaders it's hard to face the fact that no one is perfect and sometimes you will fail. As long as we learn from those failures and move on, the people serving under us will understand that it happens.
This was an incredible series of instruction by probably my favorite instructor yet! So much information to take in but definitely the most applicable that I learned was concerning buy-in and empowering people. These are no less than revelations to some. When I first started my public safety career in the late '90's, buy-in and empowering people were not being discussed nor were they revered. I have learned so much since then including the need to have your share-holders buy in to what the mission and vision is for your organization. Without this, the mission and vision are not shared and team members are more acting independently than cohesively. Further, empowering people builds trust and true camraderie, true oneness. We must be the leaders that eliminate the mentality of what's mine is mine and the insecurity of building each other up for fear that it may cost us our position. We must build up, empower and trust the process of raising those below us in order to raise up the entire organization!
As leaders, we get set in our ways. Sometimes we get caught in the weeds versus looking at the 30,000-foot view. By bringing our team in to collaborate and cultivate new ideas we can find more cost-efficient solutions to problems. When we allow our ego to control our decisions, we often find out that we are hurting the organization more than we really know.
Empowering team members = increased morale + buy-in this a key factor in employee satisfaction.
I agree, when we as leaders think out the box, then the organization can grow.
I appreciated the part about realizing there will be failure sometimes. I find that to often when you set a plan and at the first failure people give up. I think it is an important thing to remind your team that there will be failures or rough patches, but we must continue on and get over those failures, course correct, and continue to the goal.
I found this really important as well. Just because we fail at something once does not mean we can't try it again. Just don't make the same mistakes.
This module had a wealth of information to think about. Empowering your people, cultivating and collaborating with you team. Another big one, allow an acceptable amount of failure. I'm a big believer in accepting a mistake, just learn and don't repeat it, the failure is the learning moment. Also Its a great feeling to being empowered and cultivated by a mentor that creates buy-in for the organizations vision.
I agree. Failure is usually your best teacher.
Having an acceptable degree of failure really rings true with me as so often we fall into the rut of disciplining officers for policy violations when they may have been trying their best. This makes it all the more important to review every "failure" on its own merits so that the department can "fail forward" as Erik put it.
I like this concept of acceptable failure. I had a supervisor today discuss how a trainee was trained on something but performed it incorrectly. With training retention being very low, should we expect them to remember everything?
Much to agree with here, the ability to grow from failure makes us stronger. The comparison to Edison getting the light bulb wrong "1,000" times and getting it right in the end is applicable to anyone. Every time we learn to improve and not repeat the same mistakes will create a stronger team.
The learning in Module 3, lets us know that we have to act as individuals and focus on personal objectives and preform in the moment. I've learned in order to have a good foundation we have to accept accountability and must always utilize effective communication. Knowing collaboration is a common goal so that we can work together for common people.
Another good module. I like the way Erik incorporates the leadership traits he learned from the Marine Corps into his lectures. Being a Marine I understand how he has not forgotten what he learned so many years ago. It made me think about some of the past and present leaders in my department when Erik talked about leaders being issue focused and solution focused. I would have to say we are at about 50/50 in my department. I also agree that collaboration enhances our deputies strengths.
I agree that Erik does a great job incorporating the leadership principals he learned as a Marine into his presentations. Although, I was not in the military, it is a career that I admire and respect greatly.
This module of instruction was a wealth of information for me. I enjoy how Mr. Therwanger teaches the lesson and how he continuously shows how every leadership trait ties in together. He explains how cultivating people, collaboration, having a plan and building leaders are all interchangeable leadership principles. The use of comparisons like the farmer and cultivating his crops as well as the flight plan analogy helped me better understand his message. One area that was particularly useful for me was the lesson on Having a Plan. I wondered if as a leader in my unit, am I effectively communicating my plan. I realized that as a leader I needed to have a better visual representation of the goals, a more detailed account of the steps and better communicate my commitment to the goals and plan.
The idea that failure is ok if we learn and grow from it. Manageable amount of failure. Failing forward. To let your employees know that while failure is not the desired outcome but certain levels of failure will happen and its not the end of the world. What a novel concept. This line of thinking if adopted by administration will allow employees to be innovative and progressive. to empower your team to be better. Do not accept the status quo. This will move an agency ahead and not let it stagnate and fall behind.
Having acceptable failures and an environment where employees are not afraid to try their best can be the ideal environment for growth.
i agree and the reaction you get from the employee when they understand an acceptable amount of failure is allowed, it actually turns into a powerful learning moment for that person.
At my organization with deputies being so young and little experience, you have to let them know to do your best. Failure is a learning process and you will grow from it.
Numerous times we have all heard the phrase, "failure is not an option". Failure leads to success and as leaders we need to change the way our team members view failure and help to push our agencies into a positive direction.
Well said, sir. I agree that letting your team members know that certain failures will occur enables them to learn and grow as an individual. I believe that we have to assure and support our members that just because a negative outcome was a result of their efforts does not mean that it is the “end of the world.”
Well said, sir. I agree that letting your team members know that certain failures will occur enable them to learn and grow as an individual. I believe that we have to assure and support our members that just because a negative outcome was a result of their efforts does not mean that it is the “end of the world.”
The information in this module is useful. Just as it was broken down into 6 video segments, each of those segments could be a module in and of itself. I felt the concepts of Empowering People with Communication, Cultivation, and Collaboration are important to keep in mind. I am especially appreciative of "Videre est Credere." While I have often heard to have a plan and many times have had leaders tell me of their plan, I believe actually writing it down where it can be seen and reviewed has great rewards. The final discussion on training vs development was also crucial the the concepts of what we do to mentor leadership. Being able to inspire others to improve themselves is important to the longevity and stability of agencies.
Very well put,
I also felt like each video could be a module of instruction in itself, but the way the instructor was able to provide examples of how each video tied in with the other was extremely helpful. The point of training versus development was well understood by me, especially when you think of it in terms of training identifies a current need and development lasts forever. Sometimes as leaders we are so focused on insuring that our leadership abilities are meeting expectation, that we miss the opportunity to develop and grow leaders for the future.
This was another excellent module. I enjoyed the aspect of empowering officers to become better leaders by transferring power. I feel as though we train officers, give them a weapon and tell them we have confidence in them to make a split-second decision to take a life, but we do not have confidence in them to utilize their lights and siren to respond to a hot call. I know we have individuals that make bad choices that drive the policy changes, but we need to invest in the recruiting and cultivation of these officers, quality over quantity.
I also feel that the importance of finding reasons to praise officers for doing well is often overlooked. We are quick to do a right up or call someone out for making a mistake. As was said in module, there has to be room for mistakes so we future leaders can learn. Many of these principles are not expensive but they can be priceless.
I think we should praise our officers more for doing a good job. We has leaders get caught up in our daily jobs and forget to praise the ones who are doing the actual work.
I agree with your response, we have to allow mistakes in order for us to learn from them. I agree some people are always quick to point out the mistake as an embarrassment. It all goes back to the accountability and managing the morale on the shift.
Amen! If these men and women that are vetted and have that desire to be public servants and in some cases have been recruited, we must trust the process and metaphorically "let go". We to were once very green and as most of us have learned throughout time, experience is the very best teacher. Let us be better, now that we know better!
I have often said the same things "We let this deputy walk around out in public with a weapon on his hip, but we don't trust him to ________fill in the blank". Sometimes it makes no sense.
Empowering our officers to become better leaders by allowing them the opportunity to take on more responsibility is very important for the agency to grow.
We current leaders will need someone to carry the proverbial torch. I try everyday to make our team better than the day before. As a leader, I want to see those I guide succeed. The transfer of power will happen. Part of current leader's responsibility is to assure that future leaders are ready.
Erik sparked a thought during his lecture on mentoring our future successors. This practice was mentioned towards the end of the session, and that was “repetition.” Think of all the time we’ve worked on something, and after many attempts, we became proficient at that craft or skillset. The thought I was having is how many repetitions are we providing to those that we are mentoring so they can become empowered? I regularly have these thoughts, and I incorporate the “repetition” aspect when those opportunities present themselves for team members. This concept has shown to benefit others, which ultimately pays dividends into them "being all in."
Constant personal communication is a vital tool that I like to use within my division. I liked Therwanger's take on it. This module strengthened my thoughts on communication for building a strong foundation.
I agree with the style of communicating being a key factor. Way to often emails are used when a one on one conversation should be had. Tone and feedback will not be transferred electronically.
Learning to empower people through communication, collaboration, and cultivation was a long but interesting take by Therwanger. I liked how he defined the difference between group and team which will help me re-define the way I use them. Another point that stood out to me was the encouragement of a leader to provide two solutions to one issue. Therwanger’s analogy of the “farm” drove home the actual task of cultivating our team members and how to go about this. Once again I gained some useful tools for the tool bag.
I also enjoyed the analogy of the farm. Numerous things go into the cultivation of team members, and as leaders, we need to keep an eye on all of them. I never thought of the two solution aspect, but makes sense. They will probably solve their problem before reaching my office.
I also paused and thought about the two solutions for every issue concept. The amount of time and resources this concept could save and the results that could be achieved when anyone under your command stops and thinks about their 2 solution would more than likely solve that issue before you even hear about it.
I agree, cultivating our team members into becoming our future leaders would be the greatest outcome of our careers.
From this three hour lecture, Therwanger brings me back in when he was talking about the “Transfer of Authority”. He discusses using this technique to build up leaders. It reminded me of conducting a transfer of authority in the military. When relieving another unit of an assigned area, a unit would transfer control of it to the new incoming unit. This was done with leaders on lateral levels spending time with each other learning specific jobs, people, environmental factors, etc. Therwanger uses it to provide boundaries for subordinates. It empowers subordinates to make decisions. As a leader it is our responsibility to follow up on that decision making process; good or bad.
I think some of the concepts of transfer of authority that are taught in the military would fold well into law enforcement. If agencies are not looking for, educating, developing, and empowering their people to succeed then we will not be setting them or ourselves up to create a powerful legacy.
“I am a Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs (WASPAC) evaluator and am testing the system”
This module helped me realize to be a great leader, we need to build future visionary leaders. This is done by sharing a vision of what is to come. We must also cultivate their leadership, to develop them so they can train others. Doing this leads to team work. When teams collaborate on a common purpose allows us to achieve our missions and visions.
In law enforcement, we can cultivate that vision by frequently reiterating the department vision. Continuing to remind our subordinates of that vision keeps them motivated to see it through. It does the same for us. Like he said in the lecture, create a vision, write it down, and share it.
I agree. Reminding ourselves of the agencies mission and vision is an important aspect of building the future leaders of our organization.
Our Sheriff made an effort to put our mission statement to to the forefront. It`s now on the walls of the office and the vehicles. We are reminded daily that we serve CPR Courteous.-Professional - Responsive
It is the mission of the men and women of the Bossier Sheriff's Office to be courteous, professional and responsive as we protect the rights and dignity of every citizen. In partnership with our community, we strive to preserve the peace and provide a safe environment.
In years past, our agency was not proactive in developing the next generation of leaders. Luckily, we had several people that were leaders when they arrived and they filled the positions that popped up later. However, there was then a gaping hole between leaders and Deputies.
Fortunately, our Sheriff made the decision to change that several years ago. Our personnel, Deputy on up, has access to leadership training from day one. To get promoted or transferred, they must have completed many hours of leadership classes and show proficiency in them. We are now at what I believe to be a solid foundation and the next generation of leaders will be ready when called upon. Our current leadership, as can be seen here with many of us participating in session 007, 008 and 009, is continuing to learn and improve.
The future looks bright indeed.
This is true, With the implementation of the leadership program, those who want to succeed take it serious and those who don't are the ones who don't want to advance or become leaders.
It simple not just the fact of doing the leadership program but it needs to be accepted and followed.
I learned so much from this lesson. especially about communication, cultivation, inspiring your team and being a visionary. You have to constantly put in the time to be a great leader. A role of a leader is to coach, mentor and motivate their team. A leader must know their people and sometimes let your guard down. I find that in my current position I work and collaborate with different team members who are all not in public service. As a team, we bring our own energy, creativity and inspiration and we are able to form a super team. We have a 99% success rate in the programs we create. I would have to say that members on our team are visionaries because we are doing things no one has done before in our agency. I am truly passionate about the work our team does. We are very enthusiastic by every new project and program. We will continue impacting lives of children and adults in our community. Have you found your purpose? I have and it's a wonderful thing.
I learned so much for this module. I think one of the biggest things is requiring two solutions for every issue you are brought. I also like how he broke down Group vs. Team.
After reviewing this module I believe that I need to improve on my non verbal communications skills. When watching the instructor speak about non verbal clues, I realized that I was guilty of doing some of the things he described. I also have a tendency to rely on electronic communications instead of face to face meetings. I now understand of how this could effect my team members in a negative way and will defiantly take the steps necessary to correct my communications failures.
This module, which was extremely long, was an overall beneficial module to learn from. The point Erik Therwegner made about empowering people is something lacking within most law enforcement agencies. I believe because we are in a generational transition, some leaders don’t want to let go of their power to help develop the leaders that will come long after they retire. Creditable leaders need to learn that empowering the people underneath, transferring tasks and authority, and helping cultivate them into becoming visionary leaders will only instill respect on them and, in turn, make them even better leaders.
Absolutely.
I think we have some that have embraced the need to empower others and mentor the next generation of leaders. I also think some are doing exactly as you said.
We have grown leaps and bounds in this category over the last five years. I also believe we will continue to move forward and see great things in the future, as long as we continue to cultivate our personnel.
I couldn't agree more with David, the people that hang around as long as they can are preventing growth and slowing evolvement in our agency. It seems that some are scared of retirement and this in turn seems to have the agency in a rut, instead of progressing forward.
This lesson touches on a topic of Group versus Team. It talks about how groups acts as individuals, focus on personal objectives, and performs in the moment. A team acts a a unit, focus on common objectives, and perform for the future. I have always thought of group and a team as the same.
I also thought that groups and teams were the same. I know have a better understanding of the terms, and I think it will benefit me and my agency going forward.
Same here. I also learned the difference between group versus team. Erik Therwanger explained it very well. Great lesson!
A couple of things heard over and over throughout - self-awareness and people.
I really enjoyed the part about having everyone bring 2 solutions to the problem. Everyone is always ready to point out the problems, however, never try to bring solutions. If they are not in a leadership role, most employees don’t think its their responsibility to find a solution. I think part of that is most likely the culture of the agency. Some leaders want to take the credit so they would rather find the solution.
I agree. This is a common practice with leaders they do not realize that there is more then one way to solve a problem.
I agree most only bring problems and it is part of the culture. We have a lot of "complainers".
I also enjoyed the bring two solutions to the problem as well. What better ways to help develop future leaders than to challenge them from the start.
In part 11, Build Leaders, Erik Therwanger makes a great point about leaders. I’m sure everyone can probably relate or agree that sometimes people are placed into leadership, but are not leaders. They are just moved into a place because of their time with the agency and are liked by the right people. This often happens in our agency. This ultimately impacts morale and leads to lower productivity rates. Great leaders make an impact and promote growth within an agency, not stunt the growth. By putting someone in a leadership role because of friendships can crack the foundation of the agency.
We have a different kind of struggle. These days it seems our department is moving so fast that people are promoted faster than expertise can develop; many folks are not ready, but it's like a vacuum.
I found this module to be interesting. I bought the book and as I read through it, it highlighted the fact that we do a disservice to officers by not training them at the rank of officers as leaders. My agency will not send corporals to supervisor school yet they are held to that standard. We must do a better job training, mentoring and educating the future leaders of our organizations We have to empower so they have ownership and they are invested in the agency. I also think the author did a good job laying out and defining the elements of a strong foundation. I took a lot of out of that.
Yes, we do need to do a better job of training our officers. I’m happy with the fact that my agency has engaged in a leadership program, which allows even the lowest ranking officer to participate. To be promoted to the rank of Corporal, an officer has to have completed some form of leadership training (or development). This will only help our younger officers develop into leaders who will, in turn, eventually be the upper echelon of the agency.
This module’s topic of “The Leadership Connection” was very informative. As leaders within our organization, we have the ability to prepare the leaders of tomorrow through dynamic communication (Empowerment). We have to cultivate our personnel to become part of a team to achieve effectiveness and accomplish our mission and vision. Once we have a team in place, we can collaborate our ideas to uncover innovative ideas for success and growth within the organization. However, we must develop a plan for our employees to visually see our goals and expectations. The plan must indicate where we are, where we are going and how to get there.
I enjoyed this segment of "The Leadership Connection" as it felt very applicable to daily leadership. I liked the portion of 3 points of great leadership by Matt Beaton's Ted Talk: people, vision and passion. These 3 points were carried throughout the module to the last video section. It is essential to infect people with passion in this never ending journey. I once again liked the Latin phrase references and their application to the section presented, especially "Opus Una, To Work Together".
Judith,
I was also inspired by the Latin Phrase “Opus Una”, which means “Work Together”. We cannot achieve our mission, or vision without buy-in from others within the organization. I was receptive to the vision of planting leadership skills throughout the organization. This allows for us to determine, which employees will stand out as potential future leaders who we can mentor and develop.
What I really enjoyed about this module was the section of empowering and creating empowerment amongst your subordinates. I personally plan on using the "One issue, two solutions formula." What a great idea to get others engaged and creating ownership in finding the solution to the issue. How many times have I been selfish by giving my solution to the problem and having others accept it based on my rank. By letting them come up with solutions, it gets the creative juices flowing, and there is a greater chance of finding a better solution. It also creates ownership and empowerment knowing they helped solve the issue.
Brian, I too found this to be a great tool. I will being to use this in my department. I have some employees that I feel want to be developed and this will work out great. I think it will also force some others to step up to the plate and not always rely on me to fine solutions to their problems.
As difficult as it is to pick one topic or one sticking point out of these twelve segments, I agree that this is one that resonated with me as well. What a fantastic tool. Develop leaders by allowing them to find problems and then recognize the solution. Not one, but two. And they will rarely get to number two.
This module on "The Leadership Connection" is a great reminder on issues that were discussed earlier. Self-reflection is needed for us as leaders to continue to evolve. Younger less experienced officers must be involved and taught leadership skills earlier in their career. Our Department recently established a Sr. Cpl. rank in order to begin to train those officers to become Sgt.s. I believe that this is an important step training and giving more responsibility to lower ranking officers.
This module has taught me a great deal about my self as a leader and i have reflected on bad decisions and good decisions i have made in the past. One thing that i see my department needs to improve on is that we need more leadership training and communication training for some of our supervisors and we need a better mentoring program for our supervisors so that we can move forward rather than at a stand still. If we don't train our new supervisors way of thinking by training they will learn by the examples they have in front of them the old supervisors that have no people skills and think that the only way to be a good supervisor is to rule with a iron fist (their way because they are in charge and they don't want to be questioned)
Colby, your comments make me consider my department and its training regiment. Fortunately, we have had an excellent Training Division for the majority of my career. Unfortunately, a new mayor was recently elected and he is trying to find money by cutting what he considers unnecessary funds. Our Training budget has been depleted to almost nothing which is a great concern to those of us interested in continuing our leadership growth. Thankfully, this Command College was already in the works but several officers were removed from participation. Hopefully the administration will realize the value of having highly trained police officers and re-evaluate their decisions. I also hope to establish myself as a mentor to my fellow officers and put into practice the skills I'm being taught in this training.
Colby, I agree with you on the need for additional leadership training. My department definitely needs to improve on providing leadership training and formalizing a mentoring program for those interested in rising through the ranks. We do our supervisors a huge disservice by not training them to the standards they need to be at. We don’t promote people because they know how to do the job, we promote them because they have the capability of doing a great job. We just need to provide them with those tools training and education. By not training we are accepting huge liability while failing at risk management.
This is exactly right. I have had to learn how to be a leader by trial and error as a Sgt. I failed several times to figure out how to lead and motivate a young shift. There wasn't much for teaching the new supervisors. This explains the importance of developing our younger or less experienced supervisors to be great leaders.
This lecture has a wealth of information in it. Each presentation brought something new to the table for us to think about. What I thought was extremely interesting and something I never thought of before was the part about how leaders are developed and employees are taught. I thought this was extremely powerful and so true. I firmly believe that you can not make a leader. You are either a leader or you're not. However, those that are or at least show the appearance they are leaders should be developed into stronger leaders throughout their career so the never ending cycle only gets stronger.
After watching the lecture I realized all segments were equally important, but communication especially stands out for me. Communication is the key to lots of leadership issues. I feel you need to convey clearly and make sure they understand the direction. If your leaders can not effectively communicate subordinates will be disinterested.
I agree with you. Communication is an important part of supervisor. Most of the time the message gets lost in translation as it passed down from command staff to the lower ranks.
I agree Lance. So much gets lost in translation just based on how you communicate.
This module was a good reminder on the need to engage in self-assessment to ensure we are developing our own leadership skills. I liked the emphasis placed on the importance of developing leaders within your organization and how that ties in with improving your own skills, as well as elevating the effectiveness of your organization in the community we serve. Empowering people is critical to achieving success in an organization, but that empowerment must also come with a focus on skill development and a clearly articulated vision. If leaders are not effective in communicating a shared vision, then they cannot expect the team to understand or even know the patch to get to where the organization is going.
Nancy, I too came to this realization, that I do not do enough self-assessment in my own leadership skills. More so, I need to spend more time and effort developing the leaders under me. This will empower them as well as enhance my leadership. In total this will affect the overall success of my department.
The Leadership Connection module was inspiring to me as both a captain and leader within my agency. From addressing the importance of communication to building visionary leaders, this module has covered many areas that we can focus on to continue our leadership journey. As leaders, it is important to utilize these skills and encourage our teams to think beyond the stars. Collaborating with your team and having them engaged with the results noted in the module of a 300% increase in creativity is astounding. Just think of what we could accomplish with that much creativity and commitment to achieving our goals. This is where we should be focusing our attention to develop the leaders for the future. I also noted and would agree in the importance of having a plan. Having your plan documented indicates that you have investment in the plan and that you have established your objectives and goals. Additionally, it was interesting when it was mentioned that Michael Phelps knew how to swim and could swim better than his coach. So why did he have a coach? To keep him focused on achieving his goals. This is what needs to inspire us to build our future leaders so that when the day comes to hand over the torch, we can do it without hesitation.
Drauzin,
Great post! I couldn't agree more that we should be focusing our attention to develop leaders for the future. With the younger generation that now works as law enforcement officers, I don't think it is a "should" statement any longer. It is quickly becoming a "must" statement. I have a few new officers, in their early 20's, who have already made their intentions clear that they want to be leaders within the organization. They reach out looking for ways to develop leadership skills and qualities. I find that many times I am required to fill a leadership development role (whether or not it was my intention), as they have it as a basic expectation of me.
This was a good lecture. I learned a lot about training new leaders. I will be working on becoming a visionary leader and sharing my vision with others that i am mentoring. I will be leaving my organization in the next 5 years i will be training others to take my place and carry on vision.
I will be doing the same David. It is our time to step up and produce some great leaders so that generation Z have leaders to follow. Pretty interesting material as we are progressing through the stages of becoming great leaders.
The module by Mr. Therwanger was very inspiring and I learned so many different quotes that I will use in my everyday life. I understand the messages that he taught especially the info on continued communication. I do believe that in order to get your point across that if must be continually expressed. The levels of communication he spoke about in his lecture are the same expression or acts i have seen when speaking with others.
This module stressed empowering people. Communication to your team. Giving people the opportunity to interact with each other and to the leadership. Setting goals with timelines and implementing a set plan that has been communicated to your team is a great idea. These are some of the things that I need to work on with my team. Becoming more collaborative.
The “Leadership connection” is a great module and allows us to look at the tools to use to make great leaders among your team. As I listened to the lecture, bringing together a team instead of a group will enhance the capabilities from within. Empowering those on your team builds great sense of accomplishment for young leaders as long as you don’t just give them authority and leave, which I have seen done many times. While in the military and while in my current law enforcement career I have always been taught to train your replacement. Not only in the knowledge of paperwork, but leading the team in your absence
Dan, I agree. I have worked in divisions that act as a group and divisions that work together as a team. The culture and accomplishments in the different divisions was night and day. The biggest difference, was that the division that worked as a team were empowered to lead in different areas and make their own decisions.
I totally agree. Working in a division with teamwork being the motto, allows for great mentoring and creating of great leaders.
As a leader we must empower others and stretch their vision. I often find it difficult to to have an acceptable degree of failure, but this is how we learn and improve. I need to train myself to not have a fear of failure and find once I get past the initial paralysis of "this is why it won't work" Things go smoothly. I need to skip why it won't work and go straight to how can I make it work. This would foster the proper environment for vision.
I do not do well with failure myself. You said it right with we can use that as a tool to learn from and push forward.
As leaders within our organizations, we need to seek ways to better others on our team. I love the concepts relayed in this module and hopefully have been or will be implementing in my daily role. Communication continues to be one of the biggest challenges. When I believe I am progressing in this arena, I often find stalemates with my superiors. Regardless of my willingness or abilities, progress diminishes when roadblocks are erected. I can definitely grow my team and have positive results, but those in executive management roles need to self-reflect and integrate progressive leadership concepts.
Unfortunately, I think your exactly right when it comes to progression and upper management. Communication has always been an issue and I always learn from my mistakes and others. It could be perceived as a threat to their position is why some roadblocks are erected. I’ve seen it to many times that if someone starts progressing…somebody above feels threatened.
Jarod, I agree communication always seems to be an issue. I feel that way too sometimes about hitting roadblocks with my superiors. I find that a lot of then like to hang on to the authority and not prepare the next leaders. Hopefully, in the future, that will change.
In my organization I believe that we fail at training our officers to be leaders. Understanding that our organization promotes through tenure and a test we should start training them right out of the academy. We should also do a better job at teaching our current superiors to understand how and the importance of training their subordinates to lead. That should be their main focus is preparing our officers to take their place when they retire. As I have said before we should always leave our organization better than what we found it.
Monte - great comment and I completely agree. There are a tremendous amount of silos, coupled with egos. Many officers have the potential to be the next leaders of our organizations, but don't have the mentors or leaders that should be preparing them for the next step. Always should try to improve the department and leave it in a better place than when we started.
I agree with you about leaving the organization better than it was when we entered. I hope to be the one that people cry when i leave.
Training your officers to be leaders should be paramount in your agency because they are the future of the agency. Even the officers or recruits with no followers, need to become leaders too
I agree with you, Clint. Every officer should be considered a leader because on the street, in the performance of their duties, that is how they are viewed by the public.
I couldn't agree more. To many of the officers spend too much time hazing and making fun of the young officers. If they put that effort into leading and empowering them every department would see tremendous improvement.
This module reminds me of the quote, "Leaders develop daily, not in a day," by John C. Maxwell. As an organization, we have adopted the virtues of a MAGNUS officer, which requires all of us, regardless of rank" to be life-long learners of leadership. We must embrace that everyone within our departments is a leader, period. Everyone brings value to the organization regardless of civil service classification. The question for all of us, do we have a plan? Developing leadership skills requires practice, learning, and developing your leadership skills. I have found the mastermind group is an effective way to develop the leadership, confidence, and value employees bring to the organization. This allows leaders to develop leaders, which has a compounding effect on the entire department. This will bring meaning and purpose to our Mission, Vision, and Core Values. As leaders, communication, cultivation, and collaboration are key to our success.
I agree of the importance of involving everyone. Their are many inspiring young officers that can help improve every department. They are out there....we just need to give them the opportunity to shine!
I agree with the importance of involving everyone. We need to give them the opportunity to shine they are one day going to be the future of our department.
I agree with you as well, everyone brings something and some skill to the organization. We need to allow employees opportunities to shine and highlight those skills or we stifle their growth and potential to develop into future leaders.
Monte, you are spot on regarding involving everyone from within the organization. Great ideas come from varying perspective, and what better way to get that but from those whom fulfill the entire ranks. This also builds teamwork and engagement and makes everyone feel like thy are a part of something special.
This is right on point. I wish more people would attend this training. Younger officers are not given the opportunity to collaborate among their agency. "Poor communication destroys morale". Just because they are young does not mean they can not have great ideas.
Brian I had a similar thought during this module. What came to my mind was an instance where a individual showed signs of being a great long term leader, and was therefore promoted. The problem is that once promoted, they seemed to change. It is important to remember, as you stated, that being a leader is a daily task. Once a promotion occurs or a certain rank is achieved, one can not then become complacent.
This is an interesting module as it relates to leadership potential. As you self-reflect on your abilities, motivations, goals and skills, it is important to see how they all fit within the organization. Self-reflection is an important part of becoming a better and more effective leader. As a leader of a patrol team, I know that when an error is made by an officer on my team, I must first stop and reflect on how I could have prevented the mistake. Correction takes place, but typically I learn how I could have been a better resource and the officer walks away knowing the impact of the error or deficiency. It is important to empower your team with the ability to make decisions on their own and with that, comes the ability to make mistakes so that you can learn. With some of these basic leadership fundamentals, you can work toward making a stronger and more effective team. A team that trusts your leadership abilities.
Frank
Frank, you are right on point. Your leadership influence starts with trust. Your people will not follow you if they do not trust you. It's really that simple. The foundation of leadership is character, competence, and courage. You must develop trust daily through your deeds, actions, and words. We all make mistakes, leaders openly acknowledge and do not make excuses for their mistakes. I love this quote, "Leadership is action, not position," by John C. Maxwell.
I appreciated the reminder of our need to work on my culture and foundation first through self-reflection to establish a strong foundation that can then spread to others. This daily routine, although difficult to make time for, is important in self-development. In our profession where we are always understaffed and often over worked, its a good reminder to take 5 minutes to self-evaluate so we can constantly work to improve ourselves. Being intentional in our self-development is vital to long-term success.
Kyle, I wholeheartedly agree with you. Self-reflection is an important part of improving yourself and being a better leader. Without self-reflection, I can often move along in life making the same mistakes or worse, remain stagnant.
Frank
Frank, that is so true. If we don't self reflect we will never become better leaders and have those that are coming up behind us succeed.
I think if we all took the mindset that it starts with us, just think of the difference we could make. We should strive for self reflection and self improvement each and every day.
I agree with you Joey. Just think if we all did self reflect and took responsibility for our mistakes. I think as leaders if we could control our egos, how much better off we would be.
I agree with you. Self reflection is important. If we don't strive to make ourselves better, how can we expect others to be better. I like how its a strive to improve not to be perfect as that goal in unattainable
I agree that self-reflection is important and agree with you Steve that is a strive to improve not to be perfect. If we try every day to be better than we were the day before then we have succeeded. If we do this and teach this to those under us it will help produce future leaders.
Kyle, I agree that it is critically important for us to consistently do self-assessments on our own strengths and weaknesses. If we do not engage in this practice then we will fail to recognize our need to develop our own skills.
I agree that through self-reflection, we can become better leaders and improve in communication, cultivation, and collaboration.