Leadership Dynamics at Johnson County Sheriff Department

Sheriff Jones’ priorities influence his leadership behavior and the conduct of the other officers. His leadership style would resemble a transactional model as discussed in the management module. This leadership approach is premised on the idea that a quid pro quo occurs between a leader and his followers (Scott & Byrd, 2012). In such a case, the leader specifies the conditions under which the subordinates must work, and the subordinates perform what is expected of them. Moreover, his leadership role could be affected by his junior officers since his actions will directly influence their beliefs, attitudes, and values. It is believed that subordinates could significantly affect the Sheriff’s leadership of his people .and the judiciousness with which he uses his coercive authority. Such an influence could generate greater congruence between the officers’ attitudes and the Sheriff’s expectations hence increase the consistency between the officers’ attitudes and behaviors.

The sheriff is actively involved in obstruction of justice following a murder investigation by a colleague. He is knowingly covering up for the perpetrator, and he must be held accountable for what happened. His interaction with the FBI would not be honest since he has to lie to the FBI and offer false statements as part of the serious investigations into the case. Instead, he should have served as an example to other officers within the department that the FBI must be given full cooperation in such issues. However, the Sheriff deliberately misled the FBI investigations and the jury although he is a sworn law enforcement officer. His actions were expected to be honest, and the other agency should not tolerate anything less. Therefore, ignoring police bias is unethical. The Sheriff consciously omitted some details to cover up for the perpetrator. The Sheriff must be charged with filing a false incident report with the intention of hindering the FBI investigation, making a false statement about the incident and obstruction of justice by giving false statements to the FBI investigators. Such crimes could earn the Sheriff a maximum of 20 years in prison for giving wrong information with the intent to hinder FBI investigations and at least another ten years for obstruction of justice (Scott & Byrd, 2012).

Sheriff Jones’s behavior would have a great impact on community relations and community cooperation with the FBI. One impact that his behavior would have is that the community’s public trust and respect for the department would reduce significantly. Any misconduct by a Sheriff, especially discrimination based on race reduces the community’s confidence in the honesty, integrity, and fairness of the Sheriff’s department and the police institution as a whole. In this case, the Sheriff has been found guilty of various ethical offenses like consciously omitting some details to cover up for the perpetrator. This will result in the miscarriage of justice, and the community will be uncomfortable working with him in future. The Sheriff must be charged with filing a false incident report with the intention of hindering the FBI investigation, making a false statement about the incident and obstruction of justice by giving false statements to the FBI investigators. Instead of inspiring confidence among community members in the department, the Sheriff convinced the public that it is not only possible but also easy to buy the police. I must say that the Sheriff’s actions damaged the community’s trust in the law, the police and eventually in the FBI.

This would affect the community cooperation with the FBI through the reduction in credibility that the police provide as officers of the court. Moreover, it would have a devastating effect on the performance of the criminal justice system and the FBI investigations. It may erode public trust in all officers, including the most honest officers leading the community to disbelieve police testimony with the testimony that their contributions will not make any significant changes (Paludi, 2012). Such scenarios have played out in various states in the country with hundreds of Sheriff’s convicting or protecting perpetrators based on race. As a result, we are likely to witness a scenario whereby the juries and defense lawyers will be dismissing many cases that warrant convictions because they increasingly question the integrity of County Sheriffs. Today, such scenarios are rampant that defense attorneys routinely discredit County Sheriffs testifying in court.

Sheriff Jones’ is popular for furthering racism-driven interests against the minority while protecting the interests of his fellow white officers. In fact, given that his current attitude continues, he is likely to limit the information give to the FBI, which might make the crime perpetrator to escape. It is sad because such behavior will cause ethical problems within Sheriff Jones’ department (Fairholm, 2015). The moral issue here is that the other officers within the department will develop feelings of mistrust towards him. Obviously, these fact-based emotions will be directed towards their very own leader. When the leader manages his subordinates according to the race rather than merit, employee morale is compromised because the line-staff will feel as though they are not making any significant contributions to the department (Chamberlain & hoopla digital. 2016). Safety policing demands that the officers function continuously at the highest performance level and with the greatest degree of interpersonal trust among all employees within the department.

Disambiguation is another moral problem likely to be caused by the Sheriff’s behavior. It is obvious that he has demonstrated an implicit bias towards people who are not of his race. This will influence the behavior and judgment within the department. The Sheriff relied heavily on racial prejudice when handling the perpetrator and reporting to the FBI. The Sheriff consistently exhibited perpetrator bias regarding how he reacted; the Sheriff is fast to give false case reports about the perpetrator while knowing that he was a serial killer, just because they are of the same race; on the other hand, the Sheriff is known for denigrating minorities. Such bias would eventually translate into decision errors within the Sheriff’s department.

Sheriff Jones’s influence on all the police officers is evident. However, this is likely to harm their working relationship because he despises them and forces them to wrong things against their conscience. Moreover, he is blatantly promoting racism within the department. Such behavior could create and accentuate individual, subconscious bias among the other officers by increasing the chances that these officers will relate race with danger or criminality. Eventually, this will cultivate what psychologists have termed as “implicit bias” in the other officers (CDR Associates. 2007). Combined, this implies the department as a whole, including the individual officers from all races, will start acting in ways that are potentially racist and deeply racially skewed.


References
CDR Associates. (2007). Conflict resolution for managers and leaders: The CDR Associates training package: participants workbook. San Francisco, Calif: Jossey-Bass.
Chamberlain, R., & hoopla digital. (2016). Conscious leadership in the workplace: A guidebook to making a difference one person at a time. United States: Morgan James Publishing.
Fairholm, G. W. (2015). Overcoming workplace pathologies: principles of spirit-based leadership. Springer,
Paludi, M. A. (2012). Managing diversity in today's workplace: Strategies for employees and employers. Santa Barbara, Calif: ABC-CLIO.
Scott, C. L., & Byrd, M. Y. (2012). Handbook of research on workforce diversity in a global society: Technologies and concepts. Hershey, PA: Business Science Reference.