Police Leadership Crime in Britain

¶ … Police Leadership

Crime in Britain went up from 25 to 40% a decade ago and is now the number-one issue among the population (Brand 2007). Only a third of them rate police performance well. Only 25% or one in five says he or she does not go out alone in their area after dark. Policing was at first mainly a local service before it became a State function. Many police authorities perform reasonably well within their limited powers, but the police, as a whole, have remained largely disconnected from other local services and the local population. This disconnectedness is the major cause of dissatisfaction with the police and skepticism among the people as to police effectiveness. The fear of crime remains a top priority to national policies and targets (Brand).

The commonly perceived solution is to move policing to the local level (Brand 2007). This was a major recommendation in an ongoing police review to improve local involvement and accountability. As it was, local councils exercised limited influence in this service although they funded a large part of the police budget. An independently elected police leadership teems with flaws. It subjects public patience with elections. It inflicts additional bureaucracy. It puts new but incompetent politicians who promote wrong sets of public policy. It creates different, although legitimate, structures, which vie for influence. Recommendations have been made to strengthen the role of current local policing authorities. They are aimed at delivering visible local police accountability, increasing its efficiency, improving service coordination, strengthening community participation, addressing local crime more effectively and creating a police force drawn from and working for its own local community. Reforms have also been recommended to make police units co-terminus with local authorities; abolish police authorities and transfer their functions to local leaders in partnership with the community; fix police budgets and hold police chiefs accountable; and set up police priorities, plans and targets in the area within a Reformed Community Strategy, which should report regularly to the community (Brand).

The model of accountability will have to vary from area to area (Brand 2007). But the concept is to restore the public to the heart of community safety and policing through their locally elected officials and other leaders. By introducing and correctly enforcing these changes, millions worth of investment may now be released in frontline policing. There can be better coordination among community safety-related services, improved community participation mechanisms, and a genuine delivery of visible, democratic accountability long needed to raise public satisfaction and decrease the fear of crime (Brand).

Studies have shown that if the employees providing a given service are content with the way their organization treats them, their customers too tend to be content with the service rendered to them (Dobby et al. 2004). The leadership they experience is among the factors, which affect or shape their work attitudes. In both the public and private sectors in the UK, a link has been observed between positive employee work attitudes and a leadership style called "transformational." A "transformational" leader endeavors to motivate, support and empower subordinates to accept more challenging and basically interesting tasks or responsibilities. This is comparable with the more familiar and traditional "transactional" leader who does the same through extrinsic rewards and punishments. Its advocates contend that transformational leadership is demanded by current rapid and unpredictable organizational changes. Under the circumstances, leaders must make sure that employees are properly trained, supported and empowered. They must be enabled to make correct decisions for themselves in their everyday and individual tasks (Dobby et al.).

Transformational leaders appear to be more effective as leaders than transactional leaders have been (Dobby et al. 2004). This is because transformational leaders seem better able to elicit extra effort and commitment by fostering self-confidence in the employees, enhancing learning experiences, imbuing them with a sense of mission and new ways of thinking. They have also demonstrated capabilities in the effective implementation of change in various settings (Dobby et al.).

Transformational leadership has its place in the National Policing Plan. The plan points to strong police leadership as central to improving police performance and thus reducing crime and the fear of crime (Dobby et al. 2004). Police reform requires improved training, leadership and professionalism in every level of police service towards a modern and more responsive policing. Police performance and leadership in the UK have been criticized in recent years. A number of attempts by various organizations have been made to address the clamor for reform and improvement. The Police Leadership Development Board or PLDB was one such response at the national level. A recent initiative was the establishment of the Police Integrated Competency Framework and National Occupational Standards. It focused on issues, such as selection, assessment, development and promotion on a more rational perspective. The framework lists the tasks of the various roles in police service as well as the knowledge and skilled required by these tasks. It also enumerates 12 basic behavior involved in police work, four of which relate to leadership. Some leadership requirements have been specified. Occupational standards for police work have been set down. Evidence of these developments and achievements has, however, remained perceptible only by professional judgment (Dobby et al.).

Nonetheless, perceivable evidence links officers' morale and performance to the positive or negative impact of supervision on morale. Furthermore, information gathered from police forces suggested that leadership behaviors they considered inappropriate were not uncommon. As a result, individual motivation and performance appeared to be derailed to a considerable degree (Dobby et al.).

Perceived failures in police performance have given police leadership a bad image. The need for genuine change brought attention to the worth and merits of transformational leadership. It has demonstrated an impact in the public sector, but there is a lack of corresponding information of its pertinence to or uniqueness in the police service (Dobby et al. 2004) until this study. There has been no generally accepted leadership theory in the service, which could be tested and suggest the nature and direction of change needed. Another consequence of this lack of evidence was that the forces themselves had no basis for the kind or type of leadership their officers should adopt. This research was conducted to discover what 150 police officers and 1,066 police staff perceived as effective leadership (Dobby et al.).

The study found that these respondents wanted their leaders to inculcate in them a sense of pride in the service and in their contribution to it (Dobby et al. 2004). They enumerated the desirable behaviors of effective leadership as commitment to high-quality service to the community and to supporting the staff in achieving that commitment; high personal and professional standards and correcting poor behavior; enabling, valuing and training its staff; and possessing or acquiring relevant knowledge and appropriate skills. The respondents also identified 53 specific behaviors of an effective leader. Of these 53, 50 were "transformational" Police leaders who displayed these behaviors produced various positive effects on the work attitudes of their subordinates. Examples were raising job satisfaction and deepening their commitment to the organization. The respondents also identified negative behaviors in their leaders. These included laziness, moodiness, unethical attitudes, and unacceptable performance. According to them, these negative behaviors were displayed by the same leader who displayed positive behaviors.

The respondents likewise considered staff morale and motivation key factors in the delivery of police service. These findings link certain police behaviors to police organizational performance (Dobby et al. 2004) and, ultimately, to crime incidence and control.

British leaders have been described as models of poor leadership. They have been accused of mismanagement and failures, incompetence, and a lack of intelligence, sense and integrity (Corkindale 2007). These leaders include the Prime Minister and his government; the Bank, the Chancellor and the Governor; the football managers; and the Police Chief. The Chief of London's Metropolitan Police Force was considered guilty of endangering the public over the death of a Brazilian man in July 2005. The police mistook him for a suicide bomber and shot him. The police chief has been accused of a lack of accountability, organizational failure and a lack of communication. Commissioner Ian Blair of the Metropolitan Police ignored widespread clamor for his resignation. He claimed that no evidence of "systemic failure" on his part. His opponents, however, exposed a series of organizational, communication, leadership, training and tactical mistakes by Blair (Corkindale).

An Independent Police Complaints Commission found 19 unmistakable systemic failings in procedures and communication in the Commissioner's leadership (Cockindale 2007). The failures occurred in every level. Surveillance was deemed inadequate, intelligence work was wrong, armed officers not deployed on time, orders confused and the chain of command not followed. Other reports also said that Sir Ian was so uncommunicative with his staff that he complemented him after the mistaken shooting of the Brazilian man. His own subordinates did not update him as they should (Cockindale).

These circumstances divulge faulty leadership or the lack of it (Cockindale 2007). Otherwise, these underscore an alarming lack of competence, integrity, respect and capability in the leadership. The events occurred within a month in the UK and reported even by international media. A radical re-examination of the conduct of UK's leaders needs to be done for the future of its population (Cockindale).

More or less of the same disaster occurs within the service itself. A study found that four out of five police officers who resign do so because of poor management ((BBC News 2008). Despite record-high recruitment earlier in the year, a number of officers were leaving the service. The common reason was the lack of fairness and effectiveness on the part of management. The Home Office, for its part, said that it had been working to improve police leadership skills. It also noted that the police service had lower levels of resignations and transfer than other members of the public sector (BBC News).

The study also said that many of those who resigned were ethnic minority officers (BBC News 2008). It aimed at enhancing police retention levels and investigated 10 police officers in England and Wales. The respondents felt that they were undervalued, isolated and lacked support from their leaders. The rest said that their position was threatened by management and its policy initiatives. Black and Asian policemen and women were more inclined to resign than their white counterparts. They described their resignations as "disproportionate." Bullying and discrimination appeared to be at the bottom of their resignations (BBC News).

In response to this trend, Home Office minister Hazel Blears said that her office has been taking steps to improve leadership as a major part of current police reform program (BBC News 2008). According to her, the program aims at motivating and engaging the police staff to respond to the significant challenges in the performance of staff duties. She noted the findings of the Police Leadership study that leaders who were "committed and professional," who would correct poor behavior and appreciate the staff could produce positive employee attitudes at work. She stressed the positive leadership could likewise retain the staff and lead it to gain the necessary skills for promotion. All in all, the staff can feel valued through positive leadership. She said that new programs have been developed and enforced to "increase leadership capacity" as well as decrease unnecessary burden on police officers (BBC News).

Likewise in response to the heavy resignation of ethnic police officers, the force fixed its number of recruits to 25.9% by 2009 (BBC News 2008). The Home Office noted that officers from ethnic minorities in 2002 to 2003 comprised only 9.8% of police forces. Police managers were also prompted to be more open and communicative and to develop leadership skills in order to curb massive resignations. Early in the year, the Home Office announced that number of officers in England and Wales had reached a high 138,155 or an increase of 14,000 in 3 1/2 years (BBC News).

Post-war researchers believed that democratic leadership was more effective in that democratic leaders exhibited both considerateness and concern for productivity (Department of Criminology 2006). Its supporters contended that this type of leadership worked for three main reasons. Its social style made employees achieve and, at the same time, met their needs for inclusion, sense of belonging and support. Participation in decision-making produced greater commitment to their task. And group discussions opened communication lines, which fostered cohesiveness and cooperation among the employees (Department of Criminology).

Another style of leadership, organizational development, imbued more than the electrifying and motivating personality of the leader (Department of Criminology 2006). Its aim was to achieve high productivity and excellent quality of working life. Social thinkers of the time differentiated managers from leaders. Managers made things happen. They identified and stated expectations, made the achievement of goals possible; provided the necessary resources, support and feedback, monitor the progress of work and rewarded good performance. Leaders, on the other hand, were more focused on innovation and change. Leadership involved all organizational levels. It meant developing visions, translating these visions into achievable tasks, informing others about these tasks in a way that enticed and elicited their commitment to these tasks, establishing an environment fit for problem-solving and learning, and insuring that everyone involved stayed on until the tasks were achieved. Lastly, leaders knew how to deal with the "shadow side" of the organization. This "shadow side" included managing the organizational culture, the politics within, the distribution of power, individual differences and social groupings (Department of Criminology).

The concept of the "shadow side" of an organization was derived from Freud's theory on the unconscious mind and its ego defense mechanisms (Department of Criminology 2006). An illustration was the incompetence or ineptitude of some military leaders who possessed an "authoritarian personality." This personality subjected authoritarian leaders to unconscious fears and repressed memories, which drove them to be obsessive. They compensated for their anxieties about personal inadequacies to prove their competence and self-worth. This "depth psychology": contains or reveals unflattering details about these leaders' personality inadequacies and distortions. Other psychologists noted how many or all of these leaders tended to carry much emotional baggage into their functions, which inclined them to become controlling or manipulative. This was at the bottom of "authoritarian social structures" and malfunctioning organizational workings (Department of Criminology).

Recent studies on experiences of occupational psychology enumerated the characteristics managers wanted their leaders to possess and exude (Department of Criminology 2006). The main finding was that 77% of the managers interviewed were not impressed with their leaders but had an idea of what good leadership should be made of. Only 11% of them expressed satisfaction over their leaders. The majority urged for a "relational" type of leadership, which would shape and pursue organizational goals and motivate others to develop their potentials and achieve these goals. Transformational leadership is one where leaders are "visionaries," who are reform-oriented, innovators or even "heroes." They can tap into these goals or create them as well as the motives and values of followers in order to make them act in a way their leaders want them to. Under this leadership style, a mutually beneficial relationship forms. The leader and his followers are brought together. This highlights the differences between the older traditional "transactional" leadership styles and the newer charismatic or visionary transformational styles. The nature of bargaining in the older models exchanged "favor for favor." The new models, on the other hand, connected and united the employees with their leader. A model of transformational leadership was developed for effective leadership in the British Isles. Researchers noted the strong link between a leader possessing these traits and positive work attitudes in his followers. Furthermore, a transformational leader inspires them to satisfy higher-level needs, such as self-esteem and self-actualization (Department of Criminology).