The Strategic Leadership Series

A law enforcement training series on personal and inter-relational leadership skills.

Description of the Strategic Leadership Series Course

This Strategic Leadership Series (SLS) is an in-depth yet practical course that incorporates necessary elements a leader in law enforcement needs to excel both personally and professionally.  The content of the course focuses on providing tools to create a highly effective leader who not only accomplishes goals efficiently, but also knows how to motivate and guide his/her subordinates to personal and professional excellence.

This content has been prepared based on the needs of first responders, but also an understanding that regardless of the particular industries, individuals have the same needs, longings and challenges.  Jim Bontrager, Senior Chaplain of the Elkhart Indiana Police Department and National Board Member of Fellowship of Christian Peace Officers states: “Having spoken around the country, I can tell you that the number one frustration in law enforcement is frustrations with leadership.” But this is not a situation unique to law enforcement, experts on the topic at the marketplace level note that everything breaks or thrives on leadership.  For this reason, the same leadership skills that a marketplace executive utilizes to get the best out of his/her people are the ones a law enforcement leader needs.  Nonetheless, special attention is given to the applicability of concepts into the culture of law enforcement, both functioning inside the department as well as interaction with the general public.

Content of the Strategic Leadership Series

This series is composed of nine modules; which could be given independently as the department sees fit to meet their own needs.   The content is derived from the disciplines of Leadership, Psychology, Human Development and Communications. Since the SLS includes both theory and practice, participants will receive the basic knowledge of the topics, take several coaching assessments and receive guidelines to apply the concepts in their particular situations.

Objective of the Program

With each class, the SLS has three primary objectives:

1. Help the participants become better leaders within the department, learning how to live more healthy lives emotionally, intellectually and physically, and also learning how to generate the best performance in their peers and subordinates.
2. The creation of a shared culture of Servant Leadership, high productivity, respect and motivation in which all members of the law enforcement community can thrive as individuals and as officers.
3. A clear understanding of the particular strengths that each member of the department has to see where he/she best benefits the institution.

Description of Modules

Self-Knowledge. Establishing the right foundation

Success is excelling in professional life without destroying the personal one. In this module participants will discover their unique personality and social traits, especially as senior officers and grown adults, becoming aware of their strengths and weakness in their current stage of life. They will also learn how their unique makeup and life experience become a lens through which they view their leadership roles, job responsibilities, interpersonal relationship, decision making, and office challenges.  The participants will take a variety of self-discovery assessments including the Disc, EQ, and MBTI tests.

Module #2.  Self-Leadership. Learning to lead one’s self before attempting to lead others.

Law enforcement work rests on constant split-second and life transforming decisions. Learning to manage one’s self will allow participants to understand the relationship between personal attitudes, emotions, self-perception and other personal realities with the demands of a law enforcement career, especially at the leadership level. They will receive practical tools to learn how to lead their inner life including executive function from a neuropsychological perspective, time management, emotional intelligence in decision making, design approach to life perspectives, etc.

Module #3. Emotional foundations of Leadership… managing stress, anger, depression and passions.

Law enforcement officers make split seconds decisions that come from deep down in their emotional core. The academy prepares you to function as an officer, but unfortunately, it does not – and it cannot – give you the tools to strengthen yourself emotionally to respond correctly at the needed time. Moreover, the stressors of the job can wound even the strongest of individuals making them vulnerable for the crucial moments. In this module, we explore the causal relation between these four emotional states, see how they exemplify in law enforcement work, and teach practical tools to use these emotions in our favor.

Module #4.  Foundations of Leadership. Four main theories and how they play out in different environments.

Everybody has a style of leadership, knowingly or unknowingly. Our style of leadership could be impacting our goals and objectives in a negative way. For this reason, it is crucial that any leader learns the essence and difference between the main styles of leadership: Charismatic, Transactional, Transformation & Servant Leadership theories.  Participants will take a test to determine their preferred leadership style and will see how to adapt the most desirable style of leadership for their context of work in law enforcement.

Module #5. Aligning personal and organizational values. The place for ethics in law enforcement.  

In this module participants will discover personal values, their origin and how they challenge or support the values of the institution. They will also learn the different theories of ethics and how they impact daily decision-making processes at the office and in public life.  Learning the benefits of the right values and ethical principles for personal and institutional health will create a shared foundation on which the members of the department can create a shared culture of trust, honesty, proper hierarchical concepts, respect and integrity. 

Module #6. Five practices of highly effective leaders. Becoming a level-five leader.

High performing leaders are called level-five leaders. They understand the practices that motivate others to give 100% of their effort, even when others are not present to watch them. Participants will learn the influence of humility and pride in the department at the levels of morale, productivity, teamwork, etc.  Learning the right practices to implement as to create a culture of respect and productivity.  This module elaborates on the theory of Servant Leadership in a practical way, showing how it can be applied to law enforcement scenarios.

Module #7.  The power of leading from the Bottom… Applying Servant Leadership to Law Enforcement.

Servant Leadership has been proven to yield the best results in terms of generating high performance, team building, innovation and commitment in law enforcement.  Even though the theory was created in the 1970s, since 2000 research has focused on how it can be applied to the military and policing.  The theory is easy to apply at the personal and organizational level to increase productivity and to create an environment of sacrifice and comradeship

Module #8. Transformational Conversations. Creating a culture of growth and development via intentional communication.

Every leader needs to learn how to be a coach; learning this ability will allow each participant in the SLS to know how to empower others to be recursive and have initiative Through coaching a leader, they can actually create the kind of person he/she wants on their team.  This takes place via everyday conversations where events become the backdrop for an objective lesson of discovery and implementation of leadership principles. In this module, each participant will learn how to ask powerful questions to guide others in reflection for adequate decision making, the search for answers and solutions that are practical, and the creation of sustainable action plans to benefit the department.

Module #9. Foresight: Goal Setting, Decision Making and the intentional creation of a desired future.

In this module’s participants will learn how to make sustainable decisions and will learn how to implement them through an effective and manageable goal-setting strategy.  Participants will also learn how to cohesively create a desired future for their personal lives and the institution using mechanisms such as possible case scenarios, mind mapping and anticipating possible negative variables proper of law enforcement work.

General Information:

All sessions are four hours and can be customized to best fit the needs of your department. Preferred class size is 10-30 attendees. To learn more on how to bring this training to your department, email us at info@bluewatchfoundation.org.

Event Details

Next Session: Winter 2023, Fayette Police Department

Be on the lookout for conference details to be released