Embedding behaviours of effective leadership into a policing organisation

Embedding behaviours of effective leadership into a policing organisation

Police are not only leaders within their organisation but also within the community they serve. However, despite this requirement, the development of effective leadership with law enforcement agencies around the world has proven to be problematic. In the current policing environment, particularly in a global pandemic, police leadership is more important than ever. Many police agencies have cited that they have difficulty in developing future leaders due to in part, there not being one sole style of leadership identified that encompasses all the circumstances that police officers face. What then are desirable police leadership behaviours? What are the types of leadership styles suited to policing? What model is suited to implement leadership development? How can desirable leadership behaviours be embedded into a police training continuum? In answering these questions, I undertook a systematic review of literature pertaining to police leadership and further analysed data from a total of 163 Queensland police officers who participated in research that I helped initiated on behalf of the Queensland Police Service with the University of Queensland (UQ) in 2020. This research builds on the UQ study and explores deeper into the behaviours of police leadership and how these can be embedded into training.